#divinity: death

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.

Deity: Nerull, The One Who Sorts The Bones

It's said they found the god in the old tombs, in that forgotten quiet where long eras had worn away all the epitaphs. They drew in a breath of the still air and on their exhalation the god took flight into the world on vulture's wings. -The Silent Testimonies, book 1

A god not of death, but of the dead, Nerull presides those aspects of the mortal coil that lay beyond the Raven Queen's domain of mourning and memory. Someone must keep vigil for the departed long after their names have passed from the memories of the living, and so that duty falls to Nerull, who's chosen people are the spirits that have lingered in the world far longer than they were ever alive.

Monsters Reimagined: Asmodeus, Lord of all Hells

I think I know what may be happening....You’re trying to atone me, and I didn’t do anything wrong...You want to know what I’ve always hated about mortals? why I spit on your forgiveness, why I loathe your redemption? To reach a hand down to somebody they need to be beneath you,

And I’m Beneath Nobody.

Brennan Lee Mulligan as Asmodeus for Exandria Unlimited: Calamity

@pikablob​ was asking about my ideas on devils and mentioned Asmodeus in the process, and while I’ve already done a monster’s reimagined on devils, I figured it was a good opportunity to talk about my take on the biggest of big bads. To summarize, I like to go back to the mythological roots of devils less as agents of a universal evil but as individual manifestations of judgment, looking to test or punish mortals for their failings. This ( along with Brennan’s showstopping performance in calamity) gave me the idea of an Asmodeus as the ultimate critic of mortalkind, an entity that can see all of our flaws and nothing of our virtues.

TLDR:  There are many evil gods, wicked things that preside over cruelty and misfortune in all its forms, but there are few that would claim to be the god of evil itself. Though to hear the lord of all hells tell it, there is nothing touched by mortals that is NOT evil: no act that is not in some way rooted in self interest, no moment of self determination that is not a transgression, no soul that is not some way corrupted. To allow the Father of Sin into your heart is to accept that people are fundamentally wicked creatures deserving of punishment, and that punishment cannot come soon enough.

Deity: Vecna, the Whispered One

My task of overhauling d&d’s villanous pantheon was started by a simple critique:  that if god was evil, there still needed to be a reason for people to worship it. To go with one example,  So many of the death gods in d&d want to kill everything that lives, yet they’re still presented as having legions of followers who are happy to die for them in opposition to the party.   You can say “Oh they’re just brainwashed, crazy cultists” but that’s just bad writing and thematically empty, neither of which I want for the sort of games I run. 

Vecna is actually an interesting case study in that he’s an outwardly wicked deity that has a theme which people would actively want to follow:   As a god of secrets, Vecna is the patron of any who will sacrifice anything to learn the answer to their problems, or conversely, the ones desperate to ensure their own secrets will never be known.  The story of Vecna as a mortal mage who attained first lichdom, then godhood is an aspirational one for all those power mad occultists out there, a common enough demographic in the d&d world both as villains and as player characters. 

Cults of Vecna worshippers likewise make sense as the whole point behind the historical practice of mystery cults was that those at the upper levels maintained their power through control of information and access to secret learnings.  You want to learn how to do magic? To speak to the dead? To protect your secrets from being known? Put on this ominous robe, learn the secret handshake, and don’t forget to drop your tithe intto the altar’s collection skull. Think of it like a forbidden knowledge based MLM. 

 Here’s some adventure hooks: 

While many of the whispered one’s acolytes dedicate themselves to discovering to the delving of arcane mysteries, others focus their attention on more worldly secrets. A powerful noblewoman is being blackmailed by a worshipper of Vecna not only for personal enrichment but also as an act of devotion, after he uncovered proof of indiscretions that would ruin her reputation.  While she’s too afraid to go for help herself and risk exposure, a devoted servant has seen her hidden suffering and has contacted the party for aid. 

Barely disguising its fiendish nature, a devil in service to Vecna approaches the party with an offer to reveal the secret intents or weaknesses of their enemies, if only they will deign to meet its terrible price.  While this information could do great good, or even save lives, just how low are the heroes willing to stoop? 

