Ghaunadaur

Ghaunadaur (gone-ah-dowr) is an unpredictable by human standards. It may aid worshipers who merely pay lip service to its rituals—even expending great power to grant permanent magical boons—but may also devour or maim them without warning. Ghaunadaur enjoys watching the hunting and devouring activities of large horrible monsters, and the suffering they cause. Ghaunadaur. is silent and terrible when outside the Inner Planes, but old records tell of gibbering, bestial language spoken in the deity’s great court of mingled mud and gelatin pools. Ghaunadatr only communicates telepathically with blunt and simple communications.

Outside a few drow and aboleth cities, the church of Ghaunadaur consists of a handful of scattered cults each wholly dominated by a single individual. Clerics of Ghaunadaur are to do whatever pleases Ghaunadaur best and serve the Elder Eye absolutely. Clerics of Ghaunadaur have simple duties: they are to ensure, by force or threat, that a ready supply of sacrifices reaches Ghaunadaur’s altars. The god rewards them with spells and magic items for their success in this. Most of all, Ghaunadaur delights in creatures that offer themselves to him without resistance (regardless of whether these sacrifices have been charmed or otherwise. coerced by its clergy). Clerics who can bring such offerings to the Elder Eye’s altars often are highly valued and favored by the deity. Clerics of Ghaunadaur are encouraged to become familiar with the use and manufacture of acids, poisons, and alchemist’s fire.

Clerics of Ghaunadaur pray for their spells once per day at a time of imagined significance to the local cult. Ghaunadaur expects such prayers of adulation and praise to be accompanied by a sacrifice. If live sacrifices cannot be procured that often, the Elder Eye accepts offerings of bones and food, burned in oil, as braziers of perfumed incense are also burned. If the worshiper is unable to procure such offerings, he must pray while holding one hand in an open flame (without magical protection). In any place of worship to Ghaunadaur, all cloth furnishings and garments worn by the faithful are to be of hues pleasing to Ghaunadaur’s eye, such as shades of purple, red, black, and metallic colors. Many clerics multiclass as enchanters or fighters.

History/Relationships: Ghaunadaur is an ancient deity, said to have emerged from the primordial ooze. Venerated by the largest slimes, oozes, slugs, and other crawling things, some of which are said to possess intelligence, albeit alien, Ghaunadaur struck most of them mad in a fit of fury for some transgression and stole their intellects, As a result, many of its worshipers, and most of its power, ceased to exist» Only in recent millennia have evil beings seeking an alternative to established deities begun to worship That Which Lurks, and it is only the veneration of drow disaffected with Lolth that places him within the drow pantheon. Ghaunadaur has no allies. He is opposed to nearly every deity with a presence in the Underdark as well as Malar and the various members of the Seldarine.

Dogma: All creatures have their place, and all are fit to wield power. Those who hunt weed out the weak and strengthen the stock of all. Those who rebel or who walk apart find new ways and try new things and do most to advance their races. Creatures of, power best house the energy of life, which Ghaunadaur reveres and represents. Make sacrifices to the Eye, persuade others to sacrifice themselves to Ghaunadaur or in service of the Eye, further knowledge and fear of Ghaunadaur, and in the end give yourself to Ghaunadaur in unresisting self-sacrifice. Convert all beings to the worship of Ghaunadaur. Slay all clergy of other faiths, plundering their temples and holdings for wealth to better your own lots and to further the worship of Ghaunadaur.