Thoughts on Grenth

I was recently thinking about how Kormir had absorbed the power of Abaddon and became the Goddess of Truth. Then I thought about how Grenth had taken the position of God of Death for the unjust Dhuum. And then I thought, what was Grenth before he was the God of Death? Any ideas?|||I was putting some thought into this myself recently as well.

From what I can remember we are told that taking on the mantle of a god was a choice only a mortal could make. If that is indeed true then we would have to assume that he was, in fact, mortal and not some sort of lesser diety/power.

As for his race... He is depicted as the least human of the gods, but neither does he really resemble any other race we have come in contact with. If the bone death mask he wears is in fact not a mask at all, but his true face then it would suggest some sort of equine or other hooved animal-like facial structure (if this was even remotely what he looked like in life). He does not appear centaurian, nor does he much resemble a dwarf. His frame is suggestive of either a human or a serpent-like creature such as the naga or the forgotten. Though, if he were a forgotten in life one might expect an extra set of arms in either depictions of him or in his avatar.

As for who he was in life (again, working under the assumption he was mortal once), he would certainly have been a person of great power if not rank. I tend to think he was a powerful necromancer or one of the earliest ritualists, perhaps even a high priest in Dhuum's own service, who began to question the motivation or actions of his patron diety.

Once that seed of doubt was planted, other gods in the pantheon, angry with Dhuum and perhapse alraedy thnking of ridding themselves of him, may have aided Grenth and even showed him the means to overthrow the tyrant lord of death.

The next question is why was Dhuum not destroyed utterly upon Grenth's ascendance to godhood? As the god of death did he have access to information about how to avoid his own destruction? Was Grenth simply unable or unwilling to absorb all of his power/essence? Or is it simply impossible to utterly destroy someone who has already achieved godhood, only to vastly weaken them, maybe even banish their physical presence for some length of time? If that is the case then it would imply there is still a shadow of Abbadon out there someplace, maybe already plotting revenge, or would that be re-revenge?|||I don't think Grenth "absorbed" Dhuum, like Kormir did Abaddon. I think he was already a god when Dhuum fell, because Dhuum is still around. What he was before that I have no idea.|||We don't know if Grenth even took over Dhuum's power, or whether he already had it and simply kicked Dhuum's *** and stole the title.

I think that Grenth couldn't destroy or absorb/become Dhuum because he was not a mortal, and only mortals can make the choice of becomming a god.|||I agree with teh Monkeys on the fact that we simply do not know the nature of Grenth's ascension. However, I also believe that Grenth kormiring Dhuum is a legitamate theory, but we have to remember, it is not the only theory.|||Well, we "only" know of one way for mortals to become gods, by kormiring( maybe we should copyright that word since we use it so much)someone. We have no idea if there is another way to achieve godhood among mortals or if there are other non-mortal creatures able to do this. For all we know, Grenth could have been a Glint-type Dragon. Also, now that I'm thinking about it, "if" most of the current pantheon of Gods are the original Gods, the current Avatars of Dwayna and Balthazar must have been different since the were here before humans came into beign. Maybe they changed the Avatars appareance to match the predominant race at this time, which is why I think Kormir is using an Avatar that matches her appareance in life. What I'm trying to say by all this is that just because Grenth doesnt match a Centaur or any other race does not mean he wasnt that before. It was speculated by Quintus (sorry if it wasnt you) and others that Balthazar was a Dwarf. Neither his Avatar or his Statue reflect this exept by the long beard, but in the quest for the Tome of the Rubicon in Sorrows Furnance, The Great Dwarfs description seems to match Balthazar. Hope it made sense.|||perfect sense eh? *looks away and thinks*

i doubt Grenth was a centaur before godhood...he may have some features of a horse-like person, but remeber, Rams have a affiliation with Death and Darkness, and apparantly i read from somewhere, that Grenth had "the head of a Ram" and etc --> the body of a human...and Centaurs are supposdly very royal...well atleast thats what most Centaurs think themselves are =P.

and a Ram's head seems to fit Grenth more, for some reasons:

1. Grenth's name simply does not match Centaur names (Grenth Deathmane? i doubt it)

2. As his statues depict, he is a person/being with a fully robed body (or simply a straight rectangular shape) with the face of a human, and some awfully distortedly placed horns which humans/us think looks cool...

