SYNOPSIS
Biblical Epic Fantasy by Brian Godawa
The forefather and patriarch you thought you knew.
After the Great Flood, the giant king Nimrod builds the tower of Babel and unites the world in rebellion against the Creator. He seeks to achieve godhood as world potentate and bring in the pantheon of gods to rule with him.
But Yahweh has other plans. He causes the confusion of languages and disperses Nimrod’s kingdom to the four corners of the earth, allotting the nations under the authority of pagan deities. He then chooses a simple nomad Abram as next in the line of the seed of Promise.
But Nimrod is not dead. He sets out on a course of revenge to find Abram and kill him in order to thwart Yahweh’s plan of creating a people for his own inheritance. As his quest drives him deeper into madness, the stakes rise; for the land which Abram discovers he is being given is Canaan, where the goddess Ashtart is carrying out her own plans of breeding the seed of the Serpent.
The War of the Seed is rising.
Chronicles of the Nephilim is written in the mythic genre of The Lord of the Rings and Narnia, blending fantasy and mythopoeia with history to retell the Biblical narrative with a fresh perspective, while staying true to the original spirit of the story.
CHARACTERS
Abram
Intrepid Bedouin nomad warrior called by Yahweh to be the father of the seedline that would receive Yahweh’s inheritance. Abram is a man whose birth is prophesied by the astrologers and wise men of Babylon to be one whose seed will slay great kings, possess their land, and inherit the earth. The problem is that King Nimrod of Babylon is world potentate and not tolerant of such prospects. So Nimrod will seek to find and kill Abram from his birth onward as his ultimate defiance against Yahweh. The problem for Abram is that Yahweh doesn’t tell him much and makes him wander aimlessly for years with his wife, Sarai, who is unable to bear the children that are necessary for Yahweh’s covenant with Abram to come true. And Abram has another little problem: Nimrod is not the only one that is after him.
Sarai
Abram’s wife and chosen one to bear the seedline of promise. The kink in the plan: She is past childbearing age and is barren. Sarai is one of the most stunningly beautiful women that Yahweh ever created, but because of her background as a rejected bastard child of Terah and an unknown travelling merchant, she feels without a family or home, and thus struggles with her self-worth and identity. Her husband, Abram adores her more than she ever dreamed. Unfortunately, her beauty also draws the unwanted attention of Arba, giant king of Kiriath-Arba near the oaks of Mamre. And Arba always gets what he wants.
Lot
The excitable nephew of Abram. Abram takes a liking to the adventurous and spirited Lot. He thinks that because Sarai is barren, then Yahweh means to grant him the promised seedline through his blood nephew. Because of this, he pampers Lot a bit too much. Unfortunately, Lot becomes enchanted by wealth and worldliness and finds himself in a never ending pursuit of city life over his boring pastoral nomadic life with Abram. His ambition ultimately leads him to the most dangerous spiritual location, the one place in the world where he could lose his soul: Sodom and Gomorrah.
Nimrod
World potentate, giant hunter-king. Nimrod plans to build the city of Babylon as the center of the world, along with a tower that reaches to the heavens as a new location from which the pantheon of gods may rule Mesopotamia and the world. He seeks to make a name for himself and with it eternal life from the gods as the one world ruler god-king. But Nimrod and his city is judged by Yahweh and his kingdom dispersed to the four corners of the earth, He turns bitter and insane with an obsessive quest to find and kill the object of Yahweh’s blessing: Abram. He descends from greatness into madness and his body deteriorates into a twisted shadow of his former self — until he captures Abram’s nephew Lot.
But now, Abram is after him.
Semiramis
Nimrod’s queen of Babylon, whose origins are mysteriously unknown to the world. She is seductive and calculating as she takes over the administration of Nimrod’s kingdom so he can focus on conquering and hunting. This however places her in a powerful position of influence, since the one who runs the details of a kingdom is as much in control as the figurehead. Her real goal is to raise her son Mardon to become her own puppet king that she can manipulate through her incestuous relationship with him. But Mardon is proving to be unruly and uncontrollable, so maybe her secret plans of a coup may not work after all. How will she achieve her goal of getting out from under the thumb of wicked powerful men?
