I pick up a piece of string and connect the scrap of paper with 'Widow-Maker??' scrawled on it and then walk across the room, ducking over numerous other pieces of string, to connect it to the section labelled 'Ancient Widow'. Then I think further, hesitate, then take a deep breath and also connect the 'Widow-Maker??' to a dusty corner of the room, where a section labelled 'Amazons' has a subsection labelled 'Rigg', which itself has a bit of paper next to it with 'absent husband?' written on it. Then I look at the other major connection to that section that connects to Rigg's daughter, and need to sit down and think for a while.
Well the thread is pretty slow for now, so I have decided to grab a few pieces of string and run with wild abandon around my own cork board, just for fun. Please note, this is for entertainment purposes only. Do not subscribe to any of those theories without consulting your doctor.
1. Drivot claims Rigg had a child with Amex, the elf God of wealth and happiness, but no one has ever heard of Amex. In fact Amex makes no sense as a name for an elf God, as the letter 'X' appears in no Eltharin word or rune I've ever come across. However, the letter does appear in a number of dragon names, among them Abraxas. Drop the last part of his name and you get Abrax, which isn't that far away from Amex if you think about it. Now, according to Deathfang Abraxas is associated with Iz. Iz can also be connected with Rigg - in the sidestory it's noted that one of the members of the Iz team smuggled their spouse to it which caused a bit of a scandal; this could fit Rigg being the only Old One referred to as female, and it explains why she was an outsider as she wasn't supposed to be on the mission.
According to a recently uncovered Eonir myth, Abraxas used to serve one of the Cytharai, and then Isha, and then he left Ulthuan. If that Cytharai was Mathlann, God of the sea, then maybe Drivot got things mixed up because of that, thinking Abraxas was an elf God because of his associations with Ulthuan and that he was a god of the sea because of his service to Mathlann. According to the same Eonir myth, Abraxas left across the sea to serve Rhya. Archives of Empire III tells a story about Rhya having two handmaidens named Vidagg and
Rigga. Perhaps Abraxas took Rigg with him, and she too ended up in the service of Rhya? As for Vidagg, there happens to be a water spirit called Viydagg in Laurelorn, the very place this myth came from!
2. Amex is obviously an Old One name - golden plates tell of Inhamex, so Amex is definitely a sound that sometimes appears in Old One speech. This makes sense, since Rigg is an Old One. Why did Drivot mistake Amex for an elf God? Well, in the sidestory the Old Ones have 'deific interfaces', seemingly godly avatars they control. Those deific interfaces are not always associated with the same city as the Old Ones; Cd-3 had a deific interface associated with Qt. Assume that Amex was an Old One and a member of the Iz team, but he had a deific interface in Qt. Qt is associated with the elves, so maybe that's why Drivot thought Amex was an elf God. Qt is also associated with Draugnir, who gave his life to aid in the creation Widowmaker. Perhaps his was not the only life claimed by Widowmaker, and Amex too died to create the blade, leaving Rigg a widow?
Or perhaps Widowmaker claimed Amex's life for another reason. Iz-1 was a traitor, perhaps so was Amex, or perhaps he was suspected as such and killed for it. Yet another reason for his widow to become an outcast.
3. Rigg's manifestation is apparently 'said to stand at a menacing 9 feet tall and have blazing red hair and eyes'. Hag witches can assume the form of the Ancient Widow, 'a grey-haired monstrosity over eight feet in height, with glowing eyes, rusted metal teeth, and long, iron talons', but take a close look at the image in the
Ancient Widow's wiki page. The hair isn't grey, it's red, same as the glowing eyes - just like Rigg's eyes and hair! The height fits, too. Rigg is also the patron of a female warrior race, while The Ancient Widow became the patron of a lineage of warrior queens, and grants Her magic only to females.
4. Kalith is, of course, Kalita. This must mean that Rigg and Amex are Shallya and Ranald, respectively. Shallya, the 'mother of mothers', is so called as she is the mother of Kalith which in turn is the mother of the amazons. In addition, Rigg's shrine is found on shores of Lake Lokka, which might be a refrence to Loec, who is surely Ranald. Loec is associated with Draugnir in myth, and Draugnir is associated with Widowmaker. Recall that we heard that Ranald got most of the Widow's siblings killed. Well, perhaps He also got Her husband killed, specifically with a blade made by Ranald's dragon buddy.
Now, Amex might seem a poor fit for Ranald, but think a little deeper: Ranald is associated with humor, and Loec was said to entertain the stars in the night sky, so happiness is a sensible connection for him to have. Wealth is likewise sensible for fairly obvious reasons, and also note that Kalita - Ranald's progeny - is worshipped as a trade God in Kislev. The sea is the stranget assocation, but the myth of Sartossa does imply that Ranald might have some power over the sea. And the fact that Rigg's shrine is near a lake should remind us of another water association Ranald has - His other daughter is the lady of the lake!
5. Rigg is the mother of Kalith, who is the mother of an entire race. In other words, one might call Rigg a 'many-times grandmother'. Perhaps you recognize this title? Yes, Rigg is none other than Esmerelda, head of the halfling pantheon! Esmerelda's symbol is a triangle over a line, which is surely a hint of her Old One origins.
