The Mayong Origin Problem

It's not exactly a secret that there's a cloud of issues surrounding Mayong Permafrost Mistmoore's origins (sorry, the transition is still sinking in). Just to have a clear record out in the open, I'm tossing this up and soliciting comment.
According to Mayong's own statements, he was supposedly contemporary to Veeshan's first brood of dragons on Norrath. Okay, so he's old. But it's also implied he was a vampire at that time, and that's where the wrinkles start in.
It's implied that he was there when said brood first came into being--which implies predating the arrival of the gods. Which would mean there was at least one vampire on the scene before Anashti Sul's actions and banishment.
Worse, existing in-game lore from the Mystmyr Manor zones seems to identify Mayong as part of a race called the Ydal. I'm assuming for the moment the similarity to the " -'Dal " names for the various flavors of elf is a coincidence, mostly on account of running low on stuff for headaches at the moment. If not, there seem to have been Ydal before any other Dal.
Still not confused? How about Innoruuk's apparent role in creating the Ydal, who (by redname statement here in the Lore forums) appear to have had vampiric tendencies from the get-go?
I understand that in a game and setting with this much lore, snags and contradictions will work their way in for various reasons, but...come on folks, this is just a little too much. Either multiple parts of 'established' lore are just plain wrong, or there's some issues that need resolving here.
Short my half-serious theory that the post Plane of Time 'reset' left some wrinkles in the new timeline that resulted in this particular unholy mess, can anyone out there resolve this? Come on, red-names, I know you took some crap earlier in conjunction with the Freeblood lore, but I'd love to hear from ya on this one. Surely you can't have been ignorant of this? Certainly you have some way to at least wallpaper over these cracks...right?
Put me some knowledge, or at least some better headache meds...

Anaogi@Mistmoore wrote:

Mayong is going to purposely mislead you as to his origin.

Why? He's Mayong F@#king Mistmoore.

That would be my first instinct, except...well, what does he gain that he doesn't already have? It doesn't come across as an 'I'm ancient, fear me' thing so much as a 'yeah, I'm old' thing...though as I've said elsewhere, it's time we started taking a closer look at credibility on all lore. So it's possible.
Still doesn't work out the Innoruuk / Anashti problem though. Needs at least a veneer to cover it, if it isn't going to get worked out properly.

I've just resigned to the assumption that he's probably a god. Maybe the opposite of zebox - a god who became a mortal rather than the other way around. Albeit a ludicrously powerful mortal.
*shrug
Until he's fleshed out further than the thousand and one hints, whispers and misleads, I'm done with MM. hehe.

I believe it has been pointed out that Mayong is not a "typical" vampire. Any techinque that will kill present-day vampires will hardly faze Mayong himself.
Beside, further back in history you go, more clouded it'll become. It applies to any history, even ours.

Since the race is called Ydal and not Y'Dal, we really don't know if they're a race of elves or not. Mayong's appearance could just be pure coincidence.

Anaogi@Mistmoore wrote:

First off: trust anything Mayong says about as far as you could drop-kick Lord Nagafen. He's going to mislead you every time, out of habit if nothing else. He's become a god, then came back down again because he got bored (or so I read the lore, anyway). I'm going to assume he's overstating his own age simply as part of maintaining his public image, at least until there's reliable third-party confirmation his statements are true.
There was this thread about the Ydal. I'd say Mayong was simply the only Ydal to survive.

what does Mayong gain by shrouding his origins? that's very simple. if you knew where and how he came to be, you could probably find a foolproof method of destroying him. Yes he claims to have been around since the first brood. We know he's unique among the vampires, the same things that destory them barely phase him, as the freethinkers found out.
we have hints for the Sage's notes that Mayong did in this timeline, like in EQlive, become a god..and he voluntarily gave it up. so who knows how strong he might be from a residual effect of his ascension.
and the less we know about him, the less we can guess on his motives, which menas we're more liekly to do what he asks because we don't for sure know he's 'an evil b*stard' or a 'powerful neutral party' though we mostly can agree he's not a 'good guy'
the less you know, the harder it is to judge his true strength, to learn his actual weaknesses, or judge his real motives. adn that's how mayong wants it. knowledge is power. an dmayong likes to keep that power over us, rather then someone turn it against him.

Anaogi@Mistmoore wrote:

This can all be explained. I and others have tossed out at least one plausible way that all of this works. It's in the lore forum. There's of course not confirmation that the theory is correct. But, there's enough reason to believe that it'll make sense once we find out more.

^^ link for the lazy?