Seeking out the aid of a powerful mage, the party discover the old man on the brink of nervous collapse, having looked to deeply into the void and filled his mind with visions best left unmentioned.  Haunted by nightmares both real and imagined, he needs their help in quieting his mind through the gathering of rare ingredients and the distillation of a potent elixir. The process is not without risk however, are the party willing to help if it means erasing the information they need from his head, to say nothing of potentially lobotomizing the poor wizard? 

Adventure: The Unexpected Invasion

The outbreak of war is much like a birth of a child; when it wants to happen, it’ll happen, whether you were ready for it or not.

-  Brenna of Windspoke, Diplomat

Setup: After years of political tension, an invasion fleet heading for the kingdom’s capital was blown disastrously off course, half wrecking itself upon a beach of a town more than a province or two away. With their element of surprise completely ruined, the invaders have decided to make use of this impromptu beachhead and take the local fortress for themselves. 

What a shame then, that the party is IN that fortress on unrelated business, and are now being pressed into its defense, the first of many skirmishes they’ll have with this impromptu adversary. 

Challenges and Complications: 

With no time to study the terrain and develop a siege plan, the enemy commander is forced to use blunt-force tactics to establish her beachhead, landing as many troops as she can a few miles up the coast from the fortress and sending ships to blockade the harbor. Even disorganized and recently disembarked, her force is more than enough to overwhelm the local garrison, and the players can expect successive waves of increasingly dangers foes as she manages to unpack more and more of her warships’ holds. 

Disaster of disaster, the king’s brother was visiting when the invaders made land, and with the blockade closing in and troops mustering on the beach there are increasingly few opportunities to get him to safety lest he become a hostage. His young son is missing however, brought along to gain some valuable political experience and run off to play with some of the other castle children when politics got to boring for him not to sit still. The Royal guest won’t leave until his son is returned, possibly requiring the party to search the castle and town to find his whereabouts. 

As much help as she would have been in the coming battle, the town’s wizard has left several days ago to ride the winds of the massive storm and see how much lightning she could bottle. If the party can make it past the wards that guard her sanctum, as well as the guardians summoned in its defense, they may be able to find a few tools useful for the upcoming siege. 

Adventure Hooks: 

The Unexpected Invasion can make a great starting adventure for a campaign focusing on epic battles, forging a cast of castle servants and unexpected guests into their kingdom’s defenders and giving them the first bitter taste of war. After the castle falls ( and it will fall, for our party are not yet heroes with the strength to defend it) the characters are taken as captives. Months later, laboring in the hastily constructed enemy shipyards, the party goes through the motions of their captivity while counting the hours till the other captives’ plan for an escape is set into motion. A chance for things to go awry arises however when they overhear that a missive containing vital enemy intelligence has made its way to the head of the camp, something that could give the kingdom’s other defenders a fighting chance against this foe. Do they stick to the plan, or risk it all to strike back against their foe? 

With the keep taken and their surprise attack on the capital thoroughly derailed, the invaders disembark and begin launching attacks into the kingdom’s heartland, ceasing towns and treasure, and knocking the monarch’s bannermen off the board before they can ever muster their forces.  This leaves the kingdom a patchwork wilderness of battlefields and holdouts, a breeding ground for ghouls, bandits, and deserters that the party must cross if they are to seek allies. 

Monsters Reimagined: Orcus, The Dead God, Patron of Unbroken Oaths

What’s wrong? : I’ve never been a fan of the default Orcus, as his role of “demon god of undeath” mixes a few too many of d&d’s default baddies into one catchall cult. There are more than enough demon gods, undeath gods, and demons of undeath to go around without having to have a major being that’s all three. 

Likewise, Orcus’s stated goals usually default to something along the lines of “ Kill everything in all worlds, including the dead things” which is... kinda dull thematically speaking? Its one of those “I’m going to destroy the galaxy” plots that bad hollywood blockbusters rely on when they can’t figure out a way to directly motivate their heroes. Also, who the hell would worship a god who’s philosophy can generally be described as  “omnicidal” ? its a cartoon villain theology that doesn’t get much more complicated than “ bad for the sake of bad”.  

