Zargyod

In the religious tradition of the Eleven Cities, Zargyod was the god of good fortune and luck. He was closely related to the maritime aspect of the economy of the region and thus also served as a god of the sea. He was for the most part an urban deity, with little to no following in rural areas.
Zargyod's priesthood was actively involved with secular society, and in some cities the god actually served as little more than a tutelary mascot to an institution that operated as a financial brokerage as much as a religious order. Such priorities made the cult a prime target of secular invective during the Wesmodian Reformation during which it was comprehensively disestablished. Paradoxically, however, the Reformation had very little effect on the day-to-day operation of the cult, which went on to be the basis of the wholly secular Commercial Guilds that operate throughout the cities.

Etymology

The word Zargyod is an Old Zolian construction derived from the terms Zarr (meaning gold) and qod, meaning son. The second syllable acquires the genitive infix y after its initial consonant. The name is therefore grammatically identical to that of Ajqyod and means roughly, Son of Gold; some scholars prefer the translation Golden Son or Golden Child. The name has been cited as referring to the perennial emotional significance of luck to the eternal value of gold, which does not rust - liturgical literature to the god explicitly suggests this - though it may in fact derive from some of the paraphernalia associated with him instead of any sort of poetic allusion.

Origins

Zargyod is far and away the youngest of the eight major gods, at least in terms of being the subject of organised, collaborative, or public worship. His Old Zolian name clearly indicates a numinous quantity of some antiquity, with the language having fallen into complete disuse at least 1,300 years ago, though the organised cult of the god appears to be no more than 900 years old, thus predating the Wesmodian Reformation by a scant dozen or so generations.
The god himself, however, clearly predates the cult. Amulets, always of coloured metals such as brass, copper or gold and typically depicting a smiling male face, began to be manufactured in Pholyos, Chogyos and Tyros - that is, wherever the metals were readily available - very early in the history of the Cities, which is to say roughly 2,000 years ago. These amulets appears to have dispersed very quickly along maritime trade routes, being adopted as good-luck charms in the northern cities, for example. The spread of such trade naturally involves a certain degree of speculation, and it is hardly surprising that luck charms would have been popular among those engaged in it. The manufacture of these amulets eventually spread along trade routes, with those made in different cities distinguishable by their decoration. Those made in Elpaloz are noted for the fine detail of their acid etching, for example, while those made in the insular cities often exhibit elaborate cloisonne work. The name Zargyod probably derives from these artefacts, likely emerging as a name for the faces inscribed thereupon.
At roughly the same time other cities and their rural support networks were developing broadly parallel traditions. Chogyos is known to have profited considerably in the early years of its existence as a mercantile entity due to its virtual monopoly on ginger, a cash crop grown in the vicinity of the city and, for at least three centuries, almost nowhere else. Among the dishes that emerged from this culinary monopoly were ginger-flavoured biscuits and cakes, baked in circular shapes and often carried on ships as one of the more esteemed components of sailor's rations. As the Zargyod medallions began to become absorbed into maritime culture there the tradition arose (and is practiced to this day) of decorating these confections with faces. It became the done thing for sailors to consume them not only on board ships but on the evening before setting sail as a charm to ensure a safe and constructive - which is to say lucky and profitable - voyage, and as such was absorbed into the same body of maritime superstitions. Such baking gradually became more closely associated with the medallions.
The face on the medallions and the cakes gradually took on a more concrete mythopoeic form, becoming that of a tutelary spirit who animated and protected ships. This spirit becomes increasingly prevalent in maritime folk art, featuring frequently, for example, in the scrimshaw widely practiced by sailors before the disappearance of whales from the Sea of Jars Small shrines to this entity, and a complicated body of rituals to keep him content and well-disposed to vessel and crew, developed on many ships. While some of these practices were specific to the sailing fraternity, and indeed to individual ships, many of them draw obvious inspiration from the ritualism of other cults, specifically those of Ajqyod and Ynglyas, gods associated with weather and navigation and, not coincidentally, the two mythological figures traditionally regarded as Zargyod's parents.
In time these links led to the involvement of Ajqyod and Ynglyas in shore-bound rituals to attract the attention and favour of this god. Some 500 years after the medallions first began spreading around the cities, the governing council of Pholyos suggested that the two priesthoods appoint officers to liaise specifically on how to court the favour of this new god for the benefit of the city. Within a century - although the precise date is not clear - Pholyos, Chogyos and Dyqamay had founded specific temples to Zargyod. Most other cities followed.

