The Arbiter

Sisdreg Bonemaul, Onos

Work in Progress

Titles: Sisdreg Bonemaul, Onos
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Portfolio: Birth and Death, Afterlife.
Worshippers: Clerics, Graveyard keepers, those who respect the dead
Alignments: LG, N, LN
Weapon: Judgement - Greataxe


The one who sits in judgment over the souls of the dead, he looks at each soul and deems if they are worthy to enter their god's heaven or suffer punishments equal to their sins. It is said that this god also creates and maintains all the afterlives for the gods. Among the dwarves he is known as Sisdreg Bonemaul, he oversees a realm where honorable dwarves go to feast and drink with their ancestors for all time, while dishonorable dwarves are put to work preparing the feasts and drinks beneath the grand hall forced to always hear the honorable ones celebrating while they toil in terrible conditions under the whip of demons. This god varies a great deal between cultures, but a common representation is whatever the race calls the god with a picture of a ‘Winding Willow’ a tree that can only grow in graveyards or a place where a great amount of death has occurred. These trees are said to be a sign of how the living remains transition into the world to feed nature while your soul blooms above into a new life. A winding willow looks like most willow trees except that when in bloom the top is covered in black flowers with a crimson red stamen. If the colors are opposite it is an ill omen often because the graves have been disturbed.

Divine Domains

Domains: Knowledge, Healing, Fate, Death/Grave
Sphere: Those who have fallen, the moment of death, the recounting trial of your life. Worthiness to go to the afterlife of your god. Warden of the afterlives.

Holy Books & Codes

Book of Judgment
The book of Judgment is a list of the qualities in which a soul is judged, it is a long read the book weighing in at 40 pounds before any binding is added, which it is normally bound with the wood of a Winding Willow and leather. It is an impressively large book that it is often that the priests who read from it are hidden from those attending the sermon.
The process of judging a soul is an intense look back at their life where they must account for every action or inaction of their life. During this ordeal, they are made to endure trials of both questions and to endure the result of their choices on those they harmed if they appear unrepentant. It all comes to a head once all the events of the person's life are laid bare that they are put on the scale to see the weight of the soul and the ruling made. Those with no guilt who led a good life are sent to the afterlife of their god(ess) those who overall led a good life but feel guilty about their actions are offered a means to help them clear their conscience serving as guardians of graveyards or other places sacred to the Arbiter. Those who led evil lives are usually sent to one of the profane realms to suffer for their crimes, the Arbiter is stern in their rulings but also willing to work with those who truly feel guilt and remorse and if someone should have remorse for their life of evil they may find themselves reborn into the service of the Arbiter as one of priesthood to make good on their redemption in a life of service.
Some highlights include

• Guilt wights the soul down and so it shall be placed on a scale against a feather
• Selfishness as a lesson they are made to feel as if they are dying of thirst while watching another drown, a metaphor for how they lived their life.
• An evil soul shall be challenged to do good

Tenets of Faith

• The body is a vessel to what truly matters, the soul. This vessel itself is sacred and once the soul departs its body the remains should be treated with honor according to the traditions of its people.
• The undead profane these vessels by forcing them into an unholy mockery of life to bring evil to the world that stains the soul that once inhabited it.
• Graveyards are sacred places of rest and death turning to life anew.
• Destroy the bonds of the undead and return the vessel to rest and cleanse the soul of the taint of undeath. Should it be impossible to recover the remains for burial destruction will suffice.
• Pacts and deals that circumvent the soul's judgment are an affront to the Arbiter, mortals should be freed from such deals, even if the result ends the same.

Holidays

Hero’s Day: The God of the Dead’s holy day is a thanksgiving equivalent and known as ‘Hero’s Day’ it is a time to celebrate the honorable dead, often in the form of venerating local heroes or heroes of legend. It is a day of telling grand stories and feasting in remembrance and thanks to those heroes who often gave everything for the world, and those important to the people celebrating. It is on the 14th of Last Harvest.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

To judge the souls of the departed mortals and send them to the afterlife they belong in. The destruction of pacts and deals that cause a soul to circumvent the final judgment of the soul, in particular, those deals that cause innocent souls to suffer for another's gain.

Willow Groves

This is what the graveyards of Savorah are referred to they are hallowed places to the followers of the Arbiter and they tend to the many Winding Willows that grow in the graveyard, in particular, the largest one at the center of the graveyard said to be above the very first person laid to rest there. The other smaller Willows are markers of those who have chosen to repent their misspent lives as guardians of graveyards, in times of need these spirits can possess the trees and become physical guardians of the graveyard.

Another feature common in these graveyards is an altar, statue, or other depiction of the Dawn King, the Arbiter and Dawn King are allied in the cause of removing the taint of undeath from the mortal lands. It is rare for a graveyard to have an attached priest of the Dawn King, one will visit periodically to upkeep the shrine and the blessings but the followers of the Dawn King are far too flamboyant to remain in such somber places.

Divine Classification

God

Religions

• Arcessan Commonwealth
• Khaldran
• Rhyderian Kingdom
• The Hand of the Ancestors