Pholdons

In the religious tradition of the Eleven Cities Pholdons was an ogre who haunted a river ford in the highlands south of the city of Ramoros. He serves as an early test for the magical and problem-solving abilities of the wizard Morogyad.

Narrative

Pholdons was an ogre, substantially larger and stronger than a man, often depicted as having long arms and large hands. His parentage is unsettled though some versions of the story identify him as a son of the Hundred Former Gods Zarphys and Yorph. He haunted a river ford some distance to the south from Ramoros, where he waylaid travellers, posing them a challenge; make him laugh or he would drown the men and eat the women. Few could achieve this feat, and stacks of female skeletons gradually built up around the river.
One morning the wizard Morogyad happened along the road to the ford, early in his quest to explore his art. Waylaid by Pholdons, Morogyad calmly replied that jokes passed between friends, and he was not a friend of abominations. Pholdons thus seized the wizard by the right arm and hauled him into the river. Morogyad made a cryptic gesture with his left hand - the source of his power - and turned into a man-sized rock, dragging Pholdons to the riverbed where the ogre drowned. Morogyad then transformed into an octopus and swam down to the sea, and on to further wizardly adventures.

Literary/artistic tradition

The pre-Wesmodian literary tradition recording the incident is confined to the biographical tradition surrounding Morogyad. Specifically, Goldanqs the Younger and Typhan of Ramoros retell the story in their respective works Life of Morogyad and History of Morogyad. It is Typhan who supplies Pholdon's ancestry among the Hundred Former Gods. The story also appears in the chapter of The Ramoros Libram dealing with Morogyad.
Post-Wesmodian scholarship on Morogyad has a certain amount to say about Pholdons. Kadre Ysparo's pamphlet on Morogyad discusses the story, and Ezynon Moronyad goes into some depth on the matter in his Book of Moronyad.
Pre-Wesmodian pictoral depictions of Pholdons tend to show him as a distinctly fishy character, equipped with webbed hands and feet, scales and a toothy, shark-like mouth. Some even depict gills (in his throat) suggesting he can breathe underwater, though this would clash with the uniform supposition that he died by drowning. The tradition may be a nod to his apparent parentage, as the Hundred Former Gods are typically depicted as smei-human.

Commentary

Pholdons appears to exist largely as a demonstration of the power and moral fibre of Morogyad. This being said, that demonstration gives modern thaumatologists plenty to debate. The encounter therefore enters into modern thaumatology as something akin to fact.