Mallia before joining the Unholy Trio

[Joerg]

A suggested correction by @M Helsdon made me look up Mallia mythology, and it isn't all that clear-cut when she stopped being an entity of dark fertility and immunity to disease and when she became the source of diseases.

Cults of Terror (and Cults Compendium) presents Mallia as the corrupted member of the Unholy Trio and sort of suggests that this had always been the case. Cult Compendium p.255:

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Mallia grew from the Darkness, in the waste and destruction of the Gods War. She found nourishment and life amid the fallen foes, the wreckage and destruction, and the blood of everything that died in that age. She became a corruption of Death itself, tainted and degraded from the swift brightness which Humakt and Orlanth used, becoming a lingering and festering dimness. As beings fell before her, she became fearful that her food would completely fail, and she changed the way she ate, from lightning plagues which depopulated entire nations to the spread of slow death by disease, so that the misery she caused would last forever, as befitted a goddess.

This is clearly Mallia after Death had entered the world. Everything stated here is correct for her career during the Lesser and Greater Darkness. But when did she surface, or what did she do in the Golden Age?

The best source I found so far is Heortling Mythology, which support's Martin's suggested changes to the text (p.103):

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Mallia was born a child of the Darkness, a spirit of healing with great properties to aid growth and birth. Like all shadows, she grew in the Darkness, but she soon grew jealous of those greater than herself. When death came, she discovered nourishment within the wreckage and destruction of the Gods War. Thus, Mallia became a corruption of Death itself, a spiritual engine of destruction, tainted, and degraded from the swift brightness which Orlanth and Humakt used.

So her path to mistress of Disease preceded her joining the Unholy Trio.

 

Here's a snippet from the Yelm cult which is a bit problematic to place in the Gods Age: (source Cult Compendium p.243)

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Yelm received the title of Healer when once he came upon Mallia, goddess of disease, as she festered and infected a corner of the world. Yelm’s healing brightness drove the foul goddess away into deep places where she eventually found Chaos to aid her.

This suggests that Mallia walked the surface world before Yelm was slain, or that this deed of Antirius went over to the parent cult.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Joerg

[jeffjerwin]

I think Yelm's deed doesn't make a lot of sense unless it is Antirius, or it was one of the actions that took place as his soul plunged into the Underworld. She could hardly have turned to corruption before the first murder and the Darkness, unless this happened in a sort of awful moment (or God-time?). However, the reference seems to be to the healing power of sunlight versus infection, which is likely to be an aspect of heat and day rather than Lightfore...

[soltakss]

Mallia as a Darkness Spirit doesn't mean that she came to the surface after Yelm's Death. Sure, a lot of Darkness Spirits came to the surface with the trolls after yelm invaded Wonderhome, but Mallia could well have come to the surface before that.

 

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Yelm received the title of Healer when once he came upon Mallia, goddess of disease, as she festered and infected a corner of the world. Yelm’s healing brightness drove the foul goddess away into deep places where she eventually found Chaos to aid her.

Could just be part of Yelm's ordering and naming of the world.  He drove off Umatum who was creating Disorder and Storm through the world, sent the Rebel Gods into the Underworld where they were locked away, etc.  Corruption or disease likely arose at the end of the Green Age along with Hunger (e.g. unchecked growth or fertility creating beings blighted in some manner, the identification of ugliness vs. beauty or perfection vs. imperfection).  It wasn't yet deadly or chaotic, but things could become diseased I think.

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, soltakss said:

Mallia as a Darkness Spirit doesn't mean that she came to the surface after Yelm's Death. Sure, a lot of Darkness Spirits came to the surface with the trolls after yelm invaded Wonderhome, but Mallia could well have come to the surface before that.

True, her getting envious puts her into Umath's camp (and possibly into Umath's Camp, too, and into stories like about the Imperial Gazellet). But her feeding off Death and becoming a corruption of the clean separation of Humakt clearly puts that part of her career into the Storm Age, when Yelm was in Hell.

 

5 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Could just be part of Yelm's ordering and naming of the world.  He drove off Umatum who was creating Disorder and Storm through the world, sent the Rebel Gods into the Underworld where they were locked away, etc.  Corruption or disease likely arose at the end of the Green Age along with Hunger (e.g. unchecked growth or fertility creating beings blighted in some manner, the identification of ugliness vs. beauty or perfection vs. imperfection).  It wasn't yet deadly or chaotic, but things could become diseased I think.

Even though the Golden Age supposedly was an utopia, there was a goddess of Healing already, but Kargan Tor also was there guarding a Power that wasn't fully realized.

And I keep remaining surprised how early in the Dara Happan timeline of the Golden Age Umath was born. Unfortunately they don't give a date for his invasion of the Sky (as far as I remember).

[Pentallion]

I've read somewhere official but I can't remember where that Mallia had her diseases from the get go, but was not evil, just feared and misunderstood and thus lonely.  Subere understood her, however, and put her to use guarding the great secret that was death.  But she was later tricked or seduced into failing her duty.  I wish I remembered better.  There's more with Vivamort and trickster etc.  I cant remember the details anymore.

[Charles]

From Storm Tribe, so not necessarily canon. Page 42: Mallia became evil and part or her, now named Pranjala, pulled away and joined Chalana Arroy.

[Tindalos]

She's also described in the Book of Heortling Mythology (158)