Abzu, the Chambers of the Deeps (Deep Old Ones, Southmarens) (updated 2004/11/02)

Apsū, The Kraken, "Lord of Krakens", the "Tentacled Whisperer of Impossible Secrets", "Chambers of the Deeps", the "Mad God", the "Hollow God", the "Insane Sage", the "Babbling God", the "Sleeping God"

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep.
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee.
About his shadowy sides: above him swell.
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell.
Unnumbered and enormous polypi.
Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie.
Battering upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by men and Old Ones to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Abzu is the terrible lord of the secrets lost to the dark ocean abysses. It controls that which is not meant to be known and that which people want to keep secret. Abzu is the master of all knowledge, said to know everything, but limitless knowledge has driven it completely insane. Its greatest act of madness was summoning the Kaeden from their "Astral Plane" into our world. Abzu is indeed the most legendary of all the gods of Ambar.

The "hollow god" Abzu is a sessile, many-chambered husk of a long-dead sea monster of titanic size. Known as the "chamber of the deeps", its body is as vast and empty as a dark, watery city, its sleeping mind living on only through the most abstruse of sorceries. This is as a mythical place where the mind influencing powers reside and where their results, as well as the means to influence their effects, originate. For its vastness, the husk of the Abzu is described as incomprehensible, unfathomable, secret.

This empty shell formed by the body of the Abzu is the domain of the god Dagon, the Lord of the Deeps. Dagon rules the seas from this most unusual of dwellings, along with his consort Damgalnuna and a number of his peculiar creatures. Dagon is believed to have ruled the Abzu prior to mankind's creation, but perhaps Damgalnuna understands its secrets better than he. Dagon's offspring are often designated "sons of the Abzu".

Temples of Dagon are referred to as E-Abzu, "the house, or temple, of the Abzu". The term Apsū is also occasionally also used to refer to a tank for holy water in a temple courtyard.