#nodens

[sleepyminty]

Most of them are abysshunters but the bloodborne hunter still the mvp

[theotherseapancakes]

Psssst. You mentioned no one cares about Philemon, but now I'm curious if you have any thoughts about his role in the games after he disappeared. And for sillies sake, does he have anything to do with the Dance games?

I have been waiting my entire life for this. Anon do you realize how verbose I'm going to get. DO YOU REALIZE? I hope you like read mores. Let me preface this with I am aware and have seen some popular theories, so I'm going to sidestep a lot of them and present one I've built since... well, I became a Persona fan as a teenager. MAJOR PERSONA SERIES SPOILERS LIKE THE ENTIRE THING OK? OK. yes even royal.

The P2 PSP additional scenario is so incredibly important and I think everyone missed the point of it. THE PERSONA 2 PSP ADDITIONAL TATSUYA SCENARIO!!!! It's beyond important, because it reveals to us Philemon can have more than one Avatar we know about, just like Nyarly. (Casual reminder he's like half the shopkeeps in P2. Time Count, anyone? Why was the Time Count so hot. Anyway.) Disclaimer: I'm just a casual fan who has played a LOT of Persona and SMT. I haven't gotten around to all of them, but I've played/finished both paths of 1, 2, 3 (and p3p) as well as 4 and 5. Didn't manage to get my hands on Golden but I've seen enough of it. (It's funny you ask about the dance games, they're the only ones I don't have right now! But my roommate does, and will be gone for a few months soon, perhaps I will take the time to start with p4DAN. I'm atrocious at rhythm games though so more than likely I'll find a video. Anyway.) WHAT is Philemon? If we can't define that, we can't talk about The Positivity Guy Ever.

So let's talk about Phil. He's a fascinating character. His Persona is just a form of Himself, But Cooler. And he seems to HAVE no set shape, not unlike Nyarlathotep. People have various theories about Shadows and their origins etc., but Phil is more like that vote of confidence in people. I think, personally, that after the end of Innocent Sin, Phil's been pretty weak. We see in Eternal Punishment he's fading pretty roughly, and has a hard time talking to the party. Presumably ending Nyarly might to some degree fix things when Deja-vu Boy goes home, but... the problem is, we don't know how fixed they truly ended up being, or the full depth of how much he could/did expend!

In fact, the first time we even see Phil without the dumb mask is when Tatsuya decks him. Pay close attention to that fact. To the mask motifs here. I want you to really soak in Phil's everything. He's a leader. A kind soul. He's the good of people. He wants to believe the best.

Anyway, most of these things overlook what I find really interesting as we've gotten more games worth of lore: he and Nyarly aren't the only eldritch entities walking around like that. Yes, Nyx is one too. Yes, it's probable she may even be their 'mom'. It's possible they all came from Nyx initially, but it's also possible (and should be considered) they too may have been outsiders at one point. We need to ask ourselves how far the human collective unsconsciousness can go. Is that sea infinite? Could it affect other worlds? Think about Aion in Devil Summoner Soul Hackers 2. Yes, I am asking you to think about Soul Hackers 2. Deal with it, I don't care. They're sister series. They share many things. SO! Did the shape of the human mind change a bunch of eldritch creatures and make them interact with us even more after Nyx smacked the moon a gazillion years ago? Is there multiple worlds? Weird bullshit? Just the two? Hmm. Well... I, personally, think so. I think he was touched by humanity just like Nyarlathotep, but in the other way. The reason I bring this up is two-fold. The first is Nodens. Now, we don't know much about the actual Nodens, unfortunately, just some speculation. Which is a shame. (If anyone has more info I'd love to have it, ngl. As a pagan this shit fascinates me.) But what we do get on him in Lovecraftian lore can provide us some intriguing possibilities about Phil's everything, which the games love to keep really rather vague. (And this is putting aside that his human Persona is based off the obviously bogus Jungian Spirit Guide, but we love an old guy in a mask anyway. He probably felt that was more 'friendly' for humans, hah.) I believe that Nodens, and Phil by extension, are just as responsible for nurturing and keeping the collective unconsciousness alive and positive. We see the butterfly symbol everywhere. We see it with Lavenza, too. "This is truly an unjust game." So was the bet Phil made with Nyarly, a game he rigged. Phil made the mistake of thinking the Crawling Chaos wouldn't cheat, a mistake he is never making again, I assume, if he can help it. Shit, you could view his boss fight in P2EP as him trying to train the EP crew to beat the snot out of Nyarly, even. But off topic. If Nyarly is basically the father of all Shadows, and they and Personas are the same coin, it makes me wonder a lot of things. The two have always been portrayed as simultaneously diametrically opposed, but also not? They have identical halls in P2. They have similar powers and talents... I think after Persona 3, Phil's remnants sank into the Collective Unconsciousness, to attempt to rehabilitate humanity from what it lost, from what he himself lost. I think Igor took over the room, because he took a backseat to recover. It would go a long, long way towards explaining why only SOME characters have the tier of the Wild Card, which is similar to the 'original' Persona power. (Having multiple.) He was took weak to remain in his Spirit Guide (Philemon) form, and had to abandon it to return to the depths as Nodens... So. Let me go back to Nodens and make some notes about design.

