Dark Pantheon
Some gods are forbidden, dangerous, and rapacious. They prey on their followers, extorting blood, gold, and sacrifices for power, health, and even life. These are the dark gods, the heretical masks, the blasphemous views into the corruption of the soul. Their temples are few, but their cults are more common than anyone thinks. The dark gods rarely boast an overt presence in civilized lands, but their worshippers are everywhere. They are powerful and willing to destroy entire cities and kill other gods to regain the heights of their power. Some say these dark gods can be tamed, and that each contains some seed of redemption, some remnant of goodness and light. Most of the time, any such seeds are difficult to see, and the entire idea of redeeming a dark god might be wishful and naïve.
The dark gods offer power for blood and souls. They care little for followers, except insofar as those followers follow the dark gods’ commands. In this, at least, they are all the same. In addition to the domains each of these vile gods offers to their followers, each has listed the Patron Type for warlocks who sign their souls away to a dark god. Dark gods are not comparable to any other deity, each is a dark aspect of a prime god directly and singularly.
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Domains: Trickery
Patron Type: Great Old One
Prime Deity: Alizaxis
Symbol: The white bat
Favored Weapon: Battleaxe
Addrikah appears as a strange elderly derro who babbles constantly; her voice is said to “spill wisdom,” but her hymns are nonsense and her voice never answers followers directly. She is revered as the derro deliverer, who saved all derro from slavery through the gift of madness. She is also the derro’s connection to more alien gods as an oracle and interpreter, but to other races she seems completely mad. Despite her apparent age, Addrikah can crush skulls with her tiny hands, sucking out the juices within and then somehow transforming the shriveled brain matter into gemstones and ioun stones. Her legends and worship are disjointed, even by derro standards. Addrikah’s primary worshippers include the derro, the duergar, and deranged dwarves and humans. Addrikah’s symbol is a white bat. She has no holy books. Addrikah has no formal shrines on the surface world, though many exist in the underworld. Addrikah is on good terms with Mammon, the Goat of the Woods, and the White Goddess. Some believe she had a long-standing tryst with Loki. All others are her enemies, especially Freyr and Freyja, Khors, and Thoth-Hermes. The goddess of madness demands pure and unceasing insanity, chaos, and the baptism of all her followers’ children into her mad cult. She encourages kidnappings and sacrifices from her followers, and forcing dwarves into crazed madness brings Addrikah great burbling joy.
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Domains: Tempest, Travel
Patron Type: Lurker in the Deep
Prime Deity: Gaia
Symbol: A circling line of wind
Favored Weapon: Warpick
Boreas brings autumn storms and winter gales, and the biting wind carrying sleet, hail, and snow. Son of the Winter Maiden Marena, his duty is to deliver his mother’s killing cold to the world. It’s a job he takes seriously. Boreas aims to cover all of Torar with eternal winter, and prophecies foretell that he’ll one day succeed. He works tirelessly to ensure that his day of victory comes soon. From the highest mountain in the North he brews storms and dispatches giants, yeti, and other minions southward. He’s sometimes worshipped as a mere herald of Marena (called Mara in the North), much to his chagrin. Boreas resembles a winged old man with shaggy hair and a wild beard—a cackling lunatic plagued by lust, paranoia, and rage. He enjoys shapeshifting, sometimes appearing as a living storm or a massive white stallion, dragon, or hawk—and occasionally in more seductive forms. In horse form he impregnates the free-roaming mares of the steppes, producing the Winterborn as well as the Khazzak ponies, both among the strongest, fastest, and toughest horses. Boreas also claims to be the grandfather of all winter wolves and other snow beasts. True or not, Northlanders curse his name as the progenitor of all manner of evils. Giants, trolls, and ogres are the most common followers of Boreas, as are evil dwarves, winter wolves, and certain Orc tribes. The symbol of Boreas is a circling line of wind. No sacred books are attributed to him. Boreas has few shrines, usually simple piles of stone or caverns near the tops of windy mountains. His priests are likewise few in number. Boreas is on reasonably good terms with Chernobog, Loki, and his mother Marena. The Northern gods Thor, Wotan, Sif, as well as the Endhavian gods Lada and Khors, are all his enemies, as are the three Wind Lords of the Scorched Lands. Boreas claims those who serve him will be spared when he achieves his victory. His demands are relatively direct: help destroy the power of other gods and cover all Torar in winter storms. Worshippers must sacrifice creatures by exposing them naked to the winter night. They sabotage hearth fires and storehouses, and assist yeti, ice maidens, and other creatures to do Boreas’s will. Theft is no crime for Boreas’s followers, and burning the homes, hearths, and altars of his enemies is a sacred duty.