Mythology

Creation

Jalens of the South describes Zargyod's origins as differing from those of most of the other gods. Whereas Ajqyod, Dahan, Krezzan, Maryas and Ynglyas were all children of the elder gods Tychos and Kethyas, Zargyod is described as being found scattered in pieces across the islands of the Sea of Jars. These chunks were gathered together by Ajqyod using a large metal rake and taken to the northern wastes where the gods were hiding from their father. There Dahan and Ynglyas reassembled the pieces into a complete body, and Ajqyod breathed the fire of life back into it, reviving its owner as a new confederate in their battle with their father.
Though Jalens never explicitly states this, it is heavily implied that Zargyod is the son of the elder gods Sarys and Genyno, and that it was they who ripped him apart.

Battle with Qotrophay

In the war between Tychos and his children, Tychos summoned the mighty serpent Qotrophay to harry the seas. Zargyod, born of that environment, sailed a boat out into the Sea of Jars, confronting the monster and killing it by cutting it open with a brass sword, climbing inside it, and stabbing it in the heart.

Zargyod and the Sailors

Zargyod required rescuing from the floating corpse of Qotrophay. He was picked up by sailors who happened by. During their voyage towards the city of Loros the sailors, thinking him a wealthy man, began debating whether to release him on their arrival or ransom him back to his family, unaware that he could read their intentions in their eyes. The ship was struck by a sudden storm, and suffered knockdown. When the sailors called for the god's help, those who had favoured releasing him were granted fins with which they could swim back to the ship while those who hoped to ransom him found their boots full of gold, which weighed them down and caused them to drown.

Founder of cities

Political folklore connects Zargyod with the foundation of all three cities on the southern coast of the Sea of Jars - Pholyos, Loros and Chogyos.
Zargyod is said to have met with Ynglyas on a headland on the southern coast to discuss the possibility of a liaison between the two. The discussion reached an impasse when they realised that his responsibilities in the sea and hers in the sky would grant them no opportunity to meet, and they parted. Ynglyas's tears over this failure found purchase in the soil of the headland and the resulting plants grew into the first Pholyans.
The foundation myth of Chogyos credits the creation of the city to Chonyos a son of Zargyod by Thamyan a priestess of Hayan who abandoned her calling at the god's insistence. Chonyos travelled to the Chondolos River, then being poisoned by an evil serpent, which he killed. The farmers of the region competed to marry their daughters to him, and the result of this polygamous union were the first Chogyans.
The foundation of Loros is also attributed to Zargyod, who is said to have created the original populace from the mud of the estuary diving the city and imparted to them some of the fire of life that Ajqyod breathed into him. By passing through him, however, this fire became the fire of skill and luck, the two qualities upon which the Lorians still primarily pride themselves.

Father of Morogyad

Zargyod is credited as the father of the quasi-historical wizard Morogyad, having swept Morogyad's mother Remyalan out to sea and possessed her in the form of an octopus. This accounts for the fact that Morogyad's twin brother was not human at all, but an amorphous mass of writing tentacles which throttled its midwife to death before slithering down to the docks of Ramoros and into the sea.
Zargyod was also responsible for the magical training of Morogyad, abducting him from his mother in the form of a lammageier and taking him to the island of Kobolon where he taught him gestures and syllables that he eventually recorded in the Esoterica of Morogyad, one of the more important traditions in the thaumatology of the Eleven Cities.

Wager with Krezzan

Zargyod and Krezzan met on a plateau in the The Empty Quarter to debate their apparent capacities as gods of opposites and discuss who between them was the senior. Zargyod argued that as the god of fortune he had control over human fate, while Krezzan countered that as god of time he was the master of all such things. At loggerheads, the two considered using the fate of Qopyan, the youngest of The Dog's Seven Daughters, to settle the matter, but were forbidden from doing so by either Maryas or Hayan, depending on the version of the story being told. As such they exercised their powers on the landscape of the Empty Quarter, with Zargyod twisting and breaking the landscape while Krezzan manipulated the flow of time to corrode rocks, wizzen plant life and turn cities to dust. In the fullness of time the two gods rested, exhausted, and admitted their rivalry over the same ideas made them abiding competitors. Some sources argue that this produced a lasting enmity, while others cite it as the basis for camaraderie between the two gods.
Presenting an etiology for the oddities of landscape and climate that characterise the Empty Quarter, the tale of Zargyod and Krezzan's wager is a highly heterogenous myth, with different renditions of the story varying on several important points.

