What would change if...?

[Erinys]

What would change about Creation if Mardukth sided with the Gods, instead of Malfeas?

Say that Mardukth switched sides early in the Primordial War, or halfway through it, and was spared like Autochthon.

How would the setting be different?

[Blaque]

There's hardly anything about him to speak of. Basiclaly "what would another titan hanging around" mean, but that's it since we don't know his themes, and there's like, seven millennia of history since hten. It's kind of like "What if Ur never happened" level thing. It might be a setting, but so far back that it might as well just be whatever you want it to be.

[evtrax]

Not much, except maybe he who holds in thrall would not exist. Maybe

[webkilla]

You could spin it around and have that Madukth still died - still became a neverborn - but a neverborn who wasn't angry at creation or the exalted, but instead angry at the yozi. Basically, a "friendly" (in so much as a neverborn can be friendly) neverborn.

[Erinys]

I forgot to mention that I'm thinking about Reminiscent Oasis' version of Mardukth (the only detailed version I know of).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...BjwlfPMU/edit#

[evtrax]

You could spin it around and have that Madukth still died - still became a neverborn - but a neverborn who wasn't angry at creation or the exalted, but instead angry at the yozi. Basically, a "friendly" (in so much as a neverborn can be friendly) neverborn.

I actually had a plan to write a shard. This is one of the two outcomes.

[Astralporing]

You could spin it around and have that Madukth still died - still became a neverborn - but a neverborn who wasn't angry at creation or the exalted, but instead angry at the yozi. Basically, a "friendly" (in so much as a neverborn can be friendly) neverborn.

The 2e Neverborn aren't all that much angry specifically at creation or exalted - and even if they are, it's only a secondary consideration at best. Primarily, they are in constant suffering, which can only end when all Creation ceases to be. Being "friendly" would not change that at.

[Isator Levi]

I don't want to give a dismissive answer as such, but I think if taking Mardukth down to the original Ink Monkey stories or even any fan expansions into a Charm set of him, there's not really a way to have a workable setting that still has him in it. I mean, if the whole mythos of Mardkuth is that he bends everything else around affirming his existence and identity, that seems hard to make compatible with the adventures of the Exalted throughout the First Age. Really, it might become difficult to square with him making it out of the Primordial War.

Maybe he would have had a desire to be an ally in sincerity, if self-interest, but I expect that many of the original Exalted comfortably existed in the mould of "toxic allies are to be eliminated promptly and without mercy" that the likes of Alexander the Great existed in.

Alternatives are that he has basically the same status as Gaia and Authochthon do, where being unable to reconcile his continued existence with the Exalted means that he leaves. I think the closest one could have to a functional setting where he's still visibly present is one where a large section of the world is basically a no-go zone or was carried off in his orbit. Although even that kind of gets into an issue of "why would the Exalted tolerate such a thing when he's only one and they've killed or subdued many"? I guess if one put in a backstory of them binding themselves by a treaty that could not voluntarily be broken, although I think that kind of thing grates a bit against the general presentation of the Exalted. Whatever binds the Yozis to their surrender... it doesn't quite feel like it transfers.

[Erinys]

You could spin it around and have that Madukth still died - still became a neverborn - but a neverborn who wasn't angry at creation or the exalted, but instead angry at the yozi. Basically, a "friendly" (in so much as a neverborn can be friendly) neverborn.

I recall on the first Headcanon thread, The Hanged Man said "There were two other Primordial traitors who allied with the Incarnae. One of them was killed by Akuma, and is just as messed up and cranky as any other Neverborn now."

I agree with other posters that it would likely still go crazy and want to destroy the world, but may have put a death curse on ... I dunno? I don't think Primordials could Curse each other, but a curse on all Akuma now and forever, or a curse on whichever Incarna supported Theion's side (was that Nebiru or Neptune?) might have happened. That could result in a Curse on the Umbrals and/or Spoken. It wouldn't be as potent as the Great Curse, though, since it was spoken by only one Titan.

I don't want to give a dismissive answer as such, but I think if taking Mardukth down to the original Ink Monkey stories or even any fan expansions into a Charm set of him, there's not really a way to have a workable setting that still has him in it. I mean, if the whole mythos of Mardkuth is that he bends everything else around affirming his existence and identity, that seems hard to make compatible with the adventures of the Exalted throughout the First Age. Really, it might become difficult to square with him making it out of the Primordial War.

I have no doubt that the Exalted would have looked at him with the same wariness as Autochthon. But are you able to elaborate how you are thinking this would interfere with the adventures of the Exalted, please? Or, what you envision in their place?

I am thinking also about the effects of things invented by Mardukth not being aggressively scrubbed from Creation. I'm not sure Creation has a lot of discrete things tied closely to Autochthon, but it has the Jadeborn and a lot of abstract concepts. I read that the Uddshua prehuman people were born on Mardukth's slopes, so maybe they would still be around even in the Second Age (but diminished in some way so they can't compete with Exalted for dominance).

The main thing that got me wondering this whole question is how Reminiscent Oasis' Mardukth wants to accumulate people he can protect. He does it for his own glory and for their adulation, but it still suggests a relationship with weaker beings that is less about killing tens of millions at random, and more about "symbiosis" (from a Titan's point of view). I also wondered if Mardukth wouldn't want to throw down Theion and Cecelyne just to avenge his own overthrow back in Zen-Mu. He probably knows that he won't be King again, but at least Theion won't either.

I also admit I haven't read all of what Reminiscent Oasis wrote, yet.