Mardon
The son of Nimrod and Semiramis, heir to the throne of Babylon. Mardon is in an incestuous relationship with his mother, the queen. His father the king cannot stand him because he is a sociopath who loves to torture and experiment on humans for his own depraved curiosity. He is the next in line to reign after his father Nimrod, which might bring an unprecedented age of unrivaled evil that would surpass even Nimrod’s tyranny. Because at least Nimrod has a conscience.
Terah
The father of Abram. Terah begins an idol maker of Uruk, but is quickly raised in power by Nimrod to become prince of his heavenly host because of his widespread experience in sorcery, astrology and the magic arts. Terah builds an occultic army of golem Stone Ones that ingratiates him to Nimrod. When Nimrod discovers that Terah’s son Abram is a prophesied inheritor of the nations, he puts Terah to the test of loyalty by demanding he bring his son in to be slain. Terah has fought all his life to survive and keep his family alive, but now he faces the ultimate challenge: Give up his son Abram or betray his king and lose his life. But it won’t be that easy because Terah is the only one whose commands the army of Stone Ones obeys. So Nimrod needs him as proxy commander or he will lose his military power. So Terah must play his political cards right to navigate between two impossibilities.
Marduk
Previously identified as Ninurta, this vegetation and storm god takes on a new identity as Marduk the king of the gods when he battles Tiamat the sea dragon and defeats her with decisive glory. He is the patron deity of Nimrod’s Babylon and has his own temple across from the huge ziggurat that is going to become the new home of the gods. But that is not all it is going to be. At the New Year Akitu festival there will be an astronomical alignment of all the planets as well as the ushering in of a new astrological age of Aries, the ram of war. At this moment, the ziggurat tower of Babylon will become a portal to heaven from which other Watcher gods can be recruited to join their reign on earth, and Marduk will reign supreme.
Ishtar (Ashtart)
Ishtar is still persona non grata in the pantheon of gods. But she has an ace up her sleeve. Marduk needs her occultic power to achieve his rise as king of the gods. She makes a deal to help him if he lets her disappear and do her own thing in Nineveh. But it’s not Nineveh where her ultimate plans lie. She has found Canaan, the cursed son of Ham, who she will use to breed a cursed seed of the Serpent to counter the seed of Eve. And her plans of where to pull this off: Sodom and Gomorrah, and the five cities of the plain, where she has taken on a new identity as Ashtart, goddess of sex and war in Canaan.
King Arba & Queen Naqiya
One of the mightiest of giant kings in the land of Canaan. He has big plans to grow his kingdom and one day dominate Canaan. They live in a village on a hillside called Kiriath-Arba, just a few miles from the oaks of Mamre, to which Abram and Sarai have immigrated. When Arba attends a welcome feast for their new neighbors, he falls head over heels in lust with Sarai’s magnificent comeliness. This starts a personal obsession that will drive him to do anything, even jeopardize his kingdom, in order to have this most gorgeous human specimen with which to mate.
Anak
The son of King Arba, whose suffering caused by Abram will result in a dynasty of revenge by this young giant.
Hierodules of Ashtart
Zula, Laliya, Zakita and Kullaa. These are four assassins disguised as hierodules of Ashtart, sent by Nimrod to find Abram and bring him back, preferably alive, but dead if they must. They are the chimeric creations of Nimrod’s miscegenation experimentation. By using the old arts from before the flood he has created these hybrid hunters by mixing in the genetic essence of lions and falcons with humans. Thus, they are seductively deceptive. They look and act like sensual hierodules, but they have the predatory features and strength of a lion and a falcon.
Melchizedek
Mysterious king of Salem, priest of El Elyon, the Most High God, possessor of the heaven and the earth.