The Wagering Lords of Elpaloz

At an unspecified time in its history the city of Elpaloz was ruled by a council of lords who forebade the worship of Zargyod on the grounds that fortune was by definition a random process which could not be courted by religious means. Zargyod visited the city in the guise of a common sailor who laid a wager with the lords that the low tide would not return. When they bet that it would return, Zargyod waved his left hand; the tide went out and, indeed, did not return. Thereafter Zargyod allowed the tide to come and go, but not in any predictable pattern, causing hardship for the people of the city as it made the import of food enormously difficult. Eventually those who worked the docks learned that the lords of the city were wagering on whether the tide would return on any given day and reacted by staging work stoppages which required the lords themselves to come down to the waterfront and unload ships. When they arrived, Zargyod caused an unusually high tide which drowned many of them and left the remainder chastened and wary of the power of the god.
The myth is notable for its links to other areas of ZArgyod-related lore including the association of the left hand with magic (Morogyad is said to have conducted his miracles with his left hand), and for the fact that the lord's objections to the worship of the god closely anticipate those raised in the Fifth Wesmodian Invective.

Divine portfolio

Zargyod was a god of luck and fortune, a patron of speculators, widely worshipped as a god of commerce. More broadly, he was a god of knowledge and causality who had close conceptual and liturgical links with Ynglyas and her cult, and was thought to be the patron of philosophers, tutors and bureaucrats as well.
Given Zargyod's origins in maritime superstition, he was also the patron of sailors and a god of the sea, by which connection fish became thought of as symbols of good luck in some cities. Small shrines to him were common in the dock districts of most settlements. With these tending to be rather rough, lively parts of the city, Zargyod also became a god of thieves, beggars, gamblers and scapegraces - figures, in short, who live by their wits and luck.
The original emergence of Zargyod as a face on metal medallions also gave him an abiding association with metalworking, especially of coloured and precious metals such as copper and gold. Practitioners of those skills tended to revere him highly; his cult benefitted considerably from partnerships with them, and continued to do so after the Reformation.

Worship

The worship of Zargyod took three distinct forms, that practiced by sailors, the popular superstitions surrounding the god on land, and the organised public cult.
Sailors worshiped Zargyod mostly aboard their ships. Many ships in the pre-Wesmodian era incorporated shrines to the god, either below or (less commonly) on deck. The centrepieces of these shrines were statuettes of the god, typically depicting him as a short, portly, smiling man and wrought in coloured metal such as brass or bronze. The manufacture of these statuettes was seen as a prestigious pursuit among the relevant artisans, and they were considered in some areas to be an essential component of the outfitting of a ship. During the Mast Wars a draw-out campaign between Pholyos and Ramoros ran for as long as it did primarily because it took place during a copper shortage, making it difficult to outfit new warships with these idols, and no planner in either city seems to have expected their seamen to sail without them. These idols were the subject of veneration via regimes of rituals, hymns, musical practices, genuflections, recitations and superstitions. Many of the shanties and work chants sung in the Sea of Jars are likely descended from or related to devotions to Zargyod; in some cases the connection remains quite explicit. So too are the sailor's dances common on many ships, particularly those that sail from Ramoros and Loros. Rituals involving small sacrifices - often a daily ration, or the first spoonful of each crewman's ration - being tossed overboard were also common. Other ships marked the change of watch with specific genuflections and the recitations of short devotional slogans; those observed in the navy of Pholyos are specifically recorded. Other rituals or prayers were also observed when beginning specific shipboard activities such as fishing or repairs. Superstitions about what might happen if these devotions were neglected proliferated, and are likely the origin of the tales of Ghost ships on the sea. In most cases sailors were of the opinion that Zargyod accompanied them on their ships and looked after them, and deserved to be looked after in return; most ship's masters honoured this tradition, at least publicly.
On shore Zargyod was often worshiped in the stews of the cities, where small shrines to him existed and, indeed, can still be found if the observer knows what they are looking for. Such shrines did not have idols - presumably because theft would have been an issue - but did centre around depictions of the god, typically bas-reliefs scored into stone surfaces, mostly found adjacent to current or defunct lavoirs or impluvia around the docks and (less commonly) slums of the cities. These facilities often hosted small communities of carp, gestures to Zargyod's capacity as the god of fortune. His link to fresh water is not especially clear, though it has been suggested that devotees may have visited these shrines to symbolically wash away guilt or bad luck. Large numbers of small coins are to be found in the bodies of water with which these shrines are associated, perhaps suggesting that they served as wishing wells of a sort, with devotees paying in advance for good luck, or perhaps venues of small, private sacrificial rituals in which devotees gave the god his share of their revenues. Also found in a few such sites are small metal tablets - a few inches square - inscribed with pleas for good luck for the inscriber or bad luck for others. Not all of these pleas are directed to Zargyod; some address Ynglyas and others Maryas. Others still, intriguingly, are written in the code of Ynglyas, or invoke unknown entities with names found nowhere else in the literature of the Cities, or cannot be translated at all. Such records indicate a degree of education that few researchers credit of the inhabitants of the neighborhoods where the shrines are found; the code of Ynglyas, for example, is said to have required multiple years of full-time study by already-literate students. Quite what such tablets represent remains an interesting question but they bespeak a perception of Zargyod - as an interventionist agent of fortune - consistent with that evidently held by sailors.
The official public cult of Zargyod was found in every city, though not at all, it seems, in any regions of the hinterland. The priesthood - kept exclusively male for unclear reasons - was broadly and internationally organised, with clerics liaising with colleagues in different cities by regular correspondence. Most such clerics were organised in hierarchies in which each level was named after a different metal, though only in Pholyos, Dypholyos and Chogyos were these ranks standardised from one city to another - they were, from highest to lowest, Lead, Tin, Iron, Copper, Silver and Gold. Sumptuary laws laid out, in exhausting detail, the livery of each rank, including the number of medallions a priest could wear and what proportion of his dress robes could be orange (a colour of ritual significance to the god). This system, it has been noted, was similar in its fundamentals to the spottily-attested rank system of the priesthood of Dahan, though it is unclear whether there is any direct inspiration between the two faiths. In any case debates over precise seniority between temples was apparently actively discouraged within the priesthood, who were keen on maintaining international relations and, above all, facilitating trade between cities. Indeed, though the priests were obviously involved in a monthly cycle of public rituals calling for good favour for their respective cities - recorded in the Chogyan Book of Favour, known to have circulated beyond its home port - the chief purpose of the cult was to coordinate and facilitate trade. The temples served as banks, offering loans and purchasing shares in business ventures. Most at some stage or other had their own merchant fleets. As such, although the temples were open in much the same way as those of Ajqyod and Ynglyas, they invariably spawned fortified treasuries with well-equipped guards, while the priests lived conspicuously luxurious lifestyles. The plump, tonsured priest of Zargyod (tonsures being common practice in most cities) was a figure of fun in many cities, but also revered for their importance to the city and respected for their wealth and influence.

