History of Morogyad

History of Morogyad is a mummery by the Ramoran musician Typhan of Ramoros. It tells a truncated version of the life of the pseudohistorical demigod and thaumaturge Morogyad, focusing on his skill as a metalworker and slayer of monsters.

Content

The mummery is a fairly short one, written very much in Typhan's customary urban style, focusing on the middle movements of Morogyad's career in the city of Tyros. It opens with a lengthy song by an unnamed Dog of Tyros discussing Morogyad's marriage to his daughter and celebrating that he is now connected to a demigod. The song dwells at length on Morogyad's victory over the ogre Pholdons.
Morogyad himself then appears and sings a series of four duets with members of the Tyrosian aristocracy. All of his partners appear to be fictional; no evidence has been found that any of them are based on real people. These five songs involve, in order:
* A woman thanking Morogyad for his gift of one of the Morogyad pieces, specifically one depicting an octopus.
* A man asking if it was Morogyad he saw flying over the city's harbour the previous day; the wizard graciously admits this is so.
* A marine in the Tyrosian navy suffering discrimination for being left-handed who asks Morogyad for tutoring in how to turn this oddity to his advantage; Morogyad somewhat imprecisely urges practice and discipline.
* A merchant asking Morogyad if he could, in effect, mass-produce "blue steel" for export, promising enormous returns for doing so. Morogyad demurs, insisting that too great an amount of the metal in the world would be an injury to its worth.
Therefollows a long instrumental passage before a third act in which Morogyad gathers his wife and family around him and warns them that he cannot stay in Tyros. Monsters threaten from the northern seas, he explains, and he is already engaged on the manufacture of the weapons needed to defeat it. He leaves, and the children sing of their pride in their father.

Commentary

What the mummery lacks in plot it makes up for in artistry. The instrumental passage between the last two acts is widely performed as a piece in its own right and the vocal sections are highly esteemed for their artful composition, providing clear direction to the vocalist while allowing them considerable scope for improvisation and self-expression.
The mummery is also noted by thaumatologists as a noteworthy pre-Wesmodian source of information on Morogyad himself. Typhan appears to follow the practice of the insular cities in seeing Morogyad primarily as a metalworker and alchemist. His magnanimous non-commercial focus is also stressed. His reference to weapons in the final act is clearly a reference to The Blue Trident, though his unambiguous use of plurals is interesting. There are three possible interpretations here. The first and most likely is that Typhan was engaging in some poetic license. The second is that he is referring to the Discus of Morogyad, a magical artefact supposedly still in the possession of the Commercial Guilds in the city of Oluz, where Morogyad travelled after his sojourn in Tyros. The third, generally regarded as something of an outlying possibility, is that Morogyad either intended to create more items like the Blue Trident, or succeeded in doing so. Most scholars regard this as wishful thinking but some do take it to mean further weapons made by Morogyad do exist somewhere, presumably in the treasuries of the Commercial Guilds.