Nodens, as seen here, sort of resembles an iron maiden. It really brings to mind the idea of maybe Tatsuya or someone's humanoid form sleeping within it, doesn't it? Fitting for an aspect of Philemon! ... You probably can see where I'm going with this, but let me pull up some screens to finish the point:

That's right! It's Azathoth, Baby! I believe that unlike mythology, he's yet another aspect of Philemon. Eldritch positivity, in too much force, could be used for accidental bad, too. (Reasons Maruki is my favorite Law Hero, haha.) Let me explain. I think Philemon always existed in... let's call it parts. Azathoth is said to be a dreaming god in whom's universe we all just happen to be alive inside, right? "Dream of butterfly" (Philemon) "Or is life a dream? Don't wanna wake up. Cuz I'm happy here." That sure is thematic to what Maki goes through in Persona 1, and what Maruki's beloved suffers, isn't it? ISN'T IT. The "true reality" he creates... would help Maruki create in the additional Semester--would be something most humans would never pass the muster to even try to control. But we have seen Phil test a few people and find them worth passing before! However, that seems like ages ago. Why has he been so quiet? I think because he was spending time conserving his energy. He believed in humanity enough to give Makoto a push when it was needed in p3 (or femc, if you play her), but otherwise trusted Igor while he restored what needed it. But in Persona 5 Royal, he hand-picked Maruki, didn't he? At first, when I played Persona 5 Royal, I really thought it was some part of Nyarly, but I no longer believe this to be the case. The coloration and symbolism in the background (the golds, the whole garden of eden themes, the way his Palace was laid out), the whole sea of soul motifs in P3Re later... mmm. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but this post is already way too long for one simple ask. So let's wrap up by going one step further and looking finally at Nodens' dialogue to the party in the Extra Scenario in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PSP). The following is a transcript, you can find a video here:

Nodens: This is the memory of the lost child whom you all seek. Nodens: Memory occasionally brings about much distress and suffering, but it is absolutely vital to distinguish oneself from others and manufacture one's own psyche. Nodens: Ever since it began, life's memory has accumulated unbroken, passing through individual experiences and spanning several generations. Nodens: And so it has given shape to Kadath and the Collective Unconsciousness, thereby becoming a foundation for the next generation. Nodens: Even if the roots of the world are directed by fear and anxiety, never forget that the true essence of life is brimming with joy. Nodens: You must not stop seeking the answer for why life was born in a cosmos progressing towards absurdity and chaos. Nodens: Life brims with joy, bringing about balance in a universe predestined to heat death, and that allows the world to live a long time.

So to answer your question, I think he's taken a much subtler role. I think he's influencing people by pretending to be a Persona for Maruki, because he believes it will help them grow. I don't think he was intending a forever-control vice grip, but rather to prove a point. No matter what, the primordial chaos of humanity will rise up for chaotic good, lawful good, whatever "good" is needed. Azathoth is... interesting. Adam Kadmon is also interesting. But mostly I HIGHLY suspect we may see him again in Persona 6, or at least I'm hoping so. It's my personal pet theory by then he'll be less faded and come back to us in a new form of some kind. He's never had a set one, after all. Now for funsies about the dancing game, well, he's a positive guy, he wanted to just make sure everyone had their fitness regimen checked off. Obviously. (This is a joke.) Did the devs intend this? I'm honestly not sure? Like there's a lot of nods to older Personas in 5 and now 3RE especially, but it's definitely worth chewing on. I could go on and on about things I think he's connected to, but ultimately they have the final say lol. I'm just a crackpot conspiracy theorist on tumblr who really likes Philemon. He and the Room are my favorites. :) Ask me about attendants for additional dumb, sometime, I guess lol.

