Location
Marduk resides in The Seelie Court alongside his wife Leannan.
General Description
Marduk is one of the more unusual ethereal beings as one of only two Gods to have originally been mortal (alongside Bel, Lady of Hope). Marduk was the original author of the Knightly Code, the code of honour which the vast majority of knightly orders follow to some extent (a notable exception being the Order of Dark Paladins, who predate Marduk’s birth in his original body and in fact directly opposes many of his thoughts on the matter.) Marduk is, however, venerated as the first true Knight and is honoured by nearly all of them, often with statues. He is the husband to the nature goddess Leannan, father to the minor gods Herne and Mimus, and stepfather to the minor gods Sionnaine and Judah.
Domains
Marduk is honoured as a God of persistence, burden, sacrifice, oaths, humility, devotion and the strength to try again. He is the patron god of Dragons and the protector of adventurers, soldiers and guardsmen.
Mythological Interpretation of Origins
Marduk’s true origins are unknown to the ordinary mortal folk, but he was known to originally be a Troll during his first life. Some claim Marduk was born of divine blood, but the majority of tellings say he was merely mortal, his soul forged in suffering. The truth is unknown, perhaps even to him.
The traditional mythological narrative about how he came to be reincarnated goes roughly as follows: while out hunting, he encountered Leannan as she was bathing with some attendants in a lake. She noticed him, and unsurprisingly tried to seduce him, but in keeping with his fledgling Knights’ Code, he turned and walked away. This intrigued Leannan as nobody had, until now, been able to resist her charms, so she pursued him in the form of a doe - and upon finding him, Marduk, thinking it was an ordinary deer, shot her with an arrow. Upon realising his mistake, he apologised and offered to pledge himself to her until she felt his slight had been repaid, but once again rejected Leannan's advances when she once again propositioned him. Over the following months, the two fell in love and kept meeting in secret; Jak’ra discovered their affair after Leannan fell pregnant with Herne, and angered at a mere mortal impregnating his daughter sent Marduk off on a number of increasingly difficult tasks, which he completed with assistance from Amaryllis and with Leannan visiting him every night against Jak’ra’s wishes, producing Mimus. The final of Jak'ra's tasks dealt him a mortal injury, and against her father's wishes Leannan rushed to his side as he lay dying. Leannan couldn't make him immortal but couldn't stand to be apart from him, so she screamed for her mother Amaryllis to help her. Amaryllis couldn't make him immortal either, but her daughter's cries struck a chord, as it would in any mother. So she made it so he would eternally reincarnate in mortal form, and whichever body he came back in, and whoever he was, he would remember her and his past lives when he came of age and seek out his old armour, returning him to his former powers, He would then seek Leannan out wherever she was, so that way their love would never die. Ever the romantic, Leannan has done her best to keep this depiction of their relationship the de-facto telling of the story.
This retelling of the story of their meeting has also been contextualised by priests as a sort of parable of how to act - Marduk’s refusal of Leannan’s advances not once, but twice, was not pride, but the first mortal rejection of divine temptation, setting the tone for an entire code of behavior defined not by desire but by duty; and his slaying of Leannan's deer form was not a mistake so much as an accidental sacrament, the first offering of blood in the name of service to a higher power.
Ascension
Following his most recent death at the Battle of Thamragh, Marduk's divine essence was trapped inside a black dragon egg, which was being experimented on by the Grand Order of Wizards' Dracology Department while sealed in a secret room in the Grand Order Training Tower in Mor'Koc; Jak'ra spent much of his time actively preventing this egg from being moved, as to prevent Marduk from coming back. The egg hatched and his divine essence was retrieved due to the combined actions of Bel, Dezrael and The Nameless One at the end of A Short Month, and he finally ascended to true godly status to be reunited with his true love and his surviving son.