Prompt: Of Man, Lamia, and Goddesses (Part 16)

Summary: In a parallel universe much like our own, a series of divine mishaps creature a world where lamia replace human females as the eternal partners for men. What follows is a series of vignettes of how this world evolved over time. Commissioned by downhillrabbit6.1 for the month of November 2023

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A History of Migration

As long as there has been life, life has migrated to and from various settlements across history; though the landscape of the world is informed by the residents that occupy it, moving from place to place remains a fact of life.

In the history of this world, the majority of migration remains land-based. The study of the movement of proto-cultures has been a fascinating curiosity for both academic minds, as well as religious scholars. The migration of man originating from the African peninsula has been a fundamental theory, charting their gradual pilgrimage all across the world, including what would be known as the New World (embarking across iceberg floats across the Bering Strait), but the presence of monster girls across all corners of the realm has proved to be a more complex topic to navigate.

One point of curiosity is the typical monster girl's biological similarities to mankind; in spite of this similarity, however, various species would originate in different parts of the world, far removed from the Heart of Africa. Whether it be the slime girls born in the jungles of Southeast Asia, the centaurs of the Mongolian Steppes, or the distinct merfolk species across both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the distribution is regarded as irregular.

Theologists purported this historical distribution of the myriad species as proof itself of divine intervention; all the world was a playground, and all species had a place designated for themselves, privileged by the gods themselves; with all the species coexisting in perfect balance, to overstep beyond one's place and station was a worldly sin. This theology, in the coming centuries, would be investigated further with the advancement of communications technologies.

Mass migrations were, up until the 10th century, almost universally land-based. A common thread among distinct cultures was a healthy, well-founded fear of the seas and, once the Ice Ages had passed and the glaciers had retreated or thawed, the natural bridges between continents gave away to oceans and seas, now teaming with hostile ocean life.

Early sailing vessels were rudimentary, and served as poor protection for parties of hunting mermaids that patrolled for prey; living on the coast facing the ocean was a dangerous prospect, as raids of the mainland were frequent sights. Even if a bold explorer took to the oceans, with intent to circumnavigate the realms of the fiercest mermaids, they were liable to run into yet more deadly terrors, such as looming leviathans and killer whalegirls.

On these nautical frontiers, alliances with local sea serpent lamia for safe escort and passage across treacherous waters would eventually aid mankind in reaching far shores, new islands, and eventually the New World, but the hostility of these waters delayed the fullest exploration of the globe for centuries more.

Even the practice of island-hopping—transporting for short stretches from one island to another—was met with conflict and loss of life. The vikings of Scandinavia are a notable case study where a group of humans would hunt and raid not only other human settlements, but strike out against mermaid hunting parties for their scales, skin, bones and meat; the head of a mermaid, with their gnarled fangs, was an impressive prize, as were their customary tridents. However, records indicate that Vikings, seemingly drunk with hubris, attempted to migrate to the New World centuries before any other human civilization would attempt the journey. Their scouting vessels were, uniformly, overwhelmed by marauding merfolk.

With these risks, there was little incentive to cross the oceans for wealth and riches. Migrating harpies were the first to navigate routes across the sea (and, eventually, circumnavigate the globe as a whole). As the first to integrate with different societies, they were among the earliest merchant societies; though an entire flock could not carry as much as a seabound vessel, their prioritizing in spices and other easy-to-carry supplies (which offered value beyond their quantities) allowed them to secure livelihoods, trading valuable goods for plentiful meat to fill their bellies.

Harpies still hunted for sport and pleasure, however, and particularly bold harpies were known to aggress sailors and coastline humans for meat, companionship, and especially pleasure. Harpies swooping down to kidnap virile men and whisk them away to secret hideaways across the oceans was another form of migration for early settlers.

Harpies were known to keep a treasure-stash on remote islands, particularly including a harem of men to pleasure at their whims, to rotate when one was sexually dominated to the point of exhaustion and collapse.

As societies began to spread and intermingle more and more, there was a prevailing sense that the world was becoming an increasingly hostile place; conflict seemed to be a fact of life on every frontier, and even beyond the contested borders, the intense political struggles between clans of monster girls, fighting over their claims to male partners proved a particular challenge. In such chaotic times, many turned to religion for answers to their circumstances. The world of man seemed to be one of constant struggle, where the world itself seemed to reject their presence, deny them their livelihoods, reduce them to objects fawned over by other monster girls and, in particular, the lamia.

In times of relative peace, religious theologians would exchange their writing with other theologians. Even from different backgrounds and belief structures, they quickly found agreements in an "us versus them" sort of mentality. It is the instinct of man to better understand the world around them, and their place within the world; religion is one of many lenses through which to view the world. Through initial contacts, literate men exchanged accounts and theologies, and discussed greatly as to the roles of goddesses above; was the plight of man proof of a lack of a higher power? The malevolence of their creator? Or perhaps the whims of other gods, clashing.

What began as spiritual soul-seeking developed into a different string of theory, exploring religious curiosity increasingly informed by accounts and evidence. It would be some centuries until men would seriously investigate these religious, spiritual connection as part of a greater cosmological tapestry, but in the begin, such exchanges, informed by treks across roads, lands and continents, informed the basis of early religious doctrine, developing the earliest threads of an intercontinental Heterosian religion.