Tales of the Amalgam'verse: Beast of the Sea, Part 1 · 5:52am Apr 5th, 2018
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Terra, 10,000 BCE
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The Time of the Ancients was long since dead. The great kingdoms, oligarchies, republics, and city states had been over for six hundred centuries, their cities left to crumble away to dust and ash without the mana to hold them together. The most of the great beasts of the epics, both of magical origin and resurrected from the past had both died off due to miniscule mana stores and shifting climates. The dragons reverted to crocodiles, the oni to men, and most of the saurians of old; outside of their native ranges, were largely unable to cope to the weather that housed the mammoth, sabretooth, and giant elk. Even those beasts of woolly fur and great mass were too dying away in the dynamically changing world. Some stubborn holdouts would endure for thousands more years. A herd of mammoth in the north islands, an oni king would later rule the woods of death, and some might even persist into the modern day. But one thing was certain, for the last 60,000 years, nothing was ever the same again. What was once a part of life was becoming legend, and man was largely left alone to trying to decipher the world around them.
Man always looked to the unconquerable as deities. Perhaps out of awe to them, perhaps in hopes of winning a power’s favor, or perhaps to try and be like them. A storm, lightning, volcanoes, tsunamis, a mountain. Or on this island, a demon-beast from the sea.
They couldn’t fight it. Spears bounced off it’s hide. Nets broke and were split by its clawed grip. House and boat were shattered in a twitch of the head or stomp of the foot. It came at night, during storms. And so they thought the storm was part of it.
They couldn’t fight it. They couldn’t tame it. They couldn’t kill it.
But they could pay tribute.
The hurricane was already roaring by the time the hollow wood bells were beat. Thunder cracked as the party walked up the sacred pass to the sea cliff, letting their instruments wave from the holding staffs they were hitched to. Held aloft like banners of oath, the wind, the very storm around them beat the rhythm as it thrashed the bells about. They took it as the god the sea enacting its song. The shaman, adorned in primitive robes and as well as a carved and painted skull of a bear, lead the group through torch light and chant. His bellowing voice cried out over the gales and hurricane, pleading for passage in their pilgrimage of tribute.
They advanced up the cleared pass to the cliffs, between a gap in the high mountains. Lightning ripped across the sky and the wind roared. Finally they reached the edge of the cliff, some of the stronger men hauling a raft upon their shoulders. It was lowered upon the edge of the short cliff, the crowd dividing as a young woman brought herself forward to the stone altar. Beautifully decorated in ochre paints and bead work, the shaman guided her to the raft as her handmaidens brought forth several baskets of the skant fish.
The fishing had been scarce as of late, this was to satiate that problem. If given tribute, the king of the sea would permit the hunting of his game.
A great bonfire was built and ignited as the handmaidens tied the virgin to the raft set upon the altar. The pilgrims thought they heard something over the storm. Time was short, or else their host would take offense and enact his wrath. The seas roared below, responded to by the bellowing shaman who cried out to the lord of the seas. After a brief pause, the shaman turned to briefly console his granddaughter. But before many words could slip from the elder’s lips, her look silenced him. The wind buffed her hair in all directions, briefly masking and then revealing her stoic face in the firelight. She gave him only a small nod and closed her eyes, the reflective trickle of a tear being her only break in strength. It was her or the whole village, and she was too selfless. The poor old man couldn’t bear to look at her, only turning around and roaring to his audience to begin the chant.
Bonfire beating behind them, the shaman lead the villagers in prostrating and praying at a distance from the altar. Over the crashing waves and cracking thunder, there was a magnificent roar. The virgin gasped and tried to look behind her, but was unable to see clearly due to her angle. Thunder boomed through the ground, footsteps. Something massive had seen the bonfire and was coming closer, approaching the shore cliff from the seaside. The scene carried about in the almost mythic sequence. The tribe of fishermen, hunters, weavers, harvesters, and artisans prostrating in bowing down as a group of holymen and women tended to the fire in an almost séance like song lead by the shaman. The booming footsteps drew closer and the young woman’s breath grew quicker. In the crashes of lightning and thunder above, she witnessed a shadow begin to overtake the edge of the small cliff. Warm breath curled around her.
The shaman reached a new pitch in his chant, holding back sobs.
The loud splitting of the air by a particularly large thunderbolt ensued the roar of the greatest of beasts, this time right behind her. Her scream was met when she finally glimpsed the god, veiled in the eerie glow of the lightning bolts above. In her flurry of consciousness, she saw a skin of coral and jaws lined with stalagmites which gaped like a living cavern. Then with the span of a single thunder crack, she and the raft were gone; replaced by a massive surge of water being thrown up from the sea.
