HOME | DD

Description
"Long ago in a distinct land, I, Angra Mainyu, the shape-shifting master of darkness, unleashed an UNSPEAKABLE EVIL. But, a FOOLISH sky god wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, he tore open a portal in time, and flung me into the physical world, where his benevolence is law. Now the fool seeks to prevent my return to the heavens, and undo the future that is Angra Mainyu…"

Wi-chow!

Alright alright I got that out of my system XD I threw Angra Mainyu at my D&D party as a boss fight and I gave him the voice of Aku from Samurai Jack. This is canon to the Drake Hero universe now, it can't be undone.

Angra Mainyu (or Ahriman, as his name became in Middle Persian) is the other major entity at the core of the Zoroastrian faith. His name quite literally means "evil spirit", and there's actually a wide variety of interpretations of his exact nature. From the perspective of a literary scholar, Angra Mainyu seems to be an invention of the prophet Zarathustra, as the name first appears only in the Gathas, sacred poems traditionally ascribed to Zarathustra himself. And, interestingly, it appears only once. Zarathustra places Angra Mainyu as the existential opposite to Spenta Mainyu, an ambiguous spirit in his own right who sometimes is a synonym of the god Ahura Mazda and sometimes more of an emanation of him. In the latter case, Angra Mainyu is sort of Ahura Mazda's son, or yet another emanation himself, the twin creation with Spenta Mainyu (whose name means "holy spirit"). Other branches of Zoroastrianism treat Angra Mainyu as a being who has existed for all eternity just like Ahura Mazda, and imagines them as two opposing forces of creation. Ahura Mazda is the benevolent creator who is responsible for rainbows and puppies and all things good, while Angra Mainyu is an evil being who embodies not so much destruction so much as "nonexistence", if you can wrap your head around that. Yet another interpretation, which has since been condemned as heresy by all modern sects of the religion, instead pits Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu as twin brothers, sons of the primordial personification of Time, Zurvan. Regardless of which theology you examine, the end result is the same. When these two cosmic opposites met each other for the first time in the void, Angra Mainyu attacked his counterpart and began a supernatural war which would rage for millennia. Ahura Mazda thus created the physical world in between them as a trap for his opponent. At the end of time, Ahura Mazda will destroy the evil spirit once and for all, and in the meantime it is up to us humans to decide which side of the war we want to be on.

Design notes, this was actually quite the interesting rabbit hole to go down. Historically, people have tended to avoid depicting beings they perceive as evil. After all, traditionally, an image is specifically meant to call forth the thing it's representing, so creating an icon of a primordial god of evil would've been considered outright dangerous. If you Google "Angra Mainyu" or "Ahriman", there's likely three distinct images you'll find some variation on. Two of these are reliefs from the ancient palaces of Persepolis depicting a lion, with one attacking a bull, and the other including wings and horns on the lion as it's stabbed by an Achaemenid king. Now, based on what I've read, the consensus is just that these likely represent Angra Mainyu and the struggle of the Zoroastrians against evil, but there is no direct evidence saying that these lions are in fact the evil spirit himself. The lion eating a bull is rather striking, as it parallels a narrative in the Avestas where the primordial cow Gavaevodata is attacked by either the big man himself or his demonic minions. But again, there is no cuneiform inscription with a big neon arrow pointing and saying "this is Angra Mainyu", so we should take this link with a grain of salt.

Somewhat related is the third image you'll likely come across: a relief of a winged humanoid lion with a snake coiled around it. This actually is not an Iranian motif, but a Roman one. There are apparently a handful of these sculptures scattered around the former borders of the Empire, each within a Mithraem. A Mithraem is an underground lodge of sorts used for ritual purposes and meetings of the followers of Mithraism. Now, the Roman mystery cult of Mithraism is a whole nother can of worms to dig into some other time, but the very (very) summarized version of it is that it was a sort of the Roman equivalent of the Freemasons, which borrowed heavily from a very (very) warped perception of true Zoroastrianism brought home by Roman soldiers fighting the Parthians and Sassanids. Plutarch, in his attempt to describe Zoroastrianism, recalls an evil deity he names "Arimanius", which is pretty clearly cognate with the Persian spirit. Going back to the lion headed snake man, there's apparently one fragmentary inscription in Britain dedicating one of these statues to "Arimanius", hence why this has come to be regarded as a depiction of the Mithraic Ahriman by some. I should note however, not everyone is convinced, as the "Arimanius" in the inscription could just as easily be referring to a Celtic human, as a similar sounding but unrelated name was common in that part of the world. A sample size of one is always cause to be skeptical.

With all that in mind, despite the caveats, these three depictions are really all I had to go off of. For the sake of storytelling and design, I'm willing to let my skeptical guard down a little bit if the idea is plausible enough. I leaned heavy into the beastial nature of Angra Mainyu, giving him a lion head (which yeah I realize is hard to see the details of, sorry, blame my camera for not picking up black very well) and threw some horns on him because why not, the Achaemenid king in that one relief had the monster grabbed by the horns. It doesn't really come across in this drawing, but I like to imagine the snake as being his tail, like a Greek chimera. As for his wings, I actually took reference from waterfowls in molt. Apparently they shed their wing feathers all at once, and it results in a really gnarly looking appendage until they grow back. Obviously in real life, this situation completely nerfs their flying capabilities, but hey this is a lion headed demon with a snake for a tail, I get the feeling he's not gonna listen to the laws of physics anyway.

Foolish Samurai.

