#dispater

Deity: Dispater, Lord of those Below

No Kings Beyond Death

A god of riches and horrors beneath the earth, protector and jailer of the departed souls, grim Dispater rules many realms with a stern hand and an iron will. Often cursed and seldom praised by mortals, it is this god's cosmic lot to keep order in the underworld, where the caverns of the mortal plane intersect with the labyrinths of the underdark and the shadowed halls of the dead.

While his worship overlaps with many other gods of death, few pray to Dispater as his heart is thought to be as cold and unmoving as stone, hardened by the grim work of keeping the domains to which psycopomps and other terminal forces deliver souls, ensuring that they neither have the chance to escape nor that they are picked off by fiends or other malign spirits.

Judges and other arbiters sometimes swear by him, especially when handling matters of life and death, as do miners, bankers, and others who work in precious metals or stones, as Dispater has a connection to caverns and other buried places. His clergy collects tribute in the form of those soft, perishable things that cannot be found below the earth: grain and livestock, flowers and wine. Their sacrifices of these things are said to pass on to the dead themselves, after their lord has taken his due tithe.

Adventure Hooks:

A monstrous bat haunts the countryside, endlessly harrying a graverobber who pilfered from a cemetery consecrated in Dispater's name. The exhausted scoundrel just so happens to have taken refuge in the same country inn as the party, passing himself off as a peddler who was shaken down by bandits. When the bat attacks that night (as he knows it will) he hopes to use the chaos to shift some of his plunder into the heroes' packs, diverting the creature and the divine wrath it represents.

Rumour is, if you find a trail of archaic coins scattered along the road, following it will lead you to one of the mysterious grey merchants, traders from the underworld who deal in memories and mementos cast off by the dead. Woe to anyone who attempts to harry or cheat the merchant though, as they travel under the protection of the lord below.

Shortly after a resurrection of a partymember (that may or may not have gone wrong), the heroes are approached by a dour devil in clerk's garb who insists that they need to follow her into the underworld to help clear up some post-mortality paperwork, or else their friend's soul might be held in litigation for a literal eternity. "Clearing up" in this case involves helping to clear out a field office somewhere in the shadowfell overtaken by the unquiet dead, fending off hostile spirits while the devil and the deceased do a lightninground of signatures on the relevant forms.

Has inter sedes Ditis pater extulit ora bustorum flammis et cana sparsa favilla, ac tali volucrem Fortunam voce lacessit (Petronius, Satyricon, 120)

Amidst these infernal surroundings the ruler of Hades Uplifted his head by the funeral flames silhouetted And sprinkled with white from the ashes of corpses; and challenged Winged Fortune in words such as these (trans. W. C. Firebaugh)

(In my ongoing efforts to un-dnd my setting, I recently reworked the lords of Hell of my setting. I will be posting them all over time)

Dispater is a true second-generation being, meaning he was created directly by the fundamental forces of good and evil, but rather than being created directly by one or the other, he was the result of a clash between the two.

Subsequently, he refused to choose a side in their conflict, something the Angels, Demons, and Dragons created before him considered unacceptable. But even after they all insisted he needed to choose a side, he instead preferred to stay back and observe.

The Demons were outraged by this and began attacking him. He created the Hells as his fortress and other Infernals to keep him safe, refusing to even fight for his own protection.

Dis: Whatever. I want to have her baby.

But he needs Dispater's help. Beacuse Dispater has the second best spy nettwork, Asmodeus has the best. But he is not going to Asmodeus, just beacuse.

I'm a kid who grew up on Egyptian, Greek, and Norse myths. And I miss those familial relationships of the PF gods, so. You know. I make them up myself.

Erastil sees almost all the deities younger than him as children and grandchildren. He is the patriarch of an ancient small community. Or your beloved but old-fashioned grandfather. He loves you, he cares for you, even if he does not always agree with your choices and does not always understand you. He tries, he really does.

Iomedae and Cayden see each other as brother and sister. They disagree on many things, have different outlooks on life, but they share the same mortal roots, and hell, try to hurt one and you'll have to deal with the other. Iomedae is always willing to watch Cayden's back (even if she later tells him what she thinks about his recklessness), and Cayden is there to support her. And he's damn good at heart-to-heart talks.

Aroden and Iomedae... It's more complicated. Iomedae might have seen Aroden as an uncle. You know, the slightly eccentric relative who has no family of his own but loves you. That's the uncle type. Aroden saw Iomedae as a daughter. He didn't have a family because, you know, family distracts you from important work, but as you get older, you get sentimental. And someone who learns from you, grows before your eyes, improves and is bound to be better than you were, feels like family. Iomedae was Aroden's morality pet, I'm just going a little further.

Sarenrae is something of a niece to Asmodeus. The Pale Orphan - that is, the Dawnflower - was a creation of Ihys and was close to him. Unfortunately, we know what happened to Ihys.

Eiseth is the daughter of Dispater and his first forgotten wife. And yes, the older half-sister of Ragathiel. This is my way of playing with the mysterious relation she might have to Ragathiel. Her quest to become an Empyreal Lord of vengeance and duty and her fall from grace is one of the reasons why the Heavens have distrusted Ragathiel for so long. Dispater is glad that his daughter has joined him and turns a blind eye to her defiance. Ragathiel... is not glad of her for so many reasons.