The Medusians are monsters: green-skinned, snake-haired monstrosities with a gaze that turns victims to stone. Yet the truth is not so simple. There are such monsters: the Medusas, often with the lower body of a vast serpent, snake-like fangs and a ravening urge to destroy all life. The Medusians hold these monsters in particular dread, because they fear they might become like them.
The Fall of Gorgadia
Gorgadia was a paradisal world of emerald islands strewn across a sapphire sea. The Gorgadians raised clean temples to the Muses of art and insight and worshiped through creating art, exploring philosophy and bringing forth beauty into the world. They were not monstrous then - but they venerated the serpent Orobos as a force of fate and spiritual completion.
Balor the Evil One arrived in Gorgadia through a Wound in space itself and his Fomorian legions brought the beautiful island-cities of Gorgadia to flaming ruin. The prisoners of war were brought to Balor's Cauldron where, as part of an evil jest, the One-Eyed One thought to transform the Gorgadians into a ghastly parody of the serpent they revered. The first Medusas slithered from Balor's Cauldron to complete the destruction of their civilisation.
Balor the Evil One arrived in Gorgadia through a Wound in space itself and his Fomorian legions brought the beautiful island-cities of Gorgadia to flaming ruin. The prisoners of war were brought to Balor's Cauldron where, as part of an evil jest, the One-Eyed One thought to transform the Gorgadians into a ghastly parody of the serpent they revered. The first Medusas slithered from Balor's Cauldron to complete the destruction of their civilisation.
The Cauldron Cracks
Something happened to interdict Balor's cruel plans. Perhaps the Serpent Orobos flexed its scaly body. A great earthquake shook the land and the Cauldron split. Its vile fluids burned a fissure in the earth and through it, slicing through the worlds to create a portal. A portion of the Gorgadians escaped through the fissure, their transformation into monsters begun but not completed.
The Medusians (as the exiles term themselves for they will not pollute the name of Gorgadian with what they have become) arrived in a new world, untouched by Balor's conquests. This was Ocumene.
The friendship of Dwarves
The Medusians were fortunate in their first encounters. They arrived in the land of Nim, home to the Dwarves, a race less inclined than most to strike out at monsters appearing in their midst. The Nim gave hospitality to the Medusians - for a while. The Medusians refer to this as the Protocharis - the First Kindness.
The Dwarven hosts were tested when the full scope of Balor's cruelty became apparent. Although the Medusians possessed the petrifying gaze, they could control it. At first. But the more they indulged the powers Balor's Cauldron had gifted them, the more monstrous they became. Some of the greatest Medusian warriors were the first to become corrupted, turning into the monster-Medusas that still bedevil the deep places of this world.
Seeing what they new guests were becoming, the Dwarves debated whether to expel them. Their decision is unknown, for the Medusian prirestess Stheno took matters into her own hands, leading her people out of Nimrod and into the upper world.
The Dwarven hosts were tested when the full scope of Balor's cruelty became apparent. Although the Medusians possessed the petrifying gaze, they could control it. At first. But the more they indulged the powers Balor's Cauldron had gifted them, the more monstrous they became. Some of the greatest Medusian warriors were the first to become corrupted, turning into the monster-Medusas that still bedevil the deep places of this world.
Seeing what they new guests were becoming, the Dwarves debated whether to expel them. Their decision is unknown, for the Medusian prirestess Stheno took matters into her own hands, leading her people out of Nimrod and into the upper world.
Years of Blind Wandering
Stheno assembled her people in a valley known as Tyflono. At her instruction, they took up sharpened flints and cut out their eyes, forswearing the Gift of Balor forever.
Medusians are not completely blind. They still 'see' through their snake-like hair. However, this sight lacks the subtleties of vision: they can discern the location of things and their properties, but not the quality of colour, the distinction of beauty, the character of shade and luminescence. A world of beauty was cut from them. Perhaps most tragic, they cannot read through their snake eyes, so the vast literature of their species is now closed to them.
Medusians have blinded their children ever since, in a ritual they call the Tyflo. For years they wandered the Plains of Arboth as a confederation of families, preyed upon equally by monsters and the fearful residents of the fortified cities of the World's Crown. But the Dwarves were once again to come to their aid.
Life in the Northern Paradise
The Great City of Merkabar had recently been liberated from the rule of a usurper - the Sterling Potentate who constructed Stonehell - and the Nim had played a valiant part in overthrowing the tyrant. The grateful Houses of the Ellyon bequeathed to the Nim the oasis of the Northern Paradise, the district of the city where many Dwarves lived and laboured on the great system of aquaducts and viaducts that crisscross the city.
The Dwarvish satrap, Vannamoinaman (Vanni) invited the Medusians to his oasis as Guests Perpetual. Many were astounded at this graciousness, because Vanni could have asked for many greater favours from the King-of-Kings than to bring a tribe of ragged monsters within the city walls. The true reason for Vanni's generosity is not known for certain, but the Medusians refer to it as Dextrocharis - the Second Kindness.
Medusian Culture
The Medusians (El: Mar, pl. Mara) hold on dearly to their identity as a civilised people, a race of philosophers and artists. Their dread of what they have become makes them cling more firmly to the civilised virtues of rationality, beauty and peacefulness. There are proverbs in the Northern Paradise that an angry Marh is like a sunrise in the west, or that one should go to the Elves for pleasure and the Mara for wisdom, or that one must not ask the opinion of a Marh, for one will be told the history of the world before an answer is forthcoming.
Most Merkabarians are familiar with Mara in two professions: masseurs and nurses. Because Medusians do not 'see' in a conventional sense, the prime Ellyon are comfortable disrobing in front of Mara and the Medusians have brought with them a discipline of gymnosophistry (massage, yoga, aromatherapy and acupuncture) from their homeworld. The Bath Houses run by Medusians are temples to the body and hospitals of the mind. Medusian therapists excel at treating the disorders of the mind. Again, their sightlessness makes them ideal confessors for troubled souls with oppressive secrets to unburden. The Medusian veneration of the body makes them delight in dance and the representation of the body in sculpture (although they hide their statuary collections for fear of creating the wrong impression).
Less widely appreciated are the Medusian talents as designers. Gorgadia bequeathed them a legacy of learning in architecture in a clean, classical style so different from the ornate fashions of the Ellyon. 'Serpentine' art is becoming fashionable, with Mara designers hired to supervise the building of new palaces and pleasure gardens in the 'Serpentine style'.
As scholars, Medusians are cut off from the literature of their culture. In its place, they cultivate their memories. Oral recitation of the Gorgadian canon is their main cultural delight and young clerks can find lucrative (if boring) employment reading aloud passages to Medusian scholars, over and over, then testing the scholar's memory until the lines are learned faultlessly.
As scholars, Medusians are cut off from the literature of their culture. In its place, they cultivate their memories. Oral recitation of the Gorgadian canon is their main cultural delight and young clerks can find lucrative (if boring) employment reading aloud passages to Medusian scholars, over and over, then testing the scholar's memory until the lines are learned faultlessly.
Although they have given up their sight to escape Balor's Gift, the Medusians are still prone to his Curse if they fall into great anger or sorrow. They practice meditation to combat this and have developed an etiquette of passivity, never showing excessive emotion. To some, this gives the wrong impression that Mara are cowards, since they are almost impossible to provoke to violence.
