Soddan

Soddan is a place mentioned in A Pirate's Tale.

## The Legend

Far beneath the seas is a terrible netherworld called Soddan. It lies below Davy Jones Lockers and was created by the Leviathon, an enormous, hideous sea serpent.

The well known Davy Jones is the odious spawn of the revolting coupling between Leviathon and The Kraken.  As a youngster its form was impermanent, made of an ooze-like substance that was constantly shifting. Back then it had never met a human and knew nothing of the human form.

This changed when one day it heard a strange sound coming from inside a whale. The youngster entered the whale and found a distrought creature, a human, who had been trapped inside and who was praying over and over for deliverance. This human’s name was Jonah. The youngster stayed inside with this Jonah and learned all it could about him and his people, including human languange. It was fascinated by Jonah, in love with him and changed its form to mimic the man. It gave itself the name Jones after Jonah. It wished to go to with Jonah to the land above, and thus agreed to release Jonah from the whale by guiding the whale to a city on the shore, where the whale vomited Jonah and Davy Jones out. However, upon trying to enter the human city of Nivenah, Davy Jones was attacked by the townspeople, led by Jonah himself. Hurt and betrayed, Davy Jones fled back into the sea.

Davy Jones raised an army of hideous sea creatures and assaulted Nivenah. They caused great damage but were ultimately rebuked. They simply could not win a war waged upon the land. Davy went back to the sea and sulked.

Although bitter, he remained obsessed with human creatures and desired to create a underwater land where he could bring them. He build up strange, garish town at the bottom of the sea and lured numerous humans down, but they all died. He realized he needed a way to trap their souls.

He went to his father, the great Leviathon, and implored him for help. Promises were made and a deal was struck. Leviathon built a large and terrible land in an immense underwater pit at the bottom of the ocean, which traps forever all human souls who are sucked into its vortex. Once trapped down there, they spend a woeful eternity, often serving as Davy Jones’ playthings or lovers, occasionally carrying out the schemes of Leviathon on the few occasions when it wakes. They are at times conscripted into going above to lure more humans down. Some say that the longer a soul is down there, the less human it becomes and the more tentacles it grows and the more of a gelatinous likeness it takes on.

Davy Jones didn’t nt actually take the name Davy until the 16th century when he had a number of affairs with living pirates on the surface. It is rumored he took the name Davy during a dalliance with Sir John Hawkins. This ignited a taste for congress with living buccaneers and in his many affairs it is rumored some of them would sacrifice tributes to Jones and his ever expanding Pit Of Soddan, often with the promise that Jones wouldn’t in turn take them if they should die on sea. Jones for the most part held to this bargain, but it is said that he was so in love with Charlotte de Berry that he took her soul to Soddan when she died because he could not bear to part with her. This naturally upset her to no end, and she impaled Davy Jones and managed to escape. Jones pursued her relentlessly but she knew where to find the Finfolk, a group of mermaid like sorcerers. She hid with them as they owed her a bounty from a favor she had done them while living. Jones was foolish enough to attack them and began a war. Soddan was at one point assaulted but each side could not be defeated on its home ground and so the war ended in a stalemate. No one knows what became of Charlotte but whatever happened, she is the one known soul to escape Soddan.

There are some lucky souls who are allowed to roam the land above because they are proven “recruiters”. They send a small but steady stream of new souls down to Soddan and are thus allowed to dwell above.  How they accomplish this is unknown. Perhaps they give false directions to ships, sending them to fatal access points. Perhaps they make secret deals with ill intentioned land dwellers looking to rid themselves of hated rivals or take revenge. Perhapd they simply befriend and murder unsuspected shore dwellers and use arcane rituals to send their souls downward.

A few have said mermaids originate in Soddan, but this is entirely untrue. They are a seperate species who sprang off an evolutionary branch from humanity about 150,000 years ago due to couplings with Grindylows.