In the beginning the World was flat. And the Gods dwelt upon it. There was TARLO, God of Death, UYGH, God of Destruction, His brother, KARG, God of Battle, OHLA, Goddess of Food, and MEKHE, Goddess of Sex. There were also a number of lesser Deities, such as the Sun and the Moon, but these five were the most powerful. Strongest amongst these were UYGH and KARG. The brother Gods were always quarrelling as to Who was the strongest. The Goddesses tried to keep Them apart, but They fought often, and did much damage in their contests.
One day KARG went too far. He raised a mighty army, the like of which had never been seen, from amongst the lesser beings of the World. The orcs had always been His servants, but many hundreds of men and monsters, and the treacherous snakes and spiders also flocked to His cause. Only the scorpions and a few brave men remained loyal to UYGH.
Provoked beyond endurance at KARG's challenge, UYGH and His allies met the army on the central plain of the World. The battle which followed was beyond description. Nearly all were slain, and the World was devastated. The awesome forces which They unleashed blasted a huge crater in the earth, and laid waste the rest of the land. The debris was thrown up into the sky in a whirl of unstable magic, and became the stars.
When the dust finally cleared, after an uncounted period of time, only UYGH and KARG were left standing at the bottom of the pit. All the other combatants and Gods had been slain or scattered across the desert of the World. Wroth was UYGH, and unyielding was KARG, so They fought on still, hand to hand.
At last UYGH bested KARG, but the God of Battle still refused to submit. If He had shown such weakness, UYGH would have slain Him on the spot, but now MEKHE intervened, and at Her behest UYGH spared KARG, and instead threw Him out into the chaos of the starry sky.
UYGH had now proved that He was the mightiest of the Gods, and all lesser beings fell down and worshipped Him. Pleased at their obeisance, and weary after His exertions, He spared their miserable lives. The men who had remained loyal to Him He rewarded by making them his Shamen, and appointing them to lead His followers in the true ways, so that such events might never come to pass again. The scorpions He decreed to be Holy creatures, sacred to Him, and He charged His Shamen to punish any who harmed them: limb for pincer, life for life.
The Shamen led the people out into the deserts of the World, and proclaimed UYGH God of Deserts, Ruler of the World. All lived only by His sufferance, and the futility of appealing to the other Gods had been proved by KARG's defeat. To survive in the desert required utter faith in their Master UYGH, for if He were displeased it would be the slightest thing to blast them with a storm, famine or plague. If He wished to make an example of a particular individual, He would send the scorpions for him. The victim could only then accept his fate, as to oppose UYGH could bring further retribution upon the whole tribe.
Such is the mythology of the Desert Tribes of the Western Underworld.
Back to Underworld index