[summocrap]

[macabrecabra]

LOVECRAFTOBER: DAY TWENTY-ONE: NODENS The Lord of the Abyss

Affiliation: The Elder Gods

Nodens was a fun one to design, if only because the actual lore of him has so many moving parts. For this, I took inspiration from underworld creatures, the night gaunts he rules over, and the references made to him and Poseidon to create the design!

Of all the elder gods, Nodens is one of the more powerful ones and one that can be benevolent or vengeful depending on circumstances. He and Nyarlthotep have tangled on many an occasion, making them something of rivals in the grand scale of things. Nodens has dominion over the abyss, consider something of a being of the "underworld" as it were. Through his night gaunts, he works tirelessly to thwart the outer gods and their great old one offspring.

He often appears to humans as an old man as his wings wrapped about him appear more like a cloak. Very few have actually seen him in his full splendor. Despite his immense power, he is not the leader of the elder gods, but more the brute force of their power in the conflict against their foes.

[red-steampunk]

Please give them something Life Wonders.

@kairunatic

@dorokora

[emichii-the-mc]

If in the dark of night your hear a manic laughter, it's likely to originate from the chaotic vigilante known as Nodens who has lived in the deep dark abyss and is to this day embraced by the creatures that calls it home.

[darkersoul]

i would love your thoughts on Nodens and how peoples perception of him has sorta shifted over time

Oh boy I have a lot of thoughts about Nodens!

So, first off, Nodens is definitely only included in the Mythos due to his mention in The Great God Pan, which is a story HPL loved and almost definitely inspired The Dunwhich Horror. As used by HPL himself, not too much information except that he's a deity of the Dreamlands and the lord of the Night Gaunts. Everything else about him is very fluid except that he's explicitly ancient and has some sorta beef with Nyarlathotep.

And what's this, DERLETH WITH THE STEEL CHAIR? Yeah Derleth made him a member of the Elder Gods, which to him meant the good guys in his War in Heaven take on the Mythos. Striking down and imprisoning the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods which her portrays as entirely evil. Between him being a sort of helpful force in Dream Quest and Derleth's interpretation, he became this helpful figure in the RPG, which us where he's sorta stuck.

This isn't even to mention the real deity Nodens, which we know practically nothing about except through guesses and theories, some of those theories coming from JRR Tolkien himself.

I find Nodens endlessly fascinating. What we do know paints a figure of an ancient, secretive God, Humanoid yet "Primal", ancient and grey, one with explicit motives but the motives never for us to know. A god of darkness, in every sense of that word. He who keeps us blind to our reality. What is a dream if not an illusion? I see him as almost a demiurge figure, trying to keep us in our bubble of normalcy. This pits him against Nyarlathotep as the messenger, a bringer of truth. Whether that is for our protection or otherwise is, once again, not for us to know.

I'd suggest listening to The Good Friends of Jackson Elias episode about him, as well as this reading of the story Devo Nodenti for further research. I feel Nodens has some great potential if we allow ourselves to get creative with him.

https://blasphemoustomes.com/2020/09/15/mythos-deities-nodens/

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-unreal-mr-spike/episodes/Devo-Nodenti--by-Keris-McDonald-e1qtrve

[dare-valley]

Cernunnos and Nodens

The duality of man

Two ancient Celtic gods who, thanks to the aural tradition of the Druids and the stabbing tradition of the Romans, we know very little about. But I've been thinking about what we do know about them and I have some speculation that has zero evidence but I'd like to share anyway.

To me they seem to be gods of different aspects of the same things. To quote Terry Pratchett, to be human is "To be the place where the Fallen Angel meets the Rising Ape," we aren't quite animals but nor are we divine. We have one foot in each camp.

Cernunnos represents our beastial side while Nodens represents our civilised side. Here's my reasoning:

Cernunnos is god of wildlife. Nodens is the god of dogs, our first domesticated animal.

Cernunnos is a god of fertility, or at least male virility. Nodens is a god of healing. One is the base lust that creates new life, the other is practiced learning that preserves existing life.

Nodens is a hunting/fishing god, as in the practical activities we do to sustain ourselves. Cernunnos is god of THE HUNT, as in the actual bloody thrill of the chase.

Another way to look at this last one would be; Cernunnos is a hunting god whereas Nodens is a war god. The two forms of violence man partakes in, one is arguably natural while the other man made. However, I feel the need to point out that Nodens isn't exactly a war god, he's a healer god, but the Roman soldiers in Britain associated him with Mars, a war god who from the perspective of a soldier had healer aspects.