Alignment: Neutral evil
Domains: Death, Seasons
Patron Type: Fiend
Prime Deity: Oros
Symbol: A black square and bear's claw
Favored Weapon: Warhammer
Chernobog is the embodiment of all mortal fears, and his shape is variable and horrifying. He most often resembles an enormous black bear with horns and eyes like coals, his fur matted with blood and ichor. He is the master of the dead, not through respect but by compulsion; entire graveyards rise up in answer to his call. He is widely feared for his rapacious hungers and his raging strength, and even Mavros fears to fight him. Or so say the priests of Chernobog. When Chernobog walks the earth in the dark of the moon and during eclipses, winds rise and howl, animals grow skittish and dogs bite, and ghosts rise from every grave. All foul deeds are ascribed to Chernobog. Chernobog’s followers include the corrupt and the vile, especially witches, sorcerers, and wizards, but also thieves, murderers, and bandits and those seeking power, revenge, or wealth. Hags, trolls, ogres, and dragons follow Chernobog as well, and commit murders in his name. Some say Baba Yaga is secretly Chernobog’s greatest follower; others claim the two are rivals, or former lovers. Chernobog’s symbols are a black square and a bear’s claw. He has no sacred texts, only oral histories and parables of destruction. The books found among his priests are practical works of ghost binding, torture, necromancy, and incantations to summon demons. The Black Spire stands tall in the hidden city of Königsheim, and a small shrine of his rests in the king’s palace in Morgau, called the Hidden Shrine of the Black Hand. Xanthus the Flenser keeps its altar well stained with blood and offers his services to those who require spies, assassins, and thieves. But most temples of Chernobog are hidden, and those who visit them find that the priests are all too happy to hammer in their heads on the altar of sacrifice. Lo’dain the Lithe (CE male tiefling cleric), a son of the Master of Demon Mountain most often found in Vidim and along the Nieder Straits in a longboat rowed by zombie crew is counted as a great follower, as is Black Mother Yeva among the Khazzaki. By far his greatest priest is Sablehorns, the Metropolitan of Chernobog among the inhabitants of Niemheim. Chernobog has few divine allies and few friends. Khors, Perun, Thor, and Lada are all his unremitting enemies, but some claim that Volund made Chernobog’s hammer, and @Hecate taught him how to take on the forms of bear and wolf, raven and vulture. Chernobog demands his followers be strong, fight to take what you want, and never show mercy, pity, or forgiveness. The weak are less than you and should serve you, and as you are less than Chernobog, you must submit and serve him. Make blood sacrifices as often as you can; human sacrifices are best, followed by black animals.
Alignment: Chaotic neutral
Domains: Arcana, Knowledge
Patron Type: Great Old One or Forgotten God
Prime Deity: Fatima
Symbol: Five stalks of golden wheat arranged in a pentagram
Favored Weapon: Dagger
Once the greatest god and goddess of the magocracies, Bacchana was the deity of night, wealth, influence, fertility, and power—a human and female form of the elven Baccholon who wore a completely transparent mask. Her priests gave her followers great license to lust and every form of excess, and the people of Caelmarath, Bemmea, Vael-Turog, and other magocracies embraced her teachings with all their hearts. When the mages of those lands first summoned servants from beyond the Void, her church encouraged the endeavor and endorsed the wars that followed. The fight and its ever‑increasing expenditure of magic, wealth, and prayer pleased her as nothing had before, but the atrocities of those wars tainted Bacchana as deeply as her homeland. With a deep lust for destruction she looked to the realms beyond the stars where the Great Old Ones originated, and her soul and body were broken and reshaped into something unrecognizeable. The Goat of the Woods appears in two forms: as a hideous writhing, galloping crab-goat-thing covered with strange growths and tentacles, or (when seeking to not drive her followers directly into madness) as a hermaphrodite satyr with large curving horns and black skin clad in a wispy tunic of stars. Though referred to as “her,” this mad goddess is as much male as female and any form she takes blends the two genders. The power hungry, the mad, and the fearful worship the Goat of the Woods. Anyone contemplating a risky or destructive venture looks to her for a blessing. The goblins and giants of the Wasted West turn to her in desperation and isolated communities of outcasts, outlaws, and the lost find her voice speaking to them in the night. Lawful magic users the world over forbid worship of Bacchana. They struck her name from records, and burned her groves after the Mage Wars concluded. Wizards caught honoring her are exiled by their fellows, but are watched lest they mimic ancient obscenities. She is a major patron for witches and oracles, who sometimes call her by her ancient, forbidden names. The sign of the Goat is five stalks of golden wheat arranged in a pentagram. Worshippers’ secret shrines use star‑shaped objects such as starfish and star-shaped knives. A hand sign, the two middle fingers folded down over the thumb with the pinky and pointer fingers extended upward is a common , and easily hidden, gesture between followers. Her long lost holy teachings were once stamped on rings worn by her clergy. Now the faithful listen for her whispers on the winds. One banned book, the Viridian Codex, is said to contain her litany. Only fragments are known to exist. The Goat of the Woods was worshipped in groves of rowan and white oaks. During the purge of her faith these groves were burned and only the most isolated and dangerous survive, though many cities retain a small hidden shrine. The greatest of her surviving temples is the Mother’s Grove in the Ghostlight Forest, intact and guarded by strange creatures. The Goat’s clergy are called speakers and they rave wherever they can find an ear to listen. Many consider cross-dressing an act of devotion, the more flamboyantly the better, and all her speakers challenge laws and taboos as a duty of her faith. Her priests are advocates for the downtrodden and the exiled. The current grand speaker is Tivishta Trikinta (CN female goblin cleric). She wanders the Wastes and the Ghostlight Forest, sometimes straying into other nearby lands. The Goat of the Woods is as capricious now as she has ever been and is an ally, enemy, lover, friend, confidant, and betrayer to any god that associates with her. The faiths of Khors, Aten, Sarastra, and Hecate are all her committed enemies, though the Goat pays them little mind. Her only true enemies are the Ancient Ones of the Wastes, whom she hates, fears, and lusts after. Gain power and satisfy your vices and lusts commands the Goat of the Woods. Expand your mind’s boundaries with whatever means you have available, but especially with magic. Madness is the blessing of your goddess. Challenge the law and bring forth new visions. Embrace change and destroy hierarchies.