Wesmodian Reformation

The public cult of Zargyod is the subject of the Sixth Wesmodian Invective. Wesmod takes a similar position on this cult that he did on the cult of Pergyad, carefully pointing out that he has no objection to trade and praising those who undertake it for the material benefits they bring to their communities. From that starting point, however, he launches into a similar critique of the mysticism surrounding the business that he does when discussing fire in the fourth invective; this is something humans make, do, and can control, except in cases of rashness or incompetence. Here he uses the existing public cult, with its functions as a bank and a venture capital fund, as an example of a well-run and constructive commercial enterprise. Given its successes as such, he argues, the cult does a disservice to its functionaries by attributing its successes to the irrational magic (Wesmod's term) worked by the senior clerics. Indeed, he argues, the cult should surely give up its ritualism and focus on the secular business it is so demonstrably good at.
Scholars have suggested that there are some deeper criticisms implied here, and one with a mind to do so can interpret Wesmod's politeness as invective, subtly accusing the cult of simony and corruption, though if this is the case the point seems to have been lost on many contemporary clerics of Zargyod. Reception of the Invectives within the cult was initially divided. Some evidently regarded them as arrant nonsense, barely worth dignifying with comment. Within some of the largest temples - notably those in Tyros and Pholyos - however, the Invectives were taken as an intriguing comment on the state of religion in general and their practices in particular. It is believed that the first export of the book from Wesmod's native Tyros was in fact undertaken by the temple of Zargyod in that city, to neighboring Pholyos, so that the senior staff of the temples of the two cities could compare notes. Considerable debate appears to have followed, with individual clerics occupying disparate positions on the appropriate response to these critiques. What appears to have happened is that, over a century or so of conclaves, rationalisations, correspondence and reform, the various temples increasingly put aside their ritualistic trappings and took to functioning more or less in the way Wesmod suggested, as banks and trade guilds rather than as religious institutions. The fine detail of this reformation, how hot the debates were, and which temples or cities may have been trailblazers or holdouts in this debate, appears sadly to be lost to history; none of the original correspondence or records appear to survive and what historical discussion exists was written by outsiders some decades after the fact. It is within the bounds of possibility that some contemporary letters or documents may come to light, though to date searches of the archives of the various Commercial Guilds has yet to turn up anything.

