Telyavel, also known as Keleval, is a pagan Lithuanian god.
Biography
During the Dark Ages Telyavel was most notably worshiped by a bloodline known as the Telyavelic Tremere. It was through the vampiric priestess named Deverra that the god interfered with Cainite affairs, as when she brought the Gangrel warlord Qarakh to a region of the spirit world known as the Grove of Shadows where Telyavel kept his forge near a vast sea of blood.
The ancient god and the Gangrel warlord struck a deal in order to bring about the downfall of the Ventrue methuselah Alexander. Telyavel would infuse Qarakh's body with his power, the power of the land itself, for as long as he remained in direct physical contact with the soil of Livonia. That would work only for a short period of time, for even the Gangrel body is only capable of containing a minute fraction of his power. The smith justified his desire to assist in the Final Death of Alexander by saying that was "well past time to Unmake that one" and because he posed a threat to his followers. Telyvel apparently was true to his word because the alliance worked and the Gangrel warlord managed to diablerize the mighty Alexander.
In Qarakh's perception Telyavel was a mirror of his own shape, however depicted as a smith-god - creating the metallic leaves of the Grove of Shadows, using souls as raw material. In order to do that, a soul would appear on top of his anvil in the form of a small person (homunculus). Telyavel would grab the soul with the tongs and plunge it into the fire. The homunculus would screamed in pain but when the smith removed the tongs from the flames, he would now be holding a hot piece of metal ready to be shaped. The smith would put the metal on the anvil and pound it while steaming blood would squirt out with each hammer blow, running along the furrows and falling into an orifice below - filling a vast sea of blood nearby. At the end of the whole process, a perfect metallic leaf would emerge and be carried out by the wind into the Grove.
This representation alludes to the fact that Telyavel is not only the Guardian of the Dead, but also the smith god known as the Maker of Things. Popular lithuanian belief held that a smith worked with the basic elements of creation itself—air, fire, water and earth — and molded them as he saw fit, therefore being a blacksmith was not only a way to honor the gods, it was a way to know, in a limited fashion, what it was like to be them. If Qarakh understood it correctly, Telyavel was reincarnating the souls of the dead, using them as raw material to create the metallic leaves (whatever they were).
Speculation
- It is very likely that Telyavel was a powerful Earthbound.
References
- Dark Ages Clan Novel 10: Gangrel, p. 267-272