Alignment: Neutral evil
Domains: Nature, Grave
Patron Type: Archfey
Prime Deity: Gaia
Symbol: A stylized arrowhead or spearhead
Favored Weapon: Bow (any)
The Hunter goes by many names—Cherne, Kirme, Huern, Ebern, Herion—and every tribe calls him their own. He walks in countless forms, including dire wolf, human huntsman, fell hound, centaur archer, pale king, fey assassin, blood demon, and goblin trapper. The god embodies the ancient and deadly animals lurking in the wild fringes, and those who chase and conquer them. The Blood God encourages the dark instincts that drive beasts to red fury and the kill. The Hunter revels in the chase and thrives on power, violence, and blood. The Hunter appears with a crown of horns or claws, a rich fur cloak and deerskin leggings, and carrying a blacktipped spear. The Hunter’s eyes flash green and gold. The Hunter has ancient roots, and his priests lead or influence the most violent centaur clans and bandit gangs. For the fey, the hunt is an undeniable, timeless rite. When the Hunter rides forth, all those who hear must heed his call to hunt—even fey gods have been enraptured by it. Mighty Wotan and Perun once rode at the head of the pack beside the Hunter, in ages past. The Blood God enjoys a large following of human hunters and dwarven reavers as well as elves, lycanthropes, vampires, ogres, shadow fey, worgs, winter wolves, and hobgoblin, Mag'har, and goblin tribes. The Hunter’s church has grown even among aristocrats of the civilized nations. Forming Blood Lodges, they follow the Hunter’s doctrine for sport as well as for assassination of personal enemies. Every manner of predatory beast, monstrous and mundane, is a symbol of the many-skinned Hunter, and his primary symbol is a bloodied carcass. Other symbols include stylized spear and arrow heads, particularly if the Horned One’s nature must remain hidden. Observant prey can find such symbols as omens or warnings. The Hunter’s faith spreads through oral tradition, in campfire conversions between hunters. Written texts are rare, though sacred lore is hidden in manuals such as The Slaying and Field Dressing of Northern Beasts. Books are feeble guides to embracing the Horned God; believers must experience real bloodlust before they understand the Hunter’s call. Every bloodied hunting ground is a shrine to the Hunter. Full temples are rare, although worshippers consecrate formal shrines in remote woods or secluded valleys. Piled with the bones and skins of deer or boar, these shrines are painted red with their gore. Less grisly altars with bone offerings are dedicated in the Blood Lodges, exclusive hunting fraternities in less savage regions, such as the Naledi Empire or the province of Krakovar. His shrines in Krakovar now stand in the open air, where once they were hidden in dark groves. Elite huntsmen known as the herls lead the Lodges. Their chief is Red Marcken (NE male human cleric), who survived an encounter with a great mother bear, leaving blood scars scrawled across his body. Among the fey, a respected but quite dangerous Fey Lord of the Hunt leads the rites of the Hunter. To the Huntsman there are only two kinds of gods. The worthy are fellow hunters who join him on his great chases, their followers as their yeomen and attendants. All other gods are meat. Their clergy, their fawns, are also meat, all the sweeter in their mortal suppleness. The doctrine of the Hunter is as follows: kill without hesitation. No one has truly lived until they have taken life and let the blood scent fill the air as they gut and drain a kill. Hunt or be hunted. Join the Master’s Hunt when it rides by, and hunt boar, deer, pheasant, and rabbits in season. Learn to track, learn to kill, and eat what you kill. Know that your life too might someday come to a violent end, and live well before that day.
Alignment: Neutral evil
Domains: Forge, Law
Patron Type: Noble Genie
Prime Deity: Alizaxis
Symbol: Three golden coins
Favored Weapon: Greataxe
Mammon is an enormously fat devil with golden skin, horns, and a mouth capable of the widest smile, able and willing to devour the world. His clawed hands can hold enormous barrels, chests, and even entire treasuries; he wears jeweled rings, necklaces, bracers, and multiple crowns of gold, mithral, and diamonds. Mammon’s greed and lust for more, more, and yet more are unbounded and unstoppable. No matter how great the offerings given to him, he always looks to the next. All those who lust after wealth are Mammon’s faithful, but his creed is especially common among humans, dwarves, and dragons. A coterie of gilded devils pursue his goals throughout the world. Mammon’s books are books of accounts and lists of treasures. He has no sacred text, though there are hymnals: Hymns for the Acquisition of Glorious Wealth and Praise of Gold are the two most common. Mammon’s symbol is three gold coins. Shrines to Mammon are rarely public, but instead hidden in counting houses and merchant’s residences, in the halls of treasurers and misers, and even in the vaults and mints of kings. Mammon hates all the ascetic and humble faiths, considering them weak and spineless. He is closely allied with Marena the Red and with devils such as Asmodeus and Totivillus. Mammon demands coinage, wealth, and yet more wealth! The corruption of officials, greater trade through bribery and false dealing, and the increase in temple treasuries through any means necessary. Each day grow richer, and make sacrifices to Mammon, and learn how to profit from others through fair means or foul.
