125 Girtablilu

Exposition

 When on high the heaven had not been named,Firm ground below had not been called by name,Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter,(And) Mummu*–Tiamat, she who bore them all, Their waters commingling as a single body;No reed hut had been matted, no marsh land had appeared,When no gods whatever had been brought into being,Uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined—Then it was that the gods were formed within them.

First eight lines of Enuma Elis. Pritchard 1969, pp. 60–61

Introduction

James: Nimrod

Freeman: Humbaba

Source: Bestiary 3 p. 112

Reading List:

            Enūma Eliš

            Epic of Gilgamesh

            Survival and the Christianization of The Gilgamesh Quest for Immortality in the Tale of Alexander and the Fountain of Life – Tommaso Tesei

Minor and Marginal(ized)? Rethinking Women as Minor Characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh  - Karen Sonik

Old World Gods

Mythical Creatures and Beasts.com

Pathfinder Lore

Appearance

·         Ripped humanoid torso

·         Lower body of a large scorpions

Ecology

·         Desert dwellers

·         Usually found in ancient temples

·         Guarding religions artifacts

·         Believed (by outsiders) to worship their own ancient pantheon

·         Protect sites dedicated to gods lots to modern times

·         Preservers of holy practices in danger of being lost to the desert sands

·         Some believe they were created by a god dead for a millennia as guardains

·         They consider their origin taboo and refuse to engage

·         Some even train giant scorpions as pets

·         Rarely require food or water

·         Have good stamina to stalk their prey for days

Contact

·         Used to explorers seeking their treasures

·         Might welcome those who wish to learn

·         Few even share their beliefs with earnest outsiders

·         If you come to desecrate or challenge their faith, they will fight

·         “…unmatched when it comes to fighting in the desert”

Seers

·         Highest position in community

·         Requires years of study and dedication

·         Unlocks divine magical potential

·         Ensure ALL actions follow ALL dogma

·         Furiously retaliate on those of the community who break the mandates

Sidebar: Allied Guardians

·         Maftets

·         Garuda

·         Naga

·         As long as their beliefs are respected

Sidebar: Bonds of Faith

·         Communities form around beliefs rather than families

·         Great importance placed on chosen family

·         Rare cases of other ancestries living among the Girtablilu

·         Is the spiritual leader who has final say on those who join the community

1e

·         Same as 2e mostly

·         Leaders are clerics or oracles

·         Tradition is important my societies

·         “…no sacrifice in life goes unrewarded in the hereafter; making them fireless fighters”

·         4m / 13’ long - elephant

·         362.9 kg / 800 lbs – grizzly bear

Inner sea Monster Codex (a book we don’t have in our library)

·         9 Raging Sting – Barb

·         11 Dune Strider – Ranger

·         12 Quick Striker – Rogue Scout

·         14 Divine Chieftan – Dessert Druid

Mythology and Folklore

Akkadian 

·         Extinct East Semitic language (Babylonia, Larsa, Assyria, Akkad)

·         Earliest Semitic language (Afroasiatic languages; Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew (From Shem, one of Noah’s kids)

·         Used cuneiform script

·         Named after the city of Akkad, major center of the Mesopotamian civilization

·         2334 – 2154 BC (2334 ~ 4,358 years ago) started with King Sargon’s conquest of Mesopotamia

·         Ruled for 180 year dynasty with 7 generations

·         Nimrod, grandson of Noah (that Noah), was probably Sargon OR Naram-Sin, Sargon’s grandson

·         Theorized Etymology from r/Danahrys on the Find the Path Podcast Subreddit

·         GIR-tab-LEE-loo

·         GIRtab (scorpion)

·         Lilu (demon/monster/being) Akkadian

Scorpion-People

·                                 Appear very early on in culture including Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh and Enūma Eliš [ee-noo-muh eh-lish]

Enūma Eliš

·         Means “When on High”

·         Babylonian creation myth named after the opening words

·         From the late 2nd millennium BCE (2000-1001)

·         Only complete suriving account of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cosmology

·         Read: cosmological beliefs from the 4th millennium to the Macedonian Empire in the 1st millennium (4000 BC –~330 BC)

·         Recovered in 1849 found in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal (Mosul, Iraq)

·         Text is about 1000 lines on seven clay tablets

·         The most of the 5th tablet is missing

Text

·         Creation of the world with primordial entities Apsu and Tiamat

·         Everything else sprung from these two beings

·         This created the new gods that Apsu and Tiamat didn’t not like, the two hatched a plan to kill the new gods

·         One of the new gods (Ea) took Apsu’s halo and killed Apsu

·         Ea and his wife Damkina made home in the heart of Aspu where they made Marduk, a being so bright he was named the Sun

