| Aedonniss | |
| Deity Fictional Work | |
| Story: | "The Mrem Go West" |
| Religion: | Mrem theology |
| God of: | The sky, creation of life |
| Type of Appearance: | Referenced |
| Spouse: | Assirra |
Aedonniss, lord of the sky, was the primary god in Mrem theology. He was understood to have created the Mrem in his own image. The Great Flood was seen as a contract between Aedonniss and his wife Assirra (goddess of all land in the world), to curb the power of the Liskash (who were enslaving the Mrem) by dividing the continents. Many Mrem died in the Flood, but this was seen as an option preferable to seeing the entire species enslaved.
Aedonniss was a remote and impersonal god. Mrem often grumbled angrily at the way Aedonniss set up the world, but they accepted it stoically and did not curse him for it. Rather than addressing prayers directly to Aedonniss, the Mrem prayed to Assirra to intervene with Aedonniss on their behalf.
Among Mrem clergy, a heretical suspicion began to emerge that there was another god in the world, nearly equal in power to Aedonniss, and that this other god had created the Liskash to torment and destroy Aedonniss' creation. Mrem clergy were not supposed to discuss this with non-clerical Mrem. On one occasion, Clan of the Claw priestess Enni Chennitats violated this secrecy to share it with Talonmaster Rantan Taggah, believing he might have a need to know. Taggah was greatly disturbed by this possibility.
Literary comment[]
Aedonniss and Assirra appear to be based partly on Adonai and Asherah, a pair of deities from the polytheist religions of certain Semitic tribes in the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE. This religion ultimately lost out to the One God of Judaism, but is remembered in popular culture as the story of Adonis and Venus, a Roman story loosely adapted from the Semitic myth.
| ||||||||||||||