Alignment: Neutral
Domains: Life
Patron Type: The Undying
Prime Deity: Oros
Symbol: A purple snake eating its own tail
Favored Weapon: Hand axe
All creatures hunger, and without food, life ends. Vardesain took this primal need and built a faith ranging from simple gluttony to cannibal feasting. Indeed, food is seen as a sacrament that builds life, health, and righteous strength in the faithful, and the followers of the hunger god can be both great gourmands and the world’s least picky eaters. Sacrifices to the god are invariably edible—and sometimes still living. The god’s best-known forms are those of scavengers and predators: white wolves, ghouls, and darakhul, but also undead of abnormal size. In any form, visions, depictions, and avatars of Vardesain are always feeding on something. Vardesain’s followers are the hungry and the ambitious: power-hungry humans, monsters, and ghouls, vampires, darakhul, and the undead. They have no morals or standards, only instinct. Vardesain’s holy beast is the purple worm, a creature that devours sacrifices to the god in his temples. When embroidered or painted on vestments, it is shown as a purple snake consuming its own tail or a pair of open jaws. The priests of Vardesain keep bats, serpents, and oozes as living incarnations of hunger. Their holiest text is actually a series of cave paintings called “the Feast” rendered in the Shrine of Vardesain in Darakhan, the White City of the Ghoul Imperium. The empire depends on the Feeding Laws, edicts written on scrolls of skin and carried by Vardesain's priests. To disobey the Feeding Laws is to invite divine punishment, though in practice they are frequently broken. The red and white Shrine of Vardesain is the best-known temple below ground. Many ancient monuments to his face as the Lord of Unending Thirst stand at oases in the Scorched Lands. The current high priest is Cimbrai (NE male ghoul cleric), one of the rare few whose hunger has been consumed by Vardesain as a blessing. He currently works to topple Anubis's church in the Ghoul Empire. Chernobog, the Goat of the Woods, and the Hunter are allied with Vardesain, though loosely. Lada, Khors, and Perun all despise Vardesain as worthless and vile, and they seek to destroy his temples at every opportunity. The priesthoods of Vardesain and Anubis are great rivals, but the two gods seem indifferent to this rivalry, leading some to suspect that Vardesain is indeed a mask of Anubis's darker side. In Vardesain's dogma it is stated that flesh is weak, but your will is strong: show your strength. Hunt and kill what you eat when you can; scavenging is not dishonorable. Fast when you must find focus and purity, for your hunger will give you strength to see the way. Devour the hearts of your enemies.
Alignment: Neutral evil
Domains: Light, War
Patron Type: Fiend or Hexblade
Prime Deity: Thera
Symbol: A sun-like splatter of blood
Favored Weapon: Greatclub
The White Goddess was born with pale skin and red eyes. When she emerged from her people’s home beneath the skin of the world, the sun god Khors challenged her with his radiance. She would not be intimidated and stared him down, chasing him as he ran, until he hid beyond the horizon. Along the way she crushed his subjects, the sun-kissed races, and tore out their bones, feasting on the marrow and armoring her flesh. Every time the sun sneaks back over the horizon she chases him away and her faithful follow after each night, tearing the flesh of the sunlit races and offering up bones and screams in tribute. She is a battle goddess who embodies the harshness of life, the sun’s cruel heat and blinding radiance. She is the will to go on and the blessed rest that comes to those who earn their indolence. The White Goddess appears as a massive albino orc, with red eyes that glow like embers and intricately carved tusks. She wears crude bone armor and carries a massive club in one hand and equally large sword in the other. Her primary worshippers are the savage and failing tribes of feral orcs, once numerous but now eking out their survival in the depths of the earth and the farthest reaches of mountain, forest, and desert. Tales of their viciousness bring other savage peoples to the worship of their brutal goddess: goblins, derro, ogres, even gaians sometimes venerate her. The White Goddess’s most recognized symbol is a sun-like splatter of blood on a white field. Other symbols include a red skeleton, a skull with tusks, and a black sun. The only text of her faith is a large black ball called the Sun’s Eye, inscribed with ritual tortures for sun‑blessed races. Her priests say it was torn out of the sun or the sun god’s skull. Proof comes to the faithful when the sun turns its empty socket toward the lands below in what the other races call a solar eclipse. These are the holiest days, when the orcs rise from the wild to raid and kill their enemies. The orcs and others build altars of bones to honor their goddess. Any creature a worshipper kills has its bones removed and piled on the site of its death. These are her only holy sites, though there are rumors of a Great Fane of Skulls piled high with 10,000 sacrifices, somewhere deep within the Green Abyss in Ashenthorn. Her current high priest is war chief Jagger Ungligger (CN male goblin barbarian) in the White Mountain Marches, though she also has many priests in the Scorched Lands. Other than strange orc gods known only to them, the White Goddess has no known allies. Mavros wars against her whenever her followers appear, and Khors and Horus are her implacable enemies. The White Goddess demands her followers kill their enemies. Do not shy from pain and light. Your goddess’s names are the screams of the dying. Take what is yours from the weak, and enslave or kill those who challenge your rule. Pile high the bones of the fallen.
