Gunung Dewi (gu.nuŋ de.wi OR ʔuˈnuŋ ˈteβi)

"And when you gaze upon the mountain, say my name in your heart, so that I may hear you and be called back to the waking world."

— Rangdayan, in her instructions to the Utkrośa before her physical death

Gunung Dewi is the highest point on the island of Gili, and one of the highest mountains in the Great Ring. The mountain is home to the oldest Jatayu communities in the world, and stands at the very heart of their culture.

When the Empire of Muria sought to arrest Rangdayan and put a halt to her experiments, she fled into the wilderness and hid on the island now known as Gili. She took her most loyal creations with her, and they established a small community on the shores of Tlālkulaya, a crater lake near the peak of Gunung Dewi. This settlement is called Kīlārapakṣa, and is where Rangdayan lived the remainder of her life. It is here that the Utkrośa ancestors hid from both Muria and the Clarati, and it is here that their culture was born.

Notable Spirits

When Rangdayan was nearing the end of her life, she planned for her own Apotheosis. Her understanding of the Egregoric Force exceeds anyone else in the world, then and now, and she knew how to prime her Utkrośa to worship her in a way that made her ascension to divinity highly likely. When she was reborn as a goddess, she anchored herself to the great volcano where her followers lived, and has been a part of the island itself ever since.

However, the Rangdayan of Gunung Dewi is not quite the person she was before Apotheosis. All records indicate that in life, she was a monster and a maker of monsters. Her creations gave great power to Muria and crushed their opponents, but were so destructive and cruel that even her own people turned on her. Her legend was so great that the Phaṇin remembered it millennia later, when they learned that she had survived and ascended into a goddess.

But this was never the face of Rangdayan presented to the Utkrośa. To her, she was the Egg-Maker, the creator of their species, and they had been crafted to love and honor her above all. During the years between her death and her ascension, their beliefs and attitudes reshaped the Eidolon of Rangdayan into the shape they imagined her to be (as all gods are shaped by the Egregoric Force). While anchoring upon the mountain has given Rangdayan more resistance to the power of collective belief, she is still shaped and molded by what living people think about her.

So, when the Phaṇin learned the great and terrible Rangdayan had survived and ascended, they revived many ancient and terrible stories about her. They were more numerous than the Jatayu, and the fear of Rangdayan spread like a plague throughout their population, creating a counter-pressure to the Jatayu beliefs about their Egg-Maker. Over time, this pushed Rangdayan towards the creation of monsters again, and she released a Kmapaktili against the Phaṇin community on Gili's coast. This terror led to more tales, and more monsters. The Jatayu attempted to drive the Phaṇin away, but could do nothing to stop them from believing the worst of their goddess, who continues to steadily transform under the pressure of their nightmares.

Geography

Gunung Dewi is an active volcano located near the center of Gili, and is the highest point in Kanluranan. A large crater lake is located nearly seven thousand feet up its slope, and is the center of the Jatayu habitation of the area. The mountainside is heavily forested, as are the other mountains that surround Gunung Dewi. The volcano has not erupted in over seven hundred years, but there are still signs of seismic activity below the surface.

Type

Volcano

Location under

Gili

Last Erupted

3217 (768 years ago)

Geographic Details

Location: Southwestern Region
Latitude: 21.86 degrees North
Longitude: 33.35 degrees West
Elevation: 12,228 ft

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