Buduza, Goddess of the Uncharted North

A goddess known among humans chiefly, though often more expressed as a devil or malevolent deity. She is the goddess of the unknown, of early winter, of unending cold, of frostbite, and so many other unpleasant things generally related to cold, death, or the state of being lost, that her name is a common curse in northern Faerun. The most well known myth surrounding Buduza involves a story that grants her powers akin to a siren, where her call summoned people of all races to the unknown north where they drowned in the Sea of Moving Ice or traveled up along Icewind Dale only to lose their fingers and toes and hands to frostbite before suffering great enough pain that the more alert were able to snap out of the goddess's trance and escape back south with their lives, a couple limbs lighter. In most versions of the tale, Buduza is waiting for them south of the sea, where she confuses them with a heavy fog and sleet, claiming the remaining survivors for her army. Now, it's said, that she possess an army of the wights greater than any ever known, but they are incapable, limbless, without hands to hold weapons, and thus useless to her. Her plot is said to be that in death, she waits on the river passage as the dead cross over, where she extracts the hands of the fresh dead in order to transplant them onto her army. Those who believe in the myth of Buduza and her deformed army severe the hands of the deceased before their funeral, so as to rob the goddess of tools for her fell forces. Others believe that when you are so utterly lost in a wilderness that you doubt you will make it out alive, if you sacrifice a hand to Buduza, she will send a trail of magic fog that will guide you to the nearest settlement.

Structure

Buduza has few official followers, and those that do, have no active rituals, churches, temples, sacrifices, or practices. The superstition is acknowledged widely, though, especially in the regions surrounding the Spine and with those explorers and sea travelers who often venture into uncharted grounds or waters.

Type

Religious, Other

Demonym

The Handless

Divines