Phazkaryan

In the culture of the Eleven Cities surrounding the Sea of Jars, Phazkaryan is a sea spirit whose ambitions for her children launch a cycle of legends about political and familial goings-on under the sea which occasionally causes difficulties for humanity above the waves. These legends, collectively known as the Court of the Green Masks, are connected to the shipboard folklore of the Sailors on the Sea of Jars, who have their own relationship with Phazkaryan's children which operates independently of the more courtly legends.    

Etymology

  It is not clear what the name Phazaryan actually means; indeed the names of most of the members of the Court of Green Masks are a mystery. Faced wth an unattributable collection of syllables researchers generally posit that the name drawn from a historical salor's cant which was not recorded and has thus been lost. Reconstruction of maritime argot, possibly via fieldwork among sailors, is theoretically possible but would likely be tremendously difficult; if anybody has attempted it so far they have not published ther results.   The other possibility is that the name, like those of Phazkaryan's offspring, is of genuinely alien provenance - that the unusual name represents the phonic patterns of a genuine non-human language. Were this proven to be true, and were the language to be reconstructed, the implications for thaumatology, particularly that pertaining to the sea, would be tremendous.  

Character

  Phazkaryan is one of the offspring of Horph and Ochyan of the Hundred Former Gods, and is therefore, a trifle incongruously, a sister of the fire-demon Horphyod. Born in a cave in the greatest depths of the the sea, she is described as a hideously ugly woman with skin the colour of kelp, shark's teeth, and webbed hands and feet.   The mythopoeia surrounding Phazkaryan consistently depicts her as a grasping, avaricious figure determined to expand her power through her fertility - in essence, the picture of a demonic and destructive mother. Her three daughters - Dykoloskys, Dyzraphys and Jazzayas go on to form the basis of the Court of Green Masks and thus Phazaryan's power over the world beneath the sea. Significantly, the three daughters have no anthropomorphic father, being rather Phazaryan's offspring via the utilisation of seed she acquired, through trickery, from Sea dragons. The cycle of legends is therefore open to interpretation as a dark tale of the consequences of self-serving maternal meddling.   This being said, after creating the copper masks used to hide her daughter's fishy deformities from their husbands, Phazkaryan largely disappears from the story, her role being to set events in motion via children conceived and raised for selfish motives.