不死者神系Undeath Pantheon

索引：【神与类神总录】

索引：【黑暗族裔诸神】

## **2e<Monster Mythology.p109>前言Introduction**

　　在所有游戏世界和神系都有它们的人类战争、死亡、谋杀和冲突之神，在这里则描述了许多非人类对应存在，这些黑暗与阴影的核心存在同样漫步于诸位面。异常恶毒和邪恶的他们，其化身和存在出没于许多世界中。巫妖、鬼婆、吸血鬼、兽化人——这些存在将恐惧注入几乎所有生物的心中，而他们的神明（其中大部分）也同样的可怕和恐怖。他们并不像他们的臣民那样存在，但他们的目的非常一致：活物的毁灭与随之而来对黑暗力量的献祭——他们便是通过获取这样的生命茁壮成长。这些存在是可怕的，但关于他们的晦涩奥秘仍然有着一种奇特的魅力。

While all game worlds and pantheons have their human gods of war, death, murder and strife, and while many nonhuman equivalents have been described here already, a dark and shadowy core of beings also stalks the planes. Exceptionally wicked and evil, they infest many worlds with their avatars and presences. Liches, hags, vampires, lycanthropes—these beings strike fear into the hearts of almost all living creatures, and their gods are likewise fearsome and terrible (for the most part). They did not come into existence in the same way as their subjects, but their purposes are much the same：the destruction of living things and their subsequent sacrifice to dark forces which thrive on taking such life. Terrible these beings are, and yet there are obscure mysteries about them which have a strange fascination.

　　在所有这些存在中，最离奇的传说当属 巫妖王the Lich-Lord 蜜花Mellifleur。蜜花是位古代法师，他准确地为自己通往不死生物的魔法道路作好了准备，并同样以极大的细心忠实地制定了魔法仪式。他不知道的是：有位邪恶主神——在不同版本的神话中，来自于不同的神系——正好要通过神性的飞升，来擢升一位凡人祭司成为半神。神明魔法的反流与蜜花的仪式产生了共鸣，这位法师取而代之成为了一位半神。因此，巫妖王是借由错误、借由一场辉煌的讽刺诞生的。灵吸怪贤者们有这个传说的一个与众不同的版本，宣称该事件涉及了诸神的集体推动，以至于几位不同世界的邪神全都在同一时间进行了相同的操作，而他们联合起来的魔法效果，被召唤和转化，不只是将蜜花擢升到了神性状态，还让他到了弱等神地位。这将解释为什么在 灰鹰战役GREYHAWK® campaign，据说是 奈落Nerull 创造了蜜花；在 托瑞尔星球Toril，他们说是 班恩Bane 所为，而在其它世界，其祂黑暗的名讳则被援引。一件确定无疑的事实是：为了幸存，他已让他的化身去阻挠创造他的黑暗神祇来免得自己被削弱，以及避免这位邪神将自己俘获并吸取神力。巫妖王必须阻挠某些邪恶才能存活。据说，有时候某些中立善良的神祇会在特定的情况下实质上援助了他，以避免强大神的更大邪恶获胜。邪恶与邪恶交战，而善良加以援助以维持他们的分裂！

Of all these beings, the most extraordinary tale is that of Mellifleur, the Lich-Lord. Mellifleur was an ancient wizard who had faithfully prepared his magical road to undeath, and dutifully enacted the magical rituals with great care. What he did not know was that a major god of evil—who varies from pantheon to pantheon in different versions of this myth—was just about to raise a mortal priest to become a demigod through divine ascension. A great backwash of god-magic resonated with Mellifleur's rituals, and the wizard became a demigod instead. Thus the Lich-Lord came into being by mistake, a glorious irony. Illithid sages have an extraordinary variant of this tale, claiming that the event involved a collective impulse among the gods themselves, so that several evil gods in different worlds were all carrying out the same operation at the same time, and their combined magical effects, summed and transformed, raised Mellifleur not just to deity status but to the status of a lesser god. This would certainly explain why in the GREYHAWK® campaign, Nerull is said to be the deity who created Mellifleur; in Toril, they say Bane, and in other worlds, other dark names are invoked. One thing is for certain：to survive, Mellifleur has to have his avatars oppose the actions of the dark deity who created him, lest his own being be diminished and the evil god recapture and absorb Melliflear's power. The Lich-Lord must oppose certain evils to survive. On occasion, it is said, some deities of neutral good in particular actually aid him, to avoid the greater evil of the greater god triumphing. Evil fights evil, aided by good to maintain division!