3. According to Elonian-playing (me), Centaurs + Humans was never a great combo, this leads to the fact humans are "begging" for Grenth..which seems unlikely...

--sorry for driving offtopic O_O if it is considered offtopic >_>|||Based off our knowledge, we know of two ways to usurp a God:

Kormiring (fantastic word, by the way), or;

Promotion of a relative (as far as I remember, the 5 Gods are brethen, and Menzies is a half-brother of Balthazar (his relation to the others is unknown, and I cannot remember my source of the all-related fact))

Could Grenth have already been a demi-God? We've had a few. Menzies is always vying for power (would he have been bumped up from half-brother to actual brother if he suceeded, though?), and while we cannot prove their existance we have heard of the three demi-Gods of the Luxons, whose names escape me.

I do not know if we can prove the original race of Grenth. Let's not forget that all Murials are only how we percieve the Gods. Perhaps other races percieve them differently, not sure who though (according to a Wintersday collector in LA, the Tengu do not worship the Pantheon). We know that the Dwarves only worship the Great Dwarf, and assuming he is Balthazar, how do we know that they don't have other deities in their mythology but simply do not worship them?

The avatars are too not something to go off, in any case. The Dervish avatars will obviously be humanoid, and the avatars such as the Wraiths and the Champion of Balthazar are either simple servants or just an embodiment, still not conclusive proof.

Hope I've given you something to think about.|||The three "demi-gods" of the Luxons are actually the very much still living queens. The luxons probably see them in a way such as the Ancient Egyptians saw their pharohs - living gods.

As for the depictions of gods, the view that it could simply be interpraitation could be taken from both sides of the coin - because the gods actually were physical beings able to be seen by the naked eye at some point, it stands to reason that their depiction would never change. If you want a real world example, think about murals and paintings of the Saints in Christianity. They have changed very little in hundereds of vyears because of a tought that the figures depicted were acurate at the time, and thus will be for all time.

The other side is of course, that humans being the "dominent" species at the current time see the gods like themselves, a common practice in many real world religions. However, on that note, the Dwarves may worship Balthazar but under a different face that we never see. To use a real world example, The Ancient Celts & Ancient Romans both believed in a very similiar pathenon - however the Celts see their forms differently (Where the romans had a family like pathenon, the Celts were said to have an aspect pathenon ~ in which each "lower" god or goddess was simply another facet of the God & Goddess.)

As for "Godhood", the pathenon may not be interrelated at all. Seeing how Kormir was able to..."kormir"..the conclusion is jumped to that this is the only way to become a god. There could be hundereds of ways, from some sort of test, to a god "bestowing" his or her godhood upon you. In short, if Menzies defeats Balth he may be able to "kormir" and become the new god of War.

Grenth however is more suspicious. After having explored the UW for a fair bit, several references state that Grenth "broke" the throne of Duhmm, effectively ending his reign. He may have not even layed a single hand on Duhmm at all - an army of souls could have done the job for him. Demi-god? I'd say that he could have been just another soul before his "incarnation" and that shattering Duhmm's citadel was his first act as a god.

In short, we may never know...unless a future chapter loops us back into the past somehow, the answer may never present itself.

Mularc|||Hmm, there is a creature that somewhat fits the description of Grenth and that would be the Gaki. Though they are not the most attractive of creatures...bipedal, two arms, horns on head...I mean anyone's guess what is under Grenth's robe...hmm though the facial structure may be a bit off. A pair of them are ritualists, who prefer Grenth.

I am also of the opinion that becoming a god can occur in so many ways. There is the old old idea that thoughts and prayers can create a powerful god through sheer faith. There is,of course, nepotism, bastard births, virgin births, splitting, facets, creation from nothing and omnipresence. Oh and don't forget eating your grandparents or being spat out by a giant fish.