Ekir, The Dancing Death

Ekir, better known as the Dancing Death, the Smiling Death or the Black Serpent, is perhaps the most distrusted of the gods of Kaladea. While he does not possess the raging violence of Gorgoth and Ulrek, nor the oppressive omnipresence of Kaiman, Ekir represent a far more insidious yet familiar form of evil, that of the betrayal of one’s kin. Ekir rules over sudden death, may it be accidental or intended, of one’s allies, enemies or even one’s self. The death unexpected, neither from combat nor age, but born of betrayal, anguish and misfortune. He is a god of cheats, treachery and betrayal, and a great seducer whose promises of power and liberation often find their way to the ear of mortal races.

Sacred Attributes

Ekir symbol is the Dichalos or Forked Tongue, often dripping with poison, representing his greatest weapons as both a seducer and killer. His Favoured Animal is the Snake, especially venomous ones, with whom he shares a sense of kinship and understanding, and from which the first poison was made. His Favoured Colour is the Black, the colour of darkness in which the deeds done in his name are committed. His sacred weapon is the Poison, the first of which he is said to have invented to kill his beloved’s pretenders.

Description

Ekir most often takes the shape of a young, androgynous man with long black hair and dark clothes revealing his perfectly sculpted body. He has a liking for expensive cloth such as silk and shuns armour. He moves with quick and fluid movements, walking on the tip of his feet and without producing any sound, in a choreography that is said to be irresistibly hypnotic.
He is also known to change his gender far more often than any other divinity, with his female shapes almost identical to his male ones, and uses the guise of a black snake when necessary.

Personality

As a god of murder and treachery, one could think that Ekir would be a sadistic, manic being, but this is not what transpires to many of those that survived an encounter with the god. Ekir is sweet, calm and empathic, almost docile. He speaks with a soft voice, almost a whisper, and looks at people with a kind eye. But do not be deceived, as so many do, and remember that his words are laced with venom, intent in luring you into committing unspeakable acts. Behind every smile, a hint of death, and behind every promise of fulfilment, the machinations of treason.
Ekir often does not even need to lie to push his victims over the edge, though he has no qualms in doing so, simply encouraging the darker parts of their psyche and obfuscating morality. Desire, envy, narcissism and lust for power are the instrument through which the god manipulates us into committing atrocities, bringing the darkest in everyone to the surface. He is a cynic who believes that most acts of compassion and kindness are lies born out of societal need, of rules he mocks and resents as an affront to the true, selfish nature of the mortal races. He laughs at those that would talk of sacrifice, honour and morality, not because he hates those concepts, but because he does not believe anyone truly capable of embodying them. As such, when someone manages to contradict Ekir, to not succumb to his temptations, they catch the attention of the god of betrayal and perhaps even earn his respect. Few have managed this feat, and each time it resulted in rather extreme outcomes, with perhaps the most famous his obsession with the goddess Selir.

Worship

The worship of Ekir is unsurprisingly not as welcomed as many others in the Kaladian pantheon, and as such very few honour him publicly. Scattered temples do exist on remote islands in the Orcades archipelago, built alongside pirate coves, but the vast majority of Ekir’s worship comes from those that seek him at one point in their life. Prayers whispered in the night as people turn to darker thoughts, or chanted by reavers as they plunder and massacre.
Not to say that there isn’t an established church of Ekir, but it takes a rather incongruous form. The Church of the Black Snake is where most clerics of Ekir come from, a hidden and diffuse organisation made up of spies, mercenaries and murders all united in their reverence toward their deity. And while there are some who kill in his name outside the sect, stray killers and the occasional zealot, the cult of Ekir is deeply associated with them and the dark services they propose. Disseminated across the whole Kaladian continent, the Church of the Black Snake operates in local sects reporting to the central Great Temple in Lailamis. Each sect works independently from one another, sometimes even against one another, their actions only dictated by the contracts they take and the instructions from the Great Temple.
As such, the worship of Ekir is mainly carried out through acts, logical for a god that care very little for adoration and grandstanding. The god favours those that follow in his step, facilitating the fall of others and unmasking the perceived hypocrisy of societal rules and morals. His clerics are seducers and manipulators, dark gurus and sect leaders, agents of chaos operating on every level of society. There are few signs that help to identify them, anonymity being one of their strongest assets, but they do tend to wear black garbs similar to their deity’s, and sometimes adopt snake effigies in the form of jewellery or even directly on their body.

Divine Domains

Death
Trickery

Holy Books & Codes

The Line in Crimson The Black Journal

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Symbol: The Forked Tongue

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Favoured Animal: Snake

Favoured Colour: Black

Sacred Weapon: Poison

Tenets of Faith

Morals and ethics are fetters that you must escape to truly be free.

Profit from society but do not be used by it.

Lie to others, but never to yourself.

Holidays

Night between 16th and 17th of Ekeos: The Longest Night (Winter Solstice, linked with darkness and evil who supposedly are at the strongest that night.)

Divine Classification

Deity

Alignment

Chaotic Evil

Realm

The Black Garden

Church/Cult

Kaladean Pantheon