·         The new gods then teased Tiamat about her inability to aid Apsu

·         Tiamat then made 11 chimeric creatures to do battle with the other gods

·         Bašmu ('Venomous Snake'), Ušumgallu ('Great Dragon'), Mušmaḫḫū ('Exalted Serpent'), Mušḫuššu ('Furious Snake'), Laḫmu (the 'Hairy One'), Ugallu (the 'Big Weather-Beast'), Uridimmu ('Mad Lion'), Umū dabrūtu ('Violent Storms'), Kulullû ('Fish-Man'), and Kusarikku ('Bull-Man') AND Girtablullû ('Scorpion-Man'),

·         Marduk ended up taking the throne and killing Tiamat, split her in two using half to create the sky

Epic of Gilgamesh

·         An epic from Mesopotamia

·         The earliest surviving literature, often cited as the first great composition

·         Believed to influenced the Labours of Heracles, the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Old Testament

·         Oldest dates back to 18th century BC and is called the Old Babylonian version or “Surpassing All Other Kings” and only a few tablets have survived

·         The Standard Babylonian version or “He who Sees the Unknown” (which is ~ 66% longer at a 12 tablet version having been recovered

Part 1 Summary

·         Enkidu (a wild person created by the gods) is sexually initiated with Shamhat (a sacred prostitute) and becomes civilized

·         He travels to Uruk to challenge their King, Giglamesh, to a contest of strength

·         Gilgy wins the showdown and the two become best friends

·         They take a 6 day sabbatical to the Cedar Forest (home of the gods) to cut down a sacred Cedar

·         Enkidu and Gilgaboi kill the guardian Humbaba and cut down the tree

·         Ishtar (goddess of Love, War and Fertility) Queen of Heaven is pissed and sends the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgy to rejecting her advances

·         Gigamesh and Enkidu wreck the Bull, insult the Queen of Heaven and peace out with the tree

·         Ishtar finds this unacceptable and dooms Enkidu to death with a fatal illness

Part 2 Summary

·         Gigachad is upset of Enkidu’s death and he goes to find the secret of eternal life

·         He learns that Life is a gift “For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands.”

Scorpion Peoples

·         In the Standard Babylonian translation

·         Stand guard the gates of the sun god Shamash at the mountains of Mashu

·         This is the entrance to Kurnugi, their version of the underworld

·         The scorpion men open the door for the God as he travels out each day and close it behind him until he returns to the underworld at night

·         Gilgamesh describes their gaze as death and the terror as “awesome”

·         On table IX (37-135) Gilgamesh meets a female (first lady Scorpion person on record)

·         The woman tells her male counter part Gilgamesh Ancestry.com results: 2/3rds  god, but 1/3rd human

·         This is recently interpreted by Karen Sonik as the woman’s perspective being able to see the truth about Gilgamesh’s nature, where the original interpretation was a simple and traditional wife trying to aid her husband

Other Appearances

·         Bull Lyre, a scorpion man at the bottom from 2450 BCE from Ur (modern day Tell el-Muqayyar) [muh-kay-yar]

Scorpion Goddess

Malinalxochitl [ma-li-nah-zo-ah-teal]

·         Aztec

·         Sorceress, goddess of snakes, scorpions and desert insects

·         Title of Cihuacoatl [chee-ho-ah-cot-elle] “Woman Serpent”

Chelamma [say-lah-mah]

·          Hindu goddess of Southern Karnataka region of India

·         Worshiped along side Kolaramma in Kolar

·         Believed if you pray at her shrine you will be protected from scorpion stings

Egypt

·         Hedetet –  name checked in the Book of the Dead, eventually consolidated with Isis

·         Isis – Egyptian

·         Serket – goddess of healing venom stings and snake bites “She who tightens the throat”

·         Ta-Bitjet – consort of Haroeris

Mesopotamian

·         Lisi – Mesopotamian, associated with fire

·         Ningrimia – Mesopotamian,  associated with snakes, fish and water could be sister of Enlil

Pop Culture

Atlantis S01E09 – Pandora’s Box

·         Character Campe, a lady dragon called the Nymph of Tartarus

Teen Wolf S05

·         Character called Lucas is a werewolf Girtablilu chimera

·         Had venom spiked arms

·         Couldn’t find an image with a tail

Marvel’s Scorpion

·         Kron Stone

·         Timestorm 2099 / Shattered Dimensions game

·         Son of Alchemax president

·         Accidently spliced his genes with a scorpion

·         Co-incidentally also a Venom at one point (vol.3)

Scorpion King Franchise

·         Started as a spin off/prequel of the 1999 Mummy reboot

·         Went on to spawn 5 other movies (more than the Mummy) ending in 2018

Compare

Mechanics

Girtablilu Seer

Girtablilu Sentry