There’s not a lot happening right here at this time, however Ang and I’ve a brand new episode of THAC0 with Benefit out, speaking about adventuring on the Planes. That is impressed, in no small half, by my present Thursday night time marketing campaign, the place the PCs have presently traveled down the Styx to the area of the god Set.
Set has an attention-grabbing historical past in D&D. Formally, he’s obtained a site within the 9 Hells, being one of many few deities to hang around there and get together with the diabolical hierarchy. These of us dwelling right here in modernity are likely to overly simplify deities and to take away among the symbolic features of the tales surrounding them. Set dismembering his brother didn’t do a lot to get him forged as something aside from a villain.
Moreover, Howard’s Conan tales have been fairly influential on the early D&D designers and creators. Set within the Conan tales borrows a reputation from the Egyptian deity, and is related to Stygia, the pre-Egyption tradition of Hyperborea, however Howard’s Set is even much less nuanced than the Egyptian deity and is just about only a straight-up demon lord of snakes.
On prime of all of this, Jennell Jaquays and another individuals working within the D&D milieu, if not inside TSR, additionally leaned closely on Set as a stand-in for almost any evil deity you would possibly wish to embrace. Jaquays’ Set pulls from Egyptian mythology greater than Howard’s snake demon, but it surely nonetheless contributes to the D&D custom of Set = Dangerous.
One thing I have to look into that pursuits me: Deities & Demigods and Legends & Lore from AD&D 1e included an entry for Minions of Set, which I’ve by no means actually been capable of verify comes from any precise story related to the god. Principally, they’re simply creatures devoted to the god that may shift into completely different types of animals sacred to Set. Whereas I can’t discover any historic data, Jennell Jaquays’ Darkish Tower does embrace Minions of Set, that are . . . creatures devoted to Set that may flip into snakes (one of many kinds that the D&D minions can have, together with cave bears, crocodiles, hyenas, or scorpions).
So now I’m questioning if this inclusion was as a result of reputation of Darkish Tower as an journey if it was one thing coordinated with Jaquays (who did among the art work within the ebook, notably the Newhon characters), or only a “we will make one thing known as a Minion of Set and you’ll’t cease us as a result of it’s not like after we used Balrog, Hobbit, or Ent.”
Now that I’ve been inconclusively musing about Set in D&D, I’ll simply say, please take pleasure in at this time’s THAC0 with Benefit. We respect all the listeners!
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