Doresain, King of the Ghouls (Dor-es-ain)
The insatiably hungry Doresain appeals to all creatures whose hunger can never be appeased. The deity looks like an especially thin and wasted ghoul. He has eyes ablaze with a sickly green ghoul-light, and his feet are hooflike. In contrast with Doresain’s wasted body, he wears an elegant white cloak of supple man-flesh over pale leather armor studded with tiny skulls. Ghouls are the primary worshipers of Doresain, and his symbol is a ghoul skull.
Portfolio: Necromancy, ghouls
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Domains: Chaos, Evil, Hunger
Favored Weapon: Scimitar
Symbol: Ghoul skull
Worshipers: Ghouls
Home Plane: Abyss
Divine Domains
Chaos, Evil, Hunger
Holy Books & Codes
All ghouls pay homage to the King. Ghoul lore hearkens back to a land sacred to ghouls called the White Kingdom. Though ghouls bound to the mortal plane sometimes create lesser versions of what they believe the White Kingdom to be, it is accepted that the true incarnation of the White Kingdom can be found on the layer of the Abyss where the King rules.
Temples to the King of the Ghouls are found only underground. Small shrines can sometimes be found in underground mausoleums or at the catacomb’s center, but fully functioning temples are erected only in the deepest subterranean realms, surrounded by a community of ghouls the size of a small city (at least).
Divine Symbols & Sigils
Ghoul skull
Tenets of Faith
The King of the Ghouls teaches that to exist is to eat. A fully experienced existence requires the consumption of prey, preferable sentient. Flesh for sacrifice is dear to the King. When life is quenched under tearing teeth and quivering lips, the eater can finally feel true happiness, at least for a time.
Sharing the sweet flesh of a victim among several ghouls is informally called “passing it around the horn,” and serves as a common rite in remembrance of Doresain. Each gluttonous act of consumption is, in its way, a prayer to Doresain, even if the eater doesn’t know it.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
Though the King of the Ghouls is a powerful entity himself and controls his own layer of the Abyss, he was once a vassal of Orcus. Later, Yeenoghu’s gnoll host invaded, and the King of the Ghouls was forced to swear fealty and pay homage to Yeenoghu. Yeenoghu subsequently lost control of the King’s layer, and more recently, Yeenoghu has lost the ability to command the King.
Doresain sometimes makes an appearance when incautious necromancers meddle with the Negative Energy Plane. Taking such meddling as an invitation, the King appears and forcibly converts all those present to ghouls, often thereby creating new worshipers for himself. While many ghouls are ignorant and godless, those that find religion invariably discover the King of the Ghouls. Creatures other than ghouls that come to worship the King do so with the knowledge that they will be “drawn into the fold” sooner rather than later.
Doresain often sends a gravetouched ghoul 13th-level barbarian as his herald. His planar allies are gravetouched ghoul succubus demons, gravetouched ghoul erinyes devils, and gravetouched ghoul ice devils. Doresain has the power to add the gravetouched ghoul template to creatures to which the template is normally not applicable.
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