To that end, lets rebuild Orcus into something that’ll be widely useful in multiple campaigns, with unique motivations and themes that’ll help inspire our future writing, then detail a few adventure prompts below the cut. 

What’s worth Salvaging?: Lets get it out of the way first that the IRL mythological Orcus is way more interesting than his d&d counterpart. A cthonic god of the underworld, oaths, and curses, largely revered by country-dwellers and made a part of pagan festivals involving the depths of the earth.  The god/spirit that punishes you if you swear a false oath or break a true one is an AMAZINGLY useful concept for us when it comes to constructing narratives, and is far more believable a thing to worship/call upon than “the destroyer of all things”. 

As Orcus is essentially the ultimate evil/Mega-Satan in the d&d universe, he’s got a lot of canonized history for us to pick over, but generally it involves jumping the shark moments of escalation as each new edition attempts to make him more of a threat than his last outing. One interesting fact is that Orcus died ( multiple times) and has been resurrected (multiple times) to the point where resurrecting Orcus is the primary goal of a lot of villains, which is a rich vein for us to mine. 

To Bring it all together: Orcus is dead, and has been for a while. Once a keeper of the underworld and ancient tribal law, this god of deep caves and binding words was slain in a great turning of the world. This defeat is often attributed to Erathis the Lawbearer, or some other god of progress and civilization, representing the transition from ancient laws of blood-price and eye-for-an-eye to more modern concepts of justice and due process. Orcus is still worshiped in the pagan countryside, and the common people still swear oaths by him and call upon his spirit to preside over secret judgements. The odd thing is, these oaths still work: due to his unique nature as a god of unbroken promises and of the underworld, the definitively dead deity is somehow able to reach past the veil of oblivion to make good on compacts struck on his name. Call upon enough of the ancient laws sculpted into the ancestral stone, proclaim your challenge right and just, produce the correct sacrifices, and the goat horned god of pacts will pull himself from beyond the veil of death to mete out the old justice on your behalf. 

Dungeon: The Gate of Lull 

Setup: Just as there is no singular death, there is no singular underworld. Many rivers that carry lost souls between many cities of the dead, and many final thresholds that can lead you to either.   The Gate of Lull is onesuch threshold, a once imperious marble arch long stained by the shadowfell’s pervasive gloom. 

Presiding above a stretch of oily water frequented by ferries of the departed, it was once a welcoming edifice where attendants would hang garlands of flowers and play music to welcome new residence of their necropolis. 

That was before the nighthag and her minions took it.  Now the Gate is presided over by a band of shadowfell cutthroats, who ambush traveling souls and psychopomps for ransom or sale on otherworldly markets.  Most guides now know to steer clear of the Gate of Lull, or to warn those traveling along the oily river to take another course, but ancient maps still show routes passing under the gate, and can lead travelers directly into the hang’s clutches. 

Adventure hooks: 

A party exploring the underworld for the soul of a lost friend may find themselves fighting through the Gate on a rescue mission. The Hag has ghouls, minor fiends, and many more foul minions under her command, not to mention her potent eldritch abilities.  Should she be cornered, she will toss a gaggle of her captive souls into a river, and teleport away with the rest. The party will need to waste time figuring out if their friend ended up in the shadowfell’s cursed waters, or if they were spirited off with the hag. 

Dungeon: The Old God’s Cauldron. 

Adventure Hooks: 

The Party hears of an old pothole-cave deep in the hinterlands, once used for pagan rite. Rumors about such ruins collect as they gather dust

The icon of an old, primordial god stands watch over the site, glouring and stern in its gaze even centuries after its name has been forgotten. In some stories, the icon is said to speak, perhaps even come to life, though these stories are often in conflict as to whether it dispenses helpful riddles or devours would be intruders alive. 

There’s said to be a doorway under the statue’s feet. Conflicting reports say it may lead to the burial chamber of some forgotten thane, a temple vault full of treasure, or perhaps the underworld itself. 

Even if the door does not prove fruitful ( for many over the ages have tried to enter and the few that claimed to succeed could hardly be believed), there is still a sprawling cave system connected to the pothole, the lair of some rare and exotic species of monster. A site surely of interest to a party looking for rare components, and possessing some sturdy sets of boots.