The Odo Islanders would continue their chant for hours as the storm died out, finding the fishing steadily growing good in the following weeks due to the sea god’s blessing. Another sacrifice, one of the purest of virgins and highest of rank, would not be needed for decades. Gojira was not a greedy dragon of the deep.
In truth, they didn’t know the paints and decoration they’d placed upon the sacrifice had more to do with the Godzillasaurus departing back to its native range of Lagos island than any condition of the captive. Finding its meal extremely unpalatable, the dinosaur had been driven off and now that the large predator was missing the fish schools would return.
Oooh, I like! Can't wait for part 2.
Gojira, as in the 2014 incarnation that exists in the Amalgam'verse? For clarification.
So what you're saying is if they sacrificed a pig, goat, or cow covered in the paint it would have the same effect. Though that begs the question of why Big G kept eating them if they taste bad.
4833412
Odo Island and the legend of sacrificing a virgin to Gojira was from the original 1954 Godzilla movie, aka Gojira.
4833431
I am aware of that. It's just the fact that the 2014 incarnation in this verse is dubbed Gojira, and his species are technically named Gojirasaurus, not to mention that this takes place roughly 12,000 years ago which was long before the original Godzilla got nuked at Lagos that has me a little confused.
4833412
For clarity, these were unmutated Gojirasaurs aka Godzillasaurus as seen in Gvs.King Ghidorah. The 2014 creature was named after the legend, with his resemblance to a mutated Godzillasaurus being a coincidence. In other words,-
70,000+ years back, the Godzillasaurus was revived by the ancients and the species survived the Toba catastrophe in the Pacific, chiefly around Lagos island.
12,000 years ago, occasionally a Godzillasaurus would wander to nearby Odo Island to expand its territory, driving off fish and game. The islanders mistake it for a sea dragon or even a god and make a sacrifice. The dinosaur finds it unpalatable and is driven off, the islanders mistaking it for it being sated.
12,000 years ago to 1900, every couple decades a different Godzillasaurus would, trying to expand its territory, wander near Odo Island. Sacrifice is made and cycle repeats.
1945 onwards, Godzilla'2014 is sighted after Hiroshima and named after the Odo island mythology as 'Gojira'.
1954, a mutant Godzillasaurus, Godzilla Senior's father, follows its travels to its Odo island again and destroys part of the village on its way to Japan.
4833430
That's the small tragedy of dramatic irony to it. Due to misunderstanding the nature of what they were confronted with, they kept up the rare sacrifices. As for why they kept being taken, it's because they thought the dinosaur was a singular, immortal sea dragon due to its being beyond explanation and often only being seen at night or at sea. When in reality, it was a different individual every time trying something new and leaving in disgust.
Nicely done. Really helps with world building to show something like this.
So are there still any Godzillasaurs, or are they all extinct?
4833774
If they do still exist, they are critically endangered and extremely rare. I'm still not set down on if they have truly gone functionally extinct or not. If the former, the only ones left are mutations and the only viable female would be Raiga.
4833529
Gracias! I do love me some world building and expansion. There was barely a handful of lines talking about Odo Island's mythology in the original film however some implications can be drawn.
1. Godzilla/Gojira was a reoccurring character in their mythology but not beloved. This implies some natural force might have been acting to reinforce it.
2. When the villagers receive word of Godzilla, they aren't fleeing up the hills; they are charging up it with guns, pitchforks, and weapons. This implies they seem to think they can fight this entity off with modern weapons and the Gojira of their lore was not a kaiju.
3. Odo Island is near the region Lagos island was implied to be in.
Ergo I came up with the idea that in the ancient past, ever so often a Gojirasaurus would migrate away from Lagos (often likely a young male leaving his father's range upon coming of age to find his own territory) came upon Odo Island. This only happened once every decades and often during storm season, which further functioned to mystify the creature. And in a tragic twist what was actually just a normal animal roaming about that was driven off not by some poor soul giving their life, but decorations causing it to think humans taste horrible and leave.
4833850
I just hope InGen decides to clone these Godzillasaurs and move them to Isla Sorna with the other dinosaurs
4833902
Have a real hard time containing them given Godzillasaurs are amphibious and frequently make ventures out to sea. They even have marine adaptations found in some crocodiles, sea snakes, and sea turtles like the ability to drink salt water. To make a nutshell, the HC I have is the genus is a derivative of Ceratosaurus that survived past the Jurassic by exaggerating that ancestor's already developed amphibious habits and adapting to aquatic habitats and living in Oceania Pacific.
4833959
Could they even be cloned?
You gonna turn this into a story?
4833993
It's got Part 1 in the title, so it should be obvious that it's going to be turned into a story
Huh, I was hoping in the Amalgam Verse that the Godzilla's we all know were named after the legend that was started by 2014 Godzilla
Looking forward to the next part. When I saw just the title, I assumed it was going to be about Daghara.