Addrikah
Mother of Madness; Lady of the White Bat; Maker of the Black Road; Voice of the Void; Patron of the Derro
Status: Lesser GodAlignment: Chaotic evil
Domains: Trickery
Patron Type: Great Old One
Prime Deity: Alizaxis
Symbol: The white bat
Favored Weapon: Battleaxe
Addrikah appears as a strange elderly derro who babbles constantly; her voice is said to “spill wisdom,” but her hymns are nonsense and her voice never answers followers directly. She is revered as the derro deliverer, who saved all derro from slavery through the gift of madness. She is also the derro’s connection to more alien gods as an oracle and interpreter, but to other races she seems completely mad. Despite her apparent age, Addrikah can crush skulls with her tiny hands, sucking out the juices within and then somehow transforming the shriveled brain matter into gemstones and ioun stones. Her legends and worship are disjointed, even by derro standards. Addrikah’s primary worshippers include the derro, the duergar, and deranged dwarves and humans. Addrikah’s symbol is a white bat. She has no holy books. Addrikah has no formal shrines on the surface world, though many exist in the underworld. Addrikah is on good terms with Mammon, the Goat of the Woods, and the White Goddess. Some believe she had a long-standing tryst with Loki. All others are her enemies, especially Freyr and Freyja, Khors, and Thoth-Hermes. The goddess of madness demands pure and unceasing insanity, chaos, and the baptism of all her followers’ children into her mad cult. She encourages kidnappings and sacrifices from her followers, and forcing dwarves into crazed madness brings Addrikah great burbling joy.
Boreas
The Devouring Wind; God of the North Wind; Bringer of Storms and Killing Cold; Patron of the Giants
Status: Lesser GodAlignment: Chaotic evil
Domains: Tempest, Travel
Patron Type: Lurker in the Deep
Prime Deity: Gaia
Symbol: A circling line of wind
Favored Weapon: Warpick
Boreas brings autumn storms and winter gales, and the biting wind carrying sleet, hail, and snow. Son of the Winter Maiden Marena, his duty is to deliver his mother’s killing cold to the world. It’s a job he takes seriously. Boreas aims to cover all of Torar with eternal winter, and prophecies foretell that he’ll one day succeed. He works tirelessly to ensure that his day of victory comes soon. From the highest mountain in the North he brews storms and dispatches giants, yeti, and other minions southward. He’s sometimes worshipped as a mere herald of Marena (called Mara in the North), much to his chagrin. Boreas resembles a winged old man with shaggy hair and a wild beard—a cackling lunatic plagued by lust, paranoia, and rage. He enjoys shapeshifting, sometimes appearing as a living storm or a massive white stallion, dragon, or hawk—and occasionally in more seductive forms. In horse form he impregnates the free-roaming mares of the steppes, producing the Winterborn as well as the Khazzak ponies, both among the strongest, fastest, and toughest horses. Boreas also claims to be the grandfather of all winter wolves and other snow beasts. True or not, Northlanders curse his name as the progenitor of all manner of evils. Giants, trolls, and ogres are the most common followers of Boreas, as are evil dwarves, winter wolves, and certain Orc tribes. The symbol of Boreas is a circling line of wind. No sacred books are attributed to him. Boreas has few shrines, usually simple piles of stone or caverns near the tops of windy mountains. His priests are likewise few in number. Boreas is on reasonably good terms with Chernobog, Loki, and his mother Marena. The Northern gods Thor, Wotan, Sif, as well as the Endhavian gods Lada and Khors, are all his enemies, as are the three Wind Lords of the Scorched Lands. Boreas claims those who serve him will be spared when he achieves his victory. His demands are relatively direct: help destroy the power of other gods and cover all Torar in winter storms. Worshippers must sacrifice creatures by exposing them naked to the winter night. They sabotage hearth fires and storehouses, and assist yeti, ice maidens, and other creatures to do Boreas’s will. Theft is no crime for Boreas’s followers, and burning the homes, hearths, and altars of his enemies is a sacred duty.
Chernobog
The Black God; Lord of the Night; Master of Men; Architect of Disaster; God of Fears and Fires; Patron of Betrayers and Murderers
Status: Lesser GodAlignment: Neutral evil
Domains: Death, Seasons
Patron Type: Fiend
Prime Deity: Oros
Symbol: A black square and bear's claw
Favored Weapon: Warhammer
Chernobog is the embodiment of all mortal fears, and his shape is variable and horrifying. He most often resembles an enormous black bear with horns and eyes like coals, his fur matted with blood and ichor. He is the master of the dead, not through respect but by compulsion; entire graveyards rise up in answer to his call. He is widely feared for his rapacious hungers and his raging strength, and even Mavros fears to fight him. Or so say the priests of Chernobog. When Chernobog walks the earth in the dark of the moon and during eclipses, winds rise and howl, animals grow skittish and dogs bite, and ghosts rise from every grave. All foul deeds are ascribed to Chernobog. Chernobog’s followers include the corrupt and the vile, especially witches, sorcerers, and wizards, but also thieves, murderers, and bandits and those seeking power, revenge, or wealth. Hags, trolls, ogres, and dragons follow Chernobog as well, and commit murders in his name. Some say Baba Yaga is secretly Chernobog’s greatest follower; others claim the two are rivals, or former lovers. Chernobog’s symbols are a black square and a bear’s claw. He has no sacred texts, only oral histories and parables of destruction. The books found among his priests are practical works of ghost binding, torture, necromancy, and incantations to summon demons. The Black Spire stands tall in the hidden city of Königsheim, and a small shrine of his rests in the king’s palace in Morgau, called the Hidden Shrine of the Black Hand. Xanthus the Flenser keeps its altar well stained with blood and offers his services to those who require spies, assassins, and thieves. But most temples of Chernobog are hidden, and those who visit them find that the priests are all too happy to hammer in their heads on the altar of sacrifice. Lo’dain the Lithe (CE male tiefling cleric), a son of the Master of Demon Mountain most often found in Vidim and along the Nieder Straits in a longboat rowed by zombie crew is counted as a great follower, as is Black Mother Yeva among the Khazzaki. By far his greatest priest is Sablehorns, the Metropolitan of Chernobog among the inhabitants of Niemheim. Chernobog has few divine allies and few friends. Khors, Perun, Thor, and Lada are all his unremitting enemies, but some claim that Volund made Chernobog’s hammer, and @Hecate taught him how to take on the forms of bear and wolf, raven and vulture. Chernobog demands his followers be strong, fight to take what you want, and never show mercy, pity, or forgiveness. The weak are less than you and should serve you, and as you are less than Chernobog, you must submit and serve him. Make blood sacrifices as often as you can; human sacrifices are best, followed by black animals.
