Nashkurgal – Ningishzida, Mesopotamian god of vegetation, the underworld, war and snakes & his mother Ereshkigal, goddess of the underworld.
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Nashkurgal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningishzida
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ereshkigal
Thank you to Ben A. for helping me make this connection.
Nashkurgal, a green Djinni is the House Calixco Djinni in the Rubal Wastes.
Nashkurgal betrays Baron Hairkonnen and sends your wizard and Istar to the Mongus to find the hidden entrance to Istanboa. Once you know where that is you can free Teddy and overthrow the Baron.
Ningishzida (Sumerian: possible meaning “Lord [of the] Good Tree”) was a Mesopotamian deity of vegetation, the underworld and sometimes war. He was commonly associated with snakes. Like Dumuzi, he was believed to spend a part of the year in the land of the dead. He also shared many of his functions with his father Ninazu.
In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal (Sumerian: “Queen of the Great Earth”) was the goddess of Kur, the land of the dead or underworld in Sumerian mythology. In later myths, she was said to rule Irkalla alongside her husband Ninazu and son, Ningishzida (in later versions of the mythology her husband was Nergal). Sometimes her name is given as Irkalla, similar to the way the name Hades was used in Greek mythology for both the underworld and its ruler, and sometimes it is given as Ninkigal, lit. “Lady of the Great Earth”.
In Sumerian mythology, Ereshkigal was the queen of the underworld. Some researchers believe that Ninazu originally fulfilled this function, with Ereshkigal only becoming a significant ruler of the land of the dead in Sumerian imagination at a later point in time. However, beliefs related to this sphere were somewhat amorphous, and it is possible there was initially no single universally-agreed-upon version of relevant mythical and cultic concepts, with various deities, both male and female, ruling over the underworld in the belief systems of various areas and time periods.
dates to the Old Babylonian Period
In later Babylonian god lists Ereshkigal held a senior status among the underworld deities, ruling over the category of so-called “transtigridian snake gods” (such as Ninazu, Ningishzida, Tishpak, Ishtaran and the Elamite god Inshushinak, in Mesopotamia known almost exclusively in the afterlife context), while Nergal, who fulfilled analogous functions in the north in Sumerian times, had an entourage of minor war gods and disease demons instead. The idea of Nergal and Ereshkigal as a couple likely developed out of a need to reconcile the two traditions.
I think the inspiration for Nashkurgal comes from both; Ereshkigal for the name and Ningishzida for the association with Green and snakes.
The current list of all the (known) Mirage references can be found here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Nashkurgal image is from Wizard101, and is copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment
Ningishzida image is borrowed from Wikipedia. It is copyright Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin and is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 Creative Commons license
Queen of Night image is borrowed from Wikipedia. It is copyright Gennadii Saus i Segura and is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 Creative Commons license
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
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