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Old April 8th, 2012, 08:18 PM
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Default Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")

From the notes of George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

Fragmet II.a:

The Aboleth: Etymology and Legends

The name aboleth derives from the Sumerian abzu-lesh. Abzu (or Apsu in the closely related Akkadian) literally meant “ocean” (ab), and “to know” or “deep” (zu). It was also the word for “swamp” as well pools devoted to certain religious ceremonies. The word has survived into the English language, albeit in changed form. We speak of Abzu when we say “Abyss”. The meaning of lesh simply is “master”, or more literally: “he-who-enslaves”, in opposition to “the lord” nin.

There is some controversy on the provenance of the name giboleth - Dr. H. Barrington (Barrington, 1885) claims it derives from gaba-leth, meaning “the rival master”, indicating the giboleth's potential to enter the aboleths' exclusive society. This is strongly contested by Dr. L. Shrewsbury (Shrewsbury, 1913), among others. Dr. Shrewsbury instead champions the origin gi-bu-lesh, where gi-bu is literally “answer” + “to tear out”, or more freely “one who is made to answer/obey”.

Similarly, Dr. Shrewsbury favors to trace the last syllable “dai” of the gibodai to da-ri, meaning “eternal” or “enduring”, which is more convincing than Barrington's explanation of gaba-da -- “the rival who is protected/may not be harmed”. For while it is true that the gibodai occupies a priviledged place in aboleth society, its position is also fixed, which renders the applicability of the term “rival” questionable.

However, the derivation of dai from da, in the meaning of “one who is protected” is promising. Recently there has been some support (G. G. Angell, 1926) for the gish-ùl-lesh/gish-ùl-da theory, where gish is translated as “submitting” and ùl is the leash. The giboleth would be “the master who has submitted (and is leashed)” while the giboleth would be “the protected one who has submitted”.

While the term is Sumerian, we have very few direct references in Sumerian myth, although there are certain passages in the pre-Noachian flood myths that hint of things that the knowledgable might identify with aboleths.

There is the monstrous fish K'un in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi (“In the northern darkness there is a fish and his name is K'un.”). In the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan the Black Tortoise of the North Xuán Wu is described decidedly fishlike, and the serpents that traditionally encoil it could very well be a misunderstanding of an aboleth's tentacles.

There is the figure of the talking fish appearing in several fairy tales of the Atlantic and Baltic coasts that fulfils increasingly grandiose wishes, only to finally take them all back. In the anonymous work “Unaussprechlichen Kulten” there is mention of certain blasphemous rituals practised in isolated coastal communities in which some fish-like creature is placated and beseeched for supernatural assistance.

Fragment ends here

Last edited by jotwebe; April 8th, 2012 at 08:23 PM.. Reason: EDIT: fixed a character
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Old April 10th, 2012, 12:48 PM

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Default Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")

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Originally Posted by jotwebe View Post
From the notes of George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
So, just wondering, how much of that was bull****? It certainly sounds sufficiently pseudo-scholarly, so kudos for that.
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Old April 10th, 2012, 01:08 PM
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Default Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")

Well, if you google the name George Gammell Angell, it'll direct you to Lovecraft sites right quick. Similarly to most of the sources he's using.

The Sumerian was mostly me looking through online dictionaries for words that might sort of make sense. "Lesh" is made up from whole cloth, although it could be a Sumerian word. "Leth" couldn't, since there was no t-aitch in Sumerian. According to the wikipedia article anyway, which is the depth of my knowledge there.

Also note that "Unaussprechlichen Kulten" is book in the Lovecraft mythos and supposed to mean "nameless cults", but it doesn't. To be correct german, it would have to be either "Von unaussprechlichen Kulten" or "Unaussprechliche Kulte", and that would mean "unpronouncable" (literally) or "unspeakable" kults. Nameless cults would be "namelose Kulte".

I decided to keep the Lovecraftian version since Prof. G.G. Angell might be a hotshot Sumerologist, but not necessarily so great with German. Plus those are only his notes. He would have checked it before publishing, I'm sure.
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Old April 10th, 2012, 10:45 PM

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Default Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")

I have a business meeting tomorrow night, and I just realized that I'm not sure when I'll get back tomorrow night. Can we have a 24 hour delay please?
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Old April 12th, 2012, 07:05 PM

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Default Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")

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I have a business meeting tomorrow night, and I just realized that I'm not sure when I'll get back tomorrow night. Can we have a 24 hour delay please?

Havn't seen your turn up so i added another little extension. Hope everything is alright.
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Old April 13th, 2012, 09:07 AM
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Default Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")

R'lyeh

In the farthest reaches of the encircling ocean, where the briny surface currents meet the great wall of ice and plummet into the deep, there is an abyss under the black sea. Past the roots of icebergs the currents plunge, leaving behind the world of light, shedding colors one by one.



The pressure increases relentlessly, and the ice-chilled currents pass a lifeless zone where even the merfolk cannot breathe and only certain strange squid drift in sluggish dreams.

Finally, in this gloomy realm, there is a colorless plain of slimy ooze. The carcasses of sea-creatures slowly decompose, playing host to disgusting coiling throngs of boneless hagfish and spiny, long-legged crabs.



Yet the current is pulled even deeper: over jagged, rocky cliff into a crack of even deeper darkness, so cold that the water would freeze but for the merciless pressure that squeezes the very mind into strange and warped shapes. Down into the chasm, past the ghostly lures of vast and monstrous great-jawed fish of stunning ugliness.



Deeper into the abyss, the current is met by pillars of strange gases rising from the cracked rock, half obscuring the brooding Cyclopean basalt blocks that lean at subtle and surreal angles. In the center of the city, spanned by arching bridges, there is a cleft where even the aboleths do not venture.

This is the ancient city of R'lyeh. There has been some disturbance and unrest lately, as a strange Atlantean has come among the slaves, pale, pudgy, and uncanny, always appearing where he was not expected and speaking of the death of the Pantokrator and the advent of a new era. Nyarlathotep this Atlantean called himself, but whence this outlandish name hailed from, none knew to say.

Among the aboleths, the powers were split in their opinion. Most disdained this arrogant Atlantean, yet some were swayed by the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations. In the year 63,123,288 Nyarlathotep's enemies, worried about his ever-increasing fame and popularity, decided to take action.

Nyarlathotep was again speaking to a crowd of slaves and lesser aboleths, capering on top of a bridge that spanned R'lyeh's central chasm. As was his fashion he proclaimed a vast change; a time, drawing near, in which the hidden stars themselves would be shaken.

Of a sudden a group of five aboleths, among them the notorious L'grss, closed in on the crowd, followed by a large mass of those degenerated slaves known as lobo guards. The aboleths began to bend their vile minds upon Nyarlathotep, adding to vast pressure of the deep a mental component.

The Atlantean prophet let loose an unholy shriek, and an even greater sense of foreboding settled on the scene. The towers of R'lyeh swayed in the grip of an earthquake, and the chasm suddenly gaped wider, ripping apart the bridges in tumbles of Cyclopean blocks.

Nyarlathotep also fell, and the aboleths moved to the chasms edge, driven by cruel curiosity.

Suddenly, with uncanny speed, five pallid rubbery arms shot upwards up out of the darkness and wrapped themselves around the stunned aboleths. Even their vast size did not avail the hapless creatures as they disappeared into the deep, wailing and gibbering.

In their place a monstrous octopoid head rose out of the widened chasm, while the prophet Nyarlathotep stood on its pale dome and shouted out his damnable prophecies in vile ecstasy: "Iä! Iä! Yöt-Webbogoth hath come!"



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