Goat of the Woods
Queen of Decadence; Whisperer in the Woods; the Wicked One; the Mother Whose Loins Bring Forth Multitudes; Piper of the Midnight Sun; Father of Mayhem
Status: Lesser GodAlignment: Chaotic neutral
Domains: Arcana, Knowledge
Patron Type: Great Old One or Forgotten God
Prime Deity: Fatima
Symbol: Five stalks of golden wheat arranged in a pentagram
Favored Weapon: Dagger
Once the greatest god and goddess of the magocracies, Bacchana was the deity of night, wealth, influence, fertility, and power—a human and female form of the elven Baccholon who wore a completely transparent mask. Her priests gave her followers great license to lust and every form of excess, and the people of Caelmarath, Bemmea, Vael-Turog, and other magocracies embraced her teachings with all their hearts. When the mages of those lands first summoned servants from beyond the Void, her church encouraged the endeavor and endorsed the wars that followed. The fight and its ever‑increasing expenditure of magic, wealth, and prayer pleased her as nothing had before, but the atrocities of those wars tainted Bacchana as deeply as her homeland. With a deep lust for destruction she looked to the realms beyond the stars where the Great Old Ones originated, and her soul and body were broken and reshaped into something unrecognizeable. The Goat of the Woods appears in two forms: as a hideous writhing, galloping crab-goat-thing covered with strange growths and tentacles, or (when seeking to not drive her followers directly into madness) as a hermaphrodite satyr with large curving horns and black skin clad in a wispy tunic of stars. Though referred to as “her,” this mad goddess is as much male as female and any form she takes blends the two genders. The power hungry, the mad, and the fearful worship the Goat of the Woods. Anyone contemplating a risky or destructive venture looks to her for a blessing. The goblins and giants of the Wasted West turn to her in desperation and isolated communities of outcasts, outlaws, and the lost find her voice speaking to them in the night. Lawful magic users the world over forbid worship of Bacchana. They struck her name from records, and burned her groves after the Mage Wars concluded. Wizards caught honoring her are exiled by their fellows, but are watched lest they mimic ancient obscenities. She is a major patron for witches and oracles, who sometimes call her by her ancient, forbidden names. The sign of the Goat is five stalks of golden wheat arranged in a pentagram. Worshippers’ secret shrines use star‑shaped objects such as starfish and star-shaped knives. A hand sign, the two middle fingers folded down over the thumb with the pinky and pointer fingers extended upward is a common , and easily hidden, gesture between followers. Her long lost holy teachings were once stamped on rings worn by her clergy. Now the faithful listen for her whispers on the winds. One banned book, the Viridian Codex, is said to contain her litany. Only fragments are known to exist. The Goat of the Woods was worshipped in groves of rowan and white oaks. During the purge of her faith these groves were burned and only the most isolated and dangerous survive, though many cities retain a small hidden shrine. The greatest of her surviving temples is the Mother’s Grove in the Ghostlight Forest, intact and guarded by strange creatures. The Goat’s clergy are called speakers and they rave wherever they can find an ear to listen. Many consider cross-dressing an act of devotion, the more flamboyantly the better, and all her speakers challenge laws and taboos as a duty of her faith. Her priests are advocates for the downtrodden and the exiled. The current grand speaker is Tivishta Trikinta (CN female goblin cleric). She wanders the Wastes and the Ghostlight Forest, sometimes straying into other nearby lands. The Goat of the Woods is as capricious now as she has ever been and is an ally, enemy, lover, friend, confidant, and betrayer to any god that associates with her. The faiths of Khors, Aten, Sarastra, and Hecate are all her committed enemies, though the Goat pays them little mind. Her only true enemies are the Ancient Ones of the Wastes, whom she hates, fears, and lusts after. Gain power and satisfy your vices and lusts commands the Goat of the Woods. Expand your mind’s boundaries with whatever means you have available, but especially with magic. Madness is the blessing of your goddess. Challenge the law and bring forth new visions. Embrace change and destroy hierarchies.
