(a.k.a. Shade Thief, Raven Queen, Matron of Death, She Who Brings Winter, Phantom Queen)
Thanáta is the old god of death, the afterlife, and fate in the Elechyreon and the sister of Tenebrous. She is the arbiter of souls after they pass from the Prime Material Plane, shepherding the dead to whatever afterlife awaits them. As the goddess of a concept as omnipresent as death, she is one of (if not the) most powerful members of Elechyreon.
The Matron resides in a a cold and desolate purgatory of perpetual midnight known as the Shadelands. She is attended by pale-skinned humanoids known as the Erim-Ghishar, loyal servants who assist her with exacting punishment on mortals who seek to steal the souls of the dead or tamper with fate.
In her millennia watching over the dead, Thanáta has always treated mortals with curiosity. The Matron often shows an interest in the inner workings of the mortal mind and ponders the meaning of mortal concepts such as ethics and emotion. She has been known to show mercy to those who pique this curiosity within the goddess, and has even gone so far as to grant temporary reprieve to mortals who get on her "good side," were a god able to have such a thing.
Physical Description
Thanáta appears as a vaguely humanoid figure cloaked in a dark grey cowl that casts a shadow over her masked face, covered in a white porcelain death mask. Her purple cloak transitions into a pair of large, black raven wings which she normally keeps wrapped around her body, which is typically clad in jet black armor emblazoned with the primordial symbols for fate (three lines converging in a Y shape), death (a mask with two tear lines streaming from the eyes), and legacy (a two-headed raven with the right head's eye closed).
Mental characteristics
Thanáta emerged from the
Thaumic Weave at the same time as her brother
Tenebrous, during the plague of undeath that had befallen the plane during the Divine Epoch. The sentient species of the plane were praying for divine intervention to stop the undead apocalypse that was ravaging the plane, the result of the Primordial Titans having severed Divostra's connection to the higher and lower planes. Unlike her fellow prime deities, Thanáta appeared in the Shadelands, a dark void on the opposite side of the Weave to the Prime Material Plane that was literally overflowing with the spirits of departed mortals.
The new goddess could hear the prayers of the mortals on the other side of the Weave, some praying for the souls of their departed family to make it to a heavenly afterlife, others cursing the souls of evil men to the pits of Hell. She noted that the souls were collecting in areas of the Shadelands where the barrier between the plane and the higher and lower realms was weakest and surmised they were trying to reach the afterlife beyond. Though young, the god of death held immense power as the arbiter of souls, and used her powers to dismantle the barriers between the Shadelands and the other planes. This unknowingly attracted the attention of
Ahriman, who had previously overlooked Divostra as an empty plane but was now aware that it had become a realm filled with mortal souls that could be corrupted to swell the ranks of his fiendish army.
As Thanáta reopened the pathways between the Shadelands and other planes, the necromantic backflow seeping into the Prime Material began to ebb. Tenebrous felt his influence on the plane weakening and stormed into the Shadelands, challenging his sister for control over the domain. The weakened Tenebrous was no match for his sister, who defeated him and cast the god of undeath into the Lower Planes.
A neutral judge, Thanáta feels no remorse in damning souls to the pits of the Abyss or the Nine Hells nor joy in sending the souls of fallen heroes to the Halls of Mandos or Arvandor.
Social
Thanáta speaks in the third person, her voice loud and her tone always grandiose.
Comments