Ziloroth
KNOWN MYTHOS
Translator's Note I: The script is strange and rhythmic, with each beginning word rhyming with the last. This was the most intact copy of the tablets recovered, yet the damage from the fires makes some passages unclear. The glyph for "body" and "prince" are distressingly similar, and it is difficult to tell if this story is saying that the prince is himself the deity, or if something holy took residence inside the body of the prince. Either way, this proved a challenge. It is an interesting, albeit remarkably morbid, text. I don't half wonder if this is an early tale of a pinkie with jaundice...
Once, in an age when years were left uncounted, there was a prince of men that ruled on high. Born to a prosperous realm of fjords and snow, the seventeenth Prince had glistening, golden flesh, cold as ice to the touch. The courtesans whispered that he was surely some manner of hornless demonspawn, their words urged on by the high-pitched, metallic cries echoing from his bedchambers.
Despite the rumors of his parentage, the prince grew handsome and tall, with a voice as clear as a bell and carrying with him all the eloquence and elegance attributed to his status. He appeared as a shimmering specimen (uncertain of a better term, there is a name that seems complimentary in the original text), the crown jewel of the realm manifest. Proving not only to be a talented statesman but an excellent mathematician and philosopher, the Prince was lauded as his sixteen brothers were sent to the furthest reaches of the realm, or set on a mission of conquest.
Each word that fell from the Prince's lips made something inside the hearts of the peasantry begin to glitter, and so, the King and Queen made their last, golden son the heir apparent.
Time passed, and the King and Queen fell victim to its passage, leaving the seventeenth Prince on the throne.
In his grief, the Prince took to riding horses out onto the rocky shores without an escort, chasing the waves until the salt of the sea washed away his tears. On one such excursion, the Prince slipped out, unarmed, at nightfall, mounting a stallion and riding out to the ocean.
There, he was accosted by sixteen cloaked men.
Eight of them made the stallion lame, shattering bones.
Eight of them pulled him from the saddle, like a rabbit from the snow.
Thirty two hands wrenched the scalemaile and armor from the Prince, descending upon him:
vultures.
Each man drove a knife into the Prince's golden skin, spilling shining, cold blood onto the black sand. One of the men gripped the Prince's face, and began to peel his skin away, starting at the peak of his golden forehead.
The corpse's mouth fell open as its brother tore flesh down to its cheekbones. Past the precious teeth and frozen, gilded tongue fell a horrible scream. The noise was so loud and piercing that everything inside of the cloaked men turned to blood, and then to water, pooling around the golden body. The stallion, too, turned to nothing but bleached bones. The wretched sound made the very waves stand still, the wind hold its breath, and the moon turn to look down at horrors on the black shore.
Then, the body, face partially flayed, stood, gold dripping onto the beach from every wound. The body picked up the skull of the stallion and donned it, molding its torn skin around the beast's blunt teeth.
The body wrapped itself in the cloaks of its traitorous brethren, and flew (ran? the glyph is melted) to the fortress on the bluffs where it was created. Gold wept from its wounds, spattering the sand and the snow.
Where the kingdom once was, a marsh unfolded, mud and water clinging to the fabric wrapping the body.
Through the filth, the gilded corpse reclaimed the realm.
It sat upon the throne, gold flowing in rivers.
It sat upon the throne, devouring the silence.
It sat upon the throne, and the fortress fell.
It sat upon the throne, and years began to be counted.
One of the days of these new years, the body peeled away the sixteen cloaks, and laid them upon the fjords.
The body, making its first sound since the scream that turned the eye of the heavens, spoke:
"Brothers I have had, and vultures all. Give me sisters to guide instead, and for them I shall provide. Gold will flow through them, prosperity will be the sworn covenant. Claim your greed in my name and sheath your sword, your reward will be seas of gold. Tell upon the wind: Ziloroth is the God of providence."
And so it was done. The cloaks billowed and stood, housing (holding?) sixteen women from all corners of the Earth. They feared. They feared the skull-headed God that had called them. They feared the potential of his promise. They feared golden blood.
And so, the body told them to go.
Away the sixteen sisters went, pushed by the frozen breath of the fallen realm's golden Prince. But it would not be forever, for Ziloroth planted veins of gold inside them all. Veins of gold that hungered. And so to him they returned.
The fortress became a temple, and it sat upon the throne.
The sixteen became seventy-nine, and it sat upon the throne.
Promises fullfilled by greed, because HE (honorific pronoun, no proper translation) sat upon the throne.
HAIL, HAIL, golden lord, sater of the thirst for wealth!
HAIL, HAIL, Ziloroth, keeper of the gilded!
Translator's Note II: I assume that the chant continues, but this is where tablet completely melts off. Considering this is the most intact one we possess, further exploration into the disbanded religious order and suspected cult, the Ziloroth Enclave, will be suspended until more can be recovered from the wreckage of the temple. In the leftmost corner, a glyph pressing is in the metal of the tablet. This glyph is what I have translated phonetically as ZELLE-ORE-AWTH, the name of the deity. Attached is my rendition:
Since drawing it, I have had fitful sleep, and wake with a strange haze in my eyes. I am scheduled to visit a cleric soon, but it can't come soon enough!
ALL HAIL THE GILDED, Erlotæ Ziloroth!
Scope: God of wealth but also of greed.
Unknown whether omnipotent.
Unknown whether dead or alive.
Bringing samples of pyrite and glitter to the marsh and wreckage appears to make the moon visible regardless of time of day.
All who have brought genuine gold to the remains of the temple have vanished.
All known Sisters of the Ziloroth Enclave are deceased or presumed deceased.