The Hunter
Master of the Hunt; the Horned Huntsman; the Blood God; the Horseman; the Many-Skinned Walker; the God-Wolf
Status: Lesser GodAlignment: Neutral evil
Domains: Nature, Grave
Patron Type: Archfey
Prime Deity: Gaia
Symbol: A stylized arrowhead or spearhead
Favored Weapon: Bow (any)
The Hunter goes by many names—Cherne, Kirme, Huern, Ebern, Herion—and every tribe calls him their own. He walks in countless forms, including dire wolf, human huntsman, fell hound, centaur archer, pale king, fey assassin, blood demon, and goblin trapper. The god embodies the ancient and deadly animals lurking in the wild fringes, and those who chase and conquer them. The Blood God encourages the dark instincts that drive beasts to red fury and the kill. The Hunter revels in the chase and thrives on power, violence, and blood. The Hunter appears with a crown of horns or claws, a rich fur cloak and deerskin leggings, and carrying a blacktipped spear. The Hunter’s eyes flash green and gold. The Hunter has ancient roots, and his priests lead or influence the most violent centaur clans and bandit gangs. For the fey, the hunt is an undeniable, timeless rite. When the Hunter rides forth, all those who hear must heed his call to hunt—even fey gods have been enraptured by it. Mighty Wotan and Perun once rode at the head of the pack beside the Hunter, in ages past. The Blood God enjoys a large following of human hunters and dwarven reavers as well as elves, lycanthropes, vampires, ogres, shadow fey, worgs, winter wolves, and hobgoblin, Mag'har, and goblin tribes. The Hunter’s church has grown even among aristocrats of the civilized nations. Forming Blood Lodges, they follow the Hunter’s doctrine for sport as well as for assassination of personal enemies. Every manner of predatory beast, monstrous and mundane, is a symbol of the many-skinned Hunter, and his primary symbol is a bloodied carcass. Other symbols include stylized spear and arrow heads, particularly if the Horned One’s nature must remain hidden. Observant prey can find such symbols as omens or warnings. The Hunter’s faith spreads through oral tradition, in campfire conversions between hunters. Written texts are rare, though sacred lore is hidden in manuals such as The Slaying and Field Dressing of Northern Beasts. Books are feeble guides to embracing the Horned God; believers must experience real bloodlust before they understand the Hunter’s call. Every bloodied hunting ground is a shrine to the Hunter. Full temples are rare, although worshippers consecrate formal shrines in remote woods or secluded valleys. Piled with the bones and skins of deer or boar, these shrines are painted red with their gore. Less grisly altars with bone offerings are dedicated in the Blood Lodges, exclusive hunting fraternities in less savage regions, such as the Naledi Empire or the province of Krakovar. His shrines in Krakovar now stand in the open air, where once they were hidden in dark groves. Elite huntsmen known as the herls lead the Lodges. Their chief is Red Marcken (NE male human cleric), who survived an encounter with a great mother bear, leaving blood scars scrawled across his body. Among the fey, a respected but quite dangerous Fey Lord of the Hunt leads the rites of the Hunter. To the Huntsman there are only two kinds of gods. The worthy are fellow hunters who join him on his great chases, their followers as their yeomen and attendants. All other gods are meat. Their clergy, their fawns, are also meat, all the sweeter in their mortal suppleness. The doctrine of the Hunter is as follows: kill without hesitation. No one has truly lived until they have taken life and let the blood scent fill the air as they gut and drain a kill. Hunt or be hunted. Join the Master’s Hunt when it rides by, and hunt boar, deer, pheasant, and rabbits in season. Learn to track, learn to kill, and eat what you kill. Know that your life too might someday come to a violent end, and live well before that day.
Mammon
Lord of Greed; the Golden God; Master of Wealth; Lord of Coinage, Greed, Hoarding, and Treasures; Patron God of Miners and Unscrupulous Merchants
Status: Lesser GodAlignment: Neutral evil
Domains: Forge, Law
Patron Type: Noble Genie
Prime Deity: Alizaxis
Symbol: Three golden coins
Favored Weapon: Greataxe
Mammon is an enormously fat devil with golden skin, horns, and a mouth capable of the widest smile, able and willing to devour the world. His clawed hands can hold enormous barrels, chests, and even entire treasuries; he wears jeweled rings, necklaces, bracers, and multiple crowns of gold, mithral, and diamonds. Mammon’s greed and lust for more, more, and yet more are unbounded and unstoppable. No matter how great the offerings given to him, he always looks to the next. All those who lust after wealth are Mammon’s faithful, but his creed is especially common among humans, dwarves, and dragons. A coterie of gilded devils pursue his goals throughout the world. Mammon’s books are books of accounts and lists of treasures. He has no sacred text, though there are hymnals: Hymns for the Acquisition of Glorious Wealth and Praise of Gold are the two most common. Mammon’s symbol is three gold coins. Shrines to Mammon are rarely public, but instead hidden in counting houses and merchant’s residences, in the halls of treasurers and misers, and even in the vaults and mints of kings. Mammon hates all the ascetic and humble faiths, considering them weak and spineless. He is closely allied with Marena the Red and with devils such as Asmodeus and Totivillus. Mammon demands coinage, wealth, and yet more wealth! The corruption of officials, greater trade through bribery and false dealing, and the increase in temple treasuries through any means necessary. Each day grow richer, and make sacrifices to Mammon, and learn how to profit from others through fair means or foul.