Description
"Long ago in a distinct land, I, Angra Mainyu, the shape-shifting master of darkness, unleashed an UNSPEAKABLE EVIL. But, a FOOLISH sky god wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, he tore open a portal in time, and flung me into the physical world, where his benevolence is law. Now the fool seeks to prevent my return to the heavens, and undo the future that is Angra Mainyu…"

Wi-chow!

Alright alright I got that out of my system XD I threw Angra Mainyu at my D&D party as a boss fight and I gave him the voice of Aku from Samurai Jack. This is canon to the Drake Hero universe now, it can't be undone.

Angra Mainyu (or Ahriman, as his name became in Middle Persian) is the other major entity at the core of the Zoroastrian faith. His name quite literally means "evil spirit", and there's actually a wide variety of interpretations of his exact nature. From the perspective of a literary scholar, Angra Mainyu seems to be an invention of the prophet Zarathustra, as the name first appears only in the Gathas, sacred poems traditionally ascribed to Zarathustra himself. And, interestingly, it appears only once. Zarathustra places Angra Mainyu as the existential opposite to Spenta Mainyu, an ambiguous spirit in his own right who sometimes is a synonym of the god Ahura Mazda and sometimes more of an emanation of him. In the latter case, Angra Mainyu is sort of Ahura Mazda's son, or yet another emanation himself, the twin creation with Spenta Mainyu (whose name means "holy spirit"). Other branches of Zoroastrianism treat Angra Mainyu as a being who has existed for all eternity just like Ahura Mazda, and imagines them as two opposing forces of creation. Ahura Mazda is the benevolent creator who is responsible for rainbows and puppies and all things good, while Angra Mainyu is an evil being who embodies not so much destruction so much as "nonexistence", if you can wrap your head around that. Yet another interpretation, which has since been condemned as heresy by all modern sects of the religion, instead pits Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu as twin brothers, sons of the primordial personification of Time, Zurvan. Regardless of which theology you examine, the end result is the same. When these two cosmic opposites met each other for the first time in the void, Angra Mainyu attacked his counterpart and began a supernatural war which would rage for millennia. Ahura Mazda thus created the physical world in between them as a trap for his opponent. At the end of time, Ahura Mazda will destroy the evil spirit once and for all, and in the meantime it is up to us humans to decide which side of the war we want to be on.

Design notes, this was actually quite the interesting rabbit hole to go down. Historically, people have tended to avoid depicting beings they perceive as evil. After all, traditionally, an image is specifically meant to call forth the thing it's representing, so creating an icon of a primordial god of evil would've been considered outright dangerous. If you Google "Angra Mainyu" or "Ahriman", there's likely three distinct images you'll find some variation on. Two of these are reliefs from the ancient palaces of Persepolis depicting a lion, with one attacking a bull, and the other including wings and horns on the lion as it's stabbed by an Achaemenid king. Now, based on what I've read, the consensus is just that these likely represent Angra Mainyu and the struggle of the Zoroastrians against evil, but there is no direct evidence saying that these lions are in fact the evil spirit himself. The lion eating a bull is rather striking, as it parallels a narrative in the Avestas where the primordial cow Gavaevodata is attacked by either the big man himself or his demonic minions. But again, there is no cuneiform inscription with a big neon arrow pointing and saying "this is Angra Mainyu", so we should take this link with a grain of salt.

Somewhat related is the third image you'll likely come across: a relief of a winged humanoid lion with a snake coiled around it. This actually is not an Iranian motif, but a Roman one. There are apparently a handful of these sculptures scattered around the former borders of the Empire, each within a Mithraem. A Mithraem is an underground lodge of sorts used for ritual purposes and meetings of the followers of Mithraism. Now, the Roman mystery cult of Mithraism is a whole nother can of worms to dig into some other time, but the very (very) summarized version of it is that it was a sort of the Roman equivalent of the Freemasons, which borrowed heavily from a very (very) warped perception of true Zoroastrianism brought home by Roman soldiers fighting the Parthians and Sassanids. Plutarch, in his attempt to describe Zoroastrianism, recalls an evil deity he names "Arimanius", which is pretty clearly cognate with the Persian spirit. Going back to the lion headed snake man, there's apparently one fragmentary inscription in Britain dedicating one of these statues to "Arimanius", hence why this has come to be regarded as a depiction of the Mithraic Ahriman by some. I should note however, not everyone is convinced, as the "Arimanius" in the inscription could just as easily be referring to a Celtic human, as a similar sounding but unrelated name was common in that part of the world. A sample size of one is always cause to be skeptical.

With all that in mind, despite the caveats, these three depictions are really all I had to go off of. For the sake of storytelling and design, I'm willing to let my skeptical guard down a little bit if the idea is plausible enough. I leaned heavy into the beastial nature of Angra Mainyu, giving him a lion head (which yeah I realize is hard to see the details of, sorry, blame my camera for not picking up black very well) and threw some horns on him because why not, the Achaemenid king in that one relief had the monster grabbed by the horns. It doesn't really come across in this drawing, but I like to imagine the snake as being his tail, like a Greek chimera. As for his wings, I actually took reference from waterfowls in molt. Apparently they shed their wing feathers all at once, and it results in a really gnarly looking appendage until they grow back. Obviously in real life, this situation completely nerfs their flying capabilities, but hey this is a lion headed demon with a snake for a tail, I get the feeling he's not gonna listen to the laws of physics anyway.

Foolish Samurai.