[marcblacks]

The Good Old Ones - Opening

2022

[chronivore]

Nodens

[sleepyminty]

I feel like in the world of HP lovecraft, amongst the big names like cthulhu, azathoth, yog-sothoth and the infamous nyarlathotep.No one even mention Nodens-the Lord of the great abyss. Cuz that dude sole purpose is to piss off Nyarlathotep. He’s a good elder god for this sole reason (even in ancient britain he depicted as a healing god).

Let me explain

As an Elder God. Nodens' behavior is generally quite kind towards humans, but he only acts this way when he is at odds with Nyarlathotep. Of course, because Dream World is a battlefield and Nyarlathotep and Nodens' war is a proxy war. That's when Nyarlathotep tried every way to stop the travelers from searching for the Kadath desert, Nodens was willing to find every way to protect them, that's how he indirectly angered Nyarlathotep without directly confronting him. Nodens' servants are the Nightgaunts. According to some sources in the Canon, Nodens enjoys hunting animals in places like the Underworld, his targets include Shantak, Hunting Horror and moon beasts.

•Proxy war

When humanity began to spread and explore every corner of the Earth. The Great Ones eventually sought new settlements in Dreamland, including the fortress of Kadath. Nodens himself has quite good relationships with the Grand Masters, and he sometimes monitors Kadath's surroundings to prevent humans from threatening them. Nyarlathotep himself is the same, but Nyarlathotep's main job in Dreamland is to enforce the will of the blind fool and the other supreme foreign gods of the center. Filled with vulgar complaints, with the demon king's will, Nyarlathotep wished for the gods of earth to be protected from human encroachment.

In general, the goals of Nyarlathotep and Nodens are the same. But that didn't mean Nodens had to be friendly with the foreign gods, so he continuously committed acts of sabotage against Nyarlathotep at DreamWorld. And Nyarlathotep felt uncomfortable with Nodens, which was quoted by Randolph Carter when he spoke to Nyarlathotep at Kadath. Nodens is considered a counterpart to Nyarlathotep in Lovecraft's works, but he is not friendly towards humans, he only saves them and is kind to them when he wants to oppose Nyarlathotep, inciting the wrath of Nyarlathotep. those who are considered God... an Outer God.

Basically chaotic good vs chaotic evil

[kosenart]

IT'S OCTOBER! That means like all previous years, I'll do a redesign of more Lovecraftian gods/enteties. And we start with the most 'heroic' of the bunch, NODENS!

[poeticnorth]

Recently became a Tenobardos/Tenobardon in Sepânioi Rotâ. My first Hymn is now in the website, it's a Hunter's Moon Hymn to Nodens (spell as Nodons within Sepânioi Rotâ).

[enfantrenard-list]

【TRPG・CoC用素材】ノーデンス【神話生物】

[skookworks]

Skook Words (and Pictures) #14

[hplovecraftmuseum]

CRYPT OF CTHULHU was a slender periodical edited by noted Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price. It was a product of The Necronomicon Press of West Warwick, Rhode Island. Crypt of Cthulhu 87 Volume 13, number 3 was issued in 1994. Of particular interest here was the essay: Nodens - Metamorphosis of a Deity by Marco Frenschkowski. Frenschkowski explores the complex historical origins of Nodens tracing his development as a god worshiped by subjects of the Roman Empire in Britain back to his various aspects before large areas of English territory were conquered by ancient Rome. Toward the end of the essay mention is made of my own essay, NODENS AND THE ELDER GODS. Both essays give evidence of how and where August Derleth made his mistakes in assuming that Nodens was a very different figure to Lovecraft than he was to historic mythology. Certainly the whole history of Nodens, AKA, Nuada, Nudd, etc. was almost absurdly complex and convoluted, but one might consider the gods of Ancient Greece and Rome in comparison. Neptune was known as Poseidon to the Greeks (a god by any other name) and as Neptune he makes an appearance in the transitional story THE STRANGE HIGH HOUSE IN THE MIST along with Nodens. The appearance of these deities together only begins to make ANY sense until we understand Lovecraft's own affection for the Classical World (Rome particularly) as well as his extreme loyalty to the British Empire. As a child HPL actually made altars to the Olympians. Though he abandoned belief in the Gods of Rome by age 8, the Classical World would inform his views of culture for the rest of his life. Until we delve deeply into Lovecraft's personal life and sensitivities making miscalculations in interpreting his fictional concepts is always a high possibility. Lovecraft was an extremely complex and unique individual and we may never be confident in our ability to untangle the complexity of his extraordinary mind or fiction completely. (Exhibit 375)