　　如果说蜜花是令人惊奇的，那么 永恒的吸血鬼长老the Eternal Elder Vampire 坎切尔希斯Kanchelsis 则是个绝望的秘密。这位通常采用半精灵的面相的神祇，据说 席德瑞恩诸神the Seldarine 集体的鲜血与某位人类的造物神明的鲜血混合中诞生。这些来源所形成的血液本身，被期望成为维护诸世界生命的一种创造性力量。但在一些可怕的魔法事故中，一种嗜血而贪婪的事物诞生了。鲜血取得了自己的生命、采取了物质、肉躯的形态。于是坎切尔希斯的黑暗降临了此处，逃到了 焦炎地狱Gehenna。关于诸神之血的力量的神话有许多，但没有哪个如这个可怕——也没有哪个如这个隐秘。席德瑞恩诸神自己永远不会谈论它。为什么他们崇高的动机会带来如此可怕的结局，而确切地说他们期望从他们的工作中得到什么，都是未知的；理所当然的是，某些强大而原始的邪恶监视了他们的工作，并在他们仪式的关键时刻破坏了它。

If Mellifleur's origin is extraordinary, that of Kanchelsis, the Eternal Elder Vampire, is a desperate secret. Often taking half- elven aspect, the deity is said to have been born of the collective blood of the Seldarine, mingled with that of a human creator- god. Blood itself, from such sources, was intended as a creative force to maintain the life of worlds. But in some dreadful and magical accident, a bloodsucking, ravening thing was born. Blood took on its own life, took corporeal, fleshy form. And the darkness of Kanchelsis came into the planes and fled to Gehenna. There are many myths of the power of the blood of the gods, but none as terrible as this—and none so hidden. The Seldarine themselves will never speak of it. How their noble intentions came to such a hideous end, and exactly what they intended from their work, are both unknown; surely some great and primal evil must have spied on their work and corrupted their rituals at a crucial instant.

　　于是，吸血鬼和巫妖的君主都以某种方式起源于错误；当他们进行毁灭破坏时，可不存在任何的幽默和毁灭。卡姬卢娜Cegilune，这位邪恶的月球女神是鬼婆、妖鬼婆和诸世界的类似堕落族裔的守护神，则非如此。她被认为与森林神祇、据说是 泰坦妮亚Titania 的一位黑暗姐妹相关，她与泰坦妮亚的本性如光明与黑暗一般不可逆地冲突，但没有彼此却也不能存在。人们（甚至是某些神祇）广泛地相信，当女神中的一位消亡，另一位也将自动消亡；所以善良诸神的双手被绑在了这位与他们相对的、哈迪斯Hades 的邪恶老太婆和她对灵魂的永恒饥渴上。这种关系不可能是全部的真相，因为泰坦妮亚已知的黑暗姐妹是 空暗女王the Queen of Air and Darkness，但这位黑暗鬼婆与公正的 妖精女王Faerie Queen 之间必定存在一些联系。卡姬卢娜被森林生物视为黑暗中的可怕潜行者，即便是鬼婆们自己对于也对她们的女神没有热爱。她们恐惧着她的贪婪与婪沓，相信她将会把她们应得的战利品夺走。

So the origins of the lords of vampires and liches were both errors, in a way; not that there is any humor or lightness to be found in that when their depredations are considered. But not so Cegilune, an evil lunar goddess who is patron deity of the hags, annises, and similar fell folk of the worlds. She is believed to be related to the sylvan deities, allegedly a dark sister to Titania, their natures being irrevocably opposed as are light and darkness, yet neither can exist without the other. It is widely believed, even by some deities, that should either goddess perish, the other will automatically perish also; so the gods of good have their hands tied in opposing the evil mistress of Hades and her eternal hunger for souls. This relation cannot be the whole truth, because of Titania's known dark sister the Queen of Air and Darkness, but there is definitely some relation between the dark hag and the fair Faerie Queen. Cegilune is seen by the sylvan beings as a fearsome stalker in darkness, and even hags themselves have no love of their goddess. They fear her greed and avarice, believing that she will take from them the spoils which are rightly theirs.