Current state of cult

See also: Commercial Guilds
One of the abiding peculiarities of the Wesmodian Reformation is that the cult that capitulated most thoroughly and peacefully to Wesmod's influence is the one that actually reformed itself the least. The Commercial Guilds operate, in most cases, from offices housed in buildings that were once temples of Zargyod and trace their institutional memory back to the local priesthoods of the god that existed at in the century or two after the Reformation. The chambers in which public rituals to Zargyod were once performed are now used for a variety of secular purposes. In Chogyos the local aristocracy handed over complete control of the governance of the city to the Guilds, the better to devote themselves to the cultural pursuits on which they pride themselves, turning the former temple into the city's central seat of government. In most cities these spaces are bustling venues for commercial discussion where merchants can buy and sell consignments of goods either present in the port or expected to be in the future. Officers of the Guilds facilitate this work, often providing financing to keep the winds of trade blowing. A great proportion of the shipping on the Sea of Jars begins with discussions in these halls. In Tyros, indeed, the public space of the temple has become a shipping exchange where bureaucrats dicker over shares and percentages of profits of voyages. The Guilds politely claim their shares of the profits of these ventures, which have made the organisation collectively very wealthy. This has led to extensive renovation and embellishment of the temples of Zargyod, some of which bear only passing resemblances to their origins as houses of worship. This complicates the study of these places, but as the officials who oversee this undertaking seldom fail to point out, the creation of wealth was always their central purpose.
The metalworker's markets of Dyqamay and Loros are of particular interest to thaumatologists as the armourers of those cities are famous for their production of unique alloys with properties that border on the supernatural. Dyqamay watered steel is famed for its startling beauty and preternatural ability to take and hold an edge, properties that swiftly deteriorate if the blades manufactured from it are reforged by smiths anywhere else (a taxing process), while Dyqamay silver is renowned for its extraordinary sheen and capacity to seemingly soak up light and release it later. Loros brass can be worked into wires and sheets of extraordinary fineness and regularity, making it a sought-after structural material for optical instruments and some art forms, while Loros steel is so resilient that no natural heat appears to be able to soften it, meaning that whatever is made of it must be made in the city itself. The manufacture of these products are closely guarded secrets among the metalworking guilds of both cities. This is not to say the guilds are not prepared to explain their methods; indeed, the standing institutional policy is that they will explain it to anyone who is interested. But expressions of interest must take the form of joining the guilds and advancing to a sufficient seniority therein to have the methods of forging these metals explained in full - a process that takes years, obligates the investigator to a great deal of taxing study and labor, involves multiple oaths of obedience and involves paying exorbitant fees. As yet the secret of these virtually magical materials has remained within the institutions, though thaumatologists continue to experiment with ways of reverse-engineering the technologies.
The same is true of the chemist's guild of Dypholyos, which currently stand among some of the most skilled and secretive potion-makers in the world. Much of the current research into potion-making is based on what little can be determined from analysing and reverse-engineering the output of this guild in relation to other sources of reputed concoctions, so far with only scattered success, a point not helped by the secrecy in which thaumatologists tend to conduct their work. The chemists of Dypholyos epitomise such secrecy, being rather less disingenuous than their metal-working cousins to the east; the guild makes no secret of having murdered interlopers and overly talkative members in order to safeguard their professional secrets. Having said that, they are happy to consider applications for membership. Becoming a full member of the guild a gruelling process, but one with potentially tremendous benefits.
Both the metalworkers and the chemists quickly refute any suggestion that their unique products are the result of any ongoing worship of Zargyod. Rumours to the contrary circulate, though precisely why is unclear since such worship would not be as salacious or intriguing a possibility as the ongoing reverence of deities such as Krezzan or Maryas. The possibility of witnessing rituals to any god in the tradition being performed in earnest is an interesting one for many thaumatologists, however, and there has long been talk of particular bands of pirates, based on islands in the Sea of Jars, who continue to worship Zargyod. Little proof of this exists, but the rumors persist and make sense given that secular practices and traditions descended from the worship of Zargyod remain widespread among mariners both honest and dishonest. Although the Chogyosian Book of Favour records the city's devotions to Zargyod in great detail, but this is only one city's regime of rituals and obviously not a living tradition. Thaumatologists continue to search for these "reverent pirates" in order to study them, though usually more in hope than expectation.