Haatim the Naga demi-god

This is for this contest: [link]
By:

Name: Haatim (Judge[1])
Age: Unknown
Race: Winged Naga (Demigod)[2]
Caste: Brahmin[3]
Occupation: Ethnohistorian[4]
Country of residence: India (most of the time but he has other lavish houses throughout the world and in the underground city Bhogavati)
Special powers: Shapeshifting, foresight, flight, mindcontrol/hypnosis[5]
Flaws: Bouts of madness that manifest as memory-loss to a time when gods roamed free and took what they liked when they liked.[6] Arrogant and rude to those he considers beneath him. More interested in power and learning than those around him. A twisted sense of humor. Very vain and demands only the best of everything.
Quirks: Enjoys terrifying humans by partially shifting his features. Loves raspberries and shiny things. Hates strong smells and mongooses. Keeps both pet birds and pet snakes which he can communicate with on a very basic level. A secret hoarder.
Lineage[7]:
Kasyapa + Aditi = Varuna

Kasyapa + Tamra = Shuchi

Varuna + Shuchi = Haatim

Alignment: Not aligned. Not against killing but not really interested in it usually. Sees humans as beneath gods. Could fight with your character or against him.
Known-ness to humans: Not known to humans aside from those working with the government of India (which has a large division that deals especially with gods and things which would be considered supernatural by the general population) and the extremely rural villagers who mostly only remember an impression of a god visiting. He is thought, like the other gods, to be an unreachable being or a myth.
How he meets your character: They meet when Haatim is visiting the USA for a vacation, research, or conference/convention. Haatim senses something different about him and questions until he finds out.



1 - [link]

2 – “In Hindu myth, nagas are a primeval race of divine serpent-people that play an important part in religion. They are half human and half snake, and are still worshipped as the bringers of fertility, especially in southern India. Nagas are believed to live in palaces (Patala) in the underground city Bhogavati. They are considered the protectors of springs, wells and rivers. They bring rain, and thus fertility, but are also thought to bring disasters such as floods and drought.” ([link] )
“In pre-Vedic times, Kasyapa was a primordial god. He was the father of the devas, the asuras, the nagas, and mankind.” ([link] )

3 – “In ancient India, the society was classified into four distinct classes. The most respected class was that of Brahmins. The people belonging to this class were engaged in studies, teaching, and research work…

(…these divisions exist even in modern times. Professors, teachers, scientists, research scholars, reformers, thinkers, philosophers, psychologists etc can be called Modern Brahmins…)”

[link]

4 - Ethnohistory: An Historian’s Viewpoint by James Axtell
“Ethnohistory is essentially the use of historical and ethnological methods and materials to gain knowledge of the nature and causes of change in a culture defined by ethnological concepts and categories. Whether we consider ethnohistory a form of cultural history or a sub-discipline of cultural anthropology, we can agree that it represents a common-law marriage of history and ethnology, whose purpose is to produce scholarly offspring who bear the diachronic dimensions of history and the synchronic sensitivity of ethnology.”

5 – Haatim can shapeshift from his human form to his full demigod form and all stages between. This is a power most gods have. His foresight (inherited from Kasyapa) doesn’t do much but let him see when his next time of madness (probably from the inbreeding) will be, allowing him to prepare. Flight is possible with his wings (inherited from Shuchi) but only for fairly limited amounts of time.

6 – When struck with madness Haatim travels to remote areas where the gods are still worshipped heavily and lives as he once did (this includes occasionally killing those he deems unworthy and hunting large prey). After the madness passes he uses a personal form of mindcontrol/hypnosis to make the villagers forget the truth of his visiting but leaving the impression behind to encourage their strong worship.

7 – Kasyapa: “In pre-Vedic times, Kasyapa was a primordial god. He was the father of the devas, the asuras, the nagas, and mankind. His name means tortoise, and he was connected to the cosmic tortoise which made up the universe. In Vedic times Kasyapa had Aditi as his consort, and he was the father of the Adityas. In later times he became equated with Prajapati and Brahma, and was also named as one of the rishis.” ([link] )

Aditi and Tamra: “The thirteen daughters who were married to Kashyapa were named Aditi, Diti, Danu, Arishta, Surasa, Surabhi, Vinata, Tamra, Krodhavasha, Ira, Kadru, Vishva and Muni, (The names of Kashyapa’s wives, particularly the minor ones, sometimes vary from Purana to Purana.) “([link] )

Varuna: “Lord Varuna was the son of sage Kashyapa from his wife Aditi. He is one of the twelve gods labeled as Adityas because of their origin from Aditi, the mother of gods… Varuna accepted the lordship of the waters. With appropriate ceremonies, the gods installed him as the king of waters. Thus lord Varuna took under his protection all rivers, streams, lakes, oceans and other reservoirs of water. Varuna also happens to be the lord of the western direction.” ([link] )
Varuna has Haatim with Shuchi after this incident:
“Bhadra, the daughter of Soma, the Moon-god, was known for her matchless beauty. She deserved a suitable husband. After due consideration Soma thought that only sage Utathya, widely renowned for his spiritual merit, could be a deserving husband for his lovely daughter. Bhadra too accepted the match. In due course, sage Atri, the father of the Moon-god, invited sage Utathya and gave his grand daughter to him in marriage.
Unknown to others, lord Varuna was already fascinated by Bhadra’s charm and had desired to possess her. Seeing that she had been given in marriage to sage Utathya, lord Varuna was upset. One day, when Bhadra had gone for a bath in the river Yamuna, lord Varuna abducted her and took her to his magnificient abode in the middle of the ocean. He enjoyed with her in his celestial palace for a long time. It was sage Narada who conveyed to sage Utathya that the latter’s wife had been held captive by lord Varuna.
Utathya said to sage Narada, “O’ sage! Pray go to Varuna and tell him to return my wife to me. He is supposed to protect the earthlings, not destroy them. Lord Soma gave his daughter to me in marriage. How can he justify her abduction?”
Narada went to the god of Waters and urged him to release the wife of sage Utathya, but Varuna said, “She is my most loving wife. I cannot give her up.”
Narada returned to Utathya empty-handed. “He would not return your wife to you,” said Narada. “Please, therefore, do whatever you consider appropriate.”
Sage Utathya was infuriated. He gathered all his spiritual merit, immobilised all the bodies of water, and started drinking water out of them. As reservoirs of water got emptied one after the other, the well-wishers of lord Varuna requested him to release the wife of the sage. But Varuna was so infatuated of Bhadra that he could not give her up.
Seeing the obstinacy of lord Varuna, sage Utathya drank the ocean dry and the whole earth became arid. Lord Varuna, the ruler of the Waters, had no escape now. He came to sage Utathya, returned Bhadra to the sage, and sought his forgiveness.
The sage was magnanimous. He forgave lord Varuna and relieved him, as well as the rest of the world, of the suffering by restoring the bodies of water to their original state.” ([link] )

Shuchi: “Besides, Kashyap also married Tamra who had six daughters and their names were Shuki, Shyeni, Masi, Sugrivi, Shuchi and Gridhika. …Shuchi was the mother of aquatic birds…” ([link] )