Where's Vhalen, when we need a cryptic clue for the answers we seek?...
/cry

Rainmare@Oasis wrote:

There is one very good point brought up here. Mayong is so old....he might remember Rohen Theer. If Mayong is THAT old then there is a very credible reason why he would go through all the trouble to become a diety and then give it up. He can guess that the whole Shissar Prophacy has something to do with Theer being released and a god slayer running around. With that kind of information he could summise that he would be safer as an immortal than as a diety and better able to take part in the action instead of being forced to hide.
The wrinkle in this is undeath didn't exist until Anashti created it. Could Mayong be a "living" vampire? Could he have somehow interacted with the Ewer and started creating vampires afterward? Possible but there is absolutely NOTHING that would lead us to this conclusion. Most likely Mayong wasn't a vampire until about the time Anashti was banished, and Theer was in the void before her (otherwise why wouldn't Theer have simply killed her instead of void banishment?).
Still temporarlly ascending would of given Mayong the clout he needed to get information from the dieties. Inny being who he is would have a reason to dig up dirt on everybody and find secrets. Also Inny would make deals for those dirty little secrets.
Quite possibly Mayong ascended during the 400 years the gods were away because there was nobody to stop him from gathering the power to do so. Offering a portion of his newly aquired power to Inny while the gods were cut off from Norrath would of been brillant if he was also planning on not keeping his newly gained diety status.

Perhaps the best way to look at this is to look at how the developer designed and played this character when everquest was a PNP game.
Where did he get his ideas?
What did he aspire to play as?
What was the race?
What background from the campaign they used would they get this information from?
The answers are probably right there in dungeons and dragons or whatever EQ came from
On a side note i remember reading somewhere on this forum or in some sniipets that someone thought he sounded similar to a character like mayong but who had some dragon connection (flew on the back of dragons and led some dragon armies somewhere) My memory is hazy, i'll try to find the thread but maybe he's based on that and rebelled and ended up on norrath

MixxitNDance_Live wrote:

Everquest all evolved from a D&D game that a few of the origional developers were invovled in before EQ became its own game. As a player of D&D for 30 years I can tell you, Mayong Mistmoor has NOTHING to do with anything TSR or Wizards of the Coast has put out. Ever. Everquest was a home brew game. Most good GMs make their own campaign settings and let their imaginations run wild. EQ evidently was one of these to begin with.
As for the EQ suppliment for D&D, I consider that non-cannon material. While the writers of the suppliment did extensive interviews and got some notes from the EQ development team, they also wrote their own material and you can't be sure if any of it is reliable.

oooo that meirill!
Well i'm still going to look into this! Perhaps the vampire lore of the moors of mystara may come up with something!

Meirril wrote:

Well you'd have to find Lokarb and ask about him and Bill Trost's old campaigns. I mean they did have more then Lucan/Mayong/Zazoo from different DnD campaigns in EQ.. Cane Darkmoor was an NPC in eq1 that originated from an avatar Tony played as one time he said. So.. im sure alot of Mayongs history was wrapped up in Trost/Garcia's head and they purposely kept it secret even to other devs to make sure keep it from getting overused/corny... which eh.. has been a challenge.

My twitter status is to @billtrost with a link to this thread atm!

MixxitNDance_Live wrote:

I've always wanted to be english. Though, I'm not sure if I'm suppose to be the long suffering gentlemen in black or one of the two men in dresses.
/shrug
But if the best you can do for this discussion is a personal attack on someone that says your barking up the wrong tree then what is the point of participating?

been mulling this over a bit. I kinda view this as I view religion (no, I'm not here to convert anyone sides ima pagan )
Ive read alot of religious books and history especially bout the Ark and what not and after watching a bunch of programs on national geographic it dawned on me.
We know theres two versions of the bible old and new. whats in the old isnt in the new and vice versa. The Ark is suppose to be some great artifact with supposedly great powers aka indiana jones movie.
Now, take this thinking and place here. What if and I am stretching the IF. Mayong's story is two fold just like the 2 books and others if you want to count them. Each has there own beginnings on what happens. We know that some ppl speculate there might be a stretch of the Truth severly and he could be lying or telling the truth only mayong knows that. But also, once you start telling a tall tell for so long it almost becomes the truth in your point of view.
Even text that would exist could be fathomed to exaggerate a individual as well.
This is where we come across the Ark, it was suppose to have been made by the heavens themselves to place the tablets that moses carried. So now we look at the ewer, I could believe that it was made prior to whats her name (I can never remember how to spell it ) and to say she made it so her followers would drink from it. There might have been doubt on her strengths and she was losing them. I mean, if you where a follower but started to have doubts bout your god/goddess and was waining away wouldnt you want your faith renewed if they so called said they made this or done that but you must confess to me type scenario to stay true to them??
I'm a history buff and try to use different scenarios of society of this and that.

Mayong made a pact with innoruk.
Mayong was ydal.
Inny used his blood with the ewer to create mayongs form of vampirism.
Is mayong older then the dragons probably not (but he likes to infer he is)
Was mayong on norrath to see the first brood? Likely since the ydal were the first elven race.
So Mayong is likely one of the OLDEST living(?) beings on norrath.
At some point in eq2 lore he was a god (he stated it during his event).
He likely still was the demigod of the plane of blood, a demiplane of the plane of hate.
He voluntarily stopped being a god. And he has a strong interest in the shissar prophecies.
Particularly the end of days scenario.
Thats the jist of mayongs eq2 lore.