Vardesain
Ghoul-God of the Bottomless Maw; Lord of Unending Thirst; the Hunger God; the Unsated God; Devourer of Souls; Patron of the Darakhul
Status: Lesser GodAlignment: Neutral
Domains: Life
Patron Type: The Undying
Prime Deity: Oros
Symbol: A purple snake eating its own tail
Favored Weapon: Hand axe
All creatures hunger, and without food, life ends. Vardesain took this primal need and built a faith ranging from simple gluttony to cannibal feasting. Indeed, food is seen as a sacrament that builds life, health, and righteous strength in the faithful, and the followers of the hunger god can be both great gourmands and the world’s least picky eaters. Sacrifices to the god are invariably edible—and sometimes still living. The god’s best-known forms are those of scavengers and predators: white wolves, ghouls, and darakhul, but also undead of abnormal size. In any form, visions, depictions, and avatars of Vardesain are always feeding on something. Vardesain’s followers are the hungry and the ambitious: power-hungry humans, monsters, and ghouls, vampires, darakhul, and the undead. They have no morals or standards, only instinct. Vardesain’s holy beast is the purple worm, a creature that devours sacrifices to the god in his temples. When embroidered or painted on vestments, it is shown as a purple snake consuming its own tail or a pair of open jaws. The priests of Vardesain keep bats, serpents, and oozes as living incarnations of hunger. Their holiest text is actually a series of cave paintings called “the Feast” rendered in the Shrine of Vardesain in Darakhan, the White City of the Ghoul Imperium. The empire depends on the Feeding Laws, edicts written on scrolls of skin and carried by Vardesain's priests. To disobey the Feeding Laws is to invite divine punishment, though in practice they are frequently broken. The red and white Shrine of Vardesain is the best-known temple below ground. Many ancient monuments to his face as the Lord of Unending Thirst stand at oases in the Scorched Lands. The current high priest is Cimbrai (NE male ghoul cleric), one of the rare few whose hunger has been consumed by Vardesain as a blessing. He currently works to topple Anubis's church in the Ghoul Empire. Chernobog, the Goat of the Woods, and the Hunter are allied with Vardesain, though loosely. Lada, Khors, and Perun all despise Vardesain as worthless and vile, and they seek to destroy his temples at every opportunity. The priesthoods of Vardesain and Anubis are great rivals, but the two gods seem indifferent to this rivalry, leading some to suspect that Vardesain is indeed a mask of Anubis's darker side. In Vardesain's dogma it is stated that flesh is weak, but your will is strong: show your strength. Hunt and kill what you eat when you can; scavenging is not dishonorable. Fast when you must find focus and purity, for your hunger will give you strength to see the way. Devour the hearts of your enemies.
The White Goddess
Goddess of Bright Pain; the Sun’s Queen; the Pale Matriarch of Blood and Strength; Patron Goddess of the White Shadows
Status: Lesser GodAlignment: Neutral evil
Domains: Light, War
Patron Type: Fiend or Hexblade
Prime Deity: Thera
Symbol: A sun-like splatter of blood
Favored Weapon: Greatclub
The White Goddess was born with pale skin and red eyes. When she emerged from her people’s home beneath the skin of the world, the sun god Khors challenged her with his radiance. She would not be intimidated and stared him down, chasing him as he ran, until he hid beyond the horizon. Along the way she crushed his subjects, the sun-kissed races, and tore out their bones, feasting on the marrow and armoring her flesh. Every time the sun sneaks back over the horizon she chases him away and her faithful follow after each night, tearing the flesh of the sunlit races and offering up bones and screams in tribute. She is a battle goddess who embodies the harshness of life, the sun’s cruel heat and blinding radiance. She is the will to go on and the blessed rest that comes to those who earn their indolence. The White Goddess appears as a massive albino orc, with red eyes that glow like embers and intricately carved tusks. She wears crude bone armor and carries a massive club in one hand and equally large sword in the other. Her primary worshippers are the savage and failing tribes of feral orcs, once numerous but now eking out their survival in the depths of the earth and the farthest reaches of mountain, forest, and desert. Tales of their viciousness bring other savage peoples to the worship of their brutal goddess: goblins, derro, ogres, even gaians sometimes venerate her. The White Goddess’s most recognized symbol is a sun-like splatter of blood on a white field. Other symbols include a red skeleton, a skull with tusks, and a black sun. The only text of her faith is a large black ball called the Sun’s Eye, inscribed with ritual tortures for sun‑blessed races. Her priests say it was torn out of the sun or the sun god’s skull. Proof comes to the faithful when the sun turns its empty socket toward the lands below in what the other races call a solar eclipse. These are the holiest days, when the orcs rise from the wild to raid and kill their enemies. The orcs and others build altars of bones to honor their goddess. Any creature a worshipper kills has its bones removed and piled on the site of its death. These are her only holy sites, though there are rumors of a Great Fane of Skulls piled high with 10,000 sacrifices, somewhere deep within the Green Abyss in Ashenthorn. Her current high priest is war chief Jagger Ungligger (CN male goblin barbarian) in the White Mountain Marches, though she also has many priests in the Scorched Lands. Other than strange orc gods known only to them, the White Goddess has no known allies. Mavros wars against her whenever her followers appear, and Khors and Horus are her implacable enemies. The White Goddess demands her followers kill their enemies. Do not shy from pain and light. Your goddess’s names are the screams of the dying. Take what is yours from the weak, and enslave or kill those who challenge your rule. Pile high the bones of the fallen.
Structure
There is no true ruler of the Dark Pantheon, however many consider Chernobog to be the most powerful of its gods. Some even consider Marena to be the leader of this pantheon despite being officially classified as part of the Endhavian Pantheon.
Founding Date
Unknown
Type
Religious, Pantheon
Permeated Organizations
Location
Comments