Character Classes | Creatures | Deities | Playable Races
Campaign Settings: Dragonlance | Eberron (Dragonmarked Houses | Religions | Nations) | Forgotten Realms (Gods | Factions | The Legend of Drizzt) | Greyhawk (Deities) | Planescape (Factions | Races) | Ravenloft (Darklords | The Carnival | The Kargatane of Vallaki | Fraternity of Shadows | Great Families of the Core | Faiths) | Spelljammer
The main deities of the Greyhawk setting of Dungeons & Dragons cover an extensive range of spheres of influence.
Originally numbering only a few dozen, the number of gods has since increased dramatically to almost 200.
Widely Worshipped Gods
Good Gods
Ehlonna (pronounced Eh-LOAN-nuh) is the goddess of forests, woodlands, flora, fauna, and fertility. Ehlonna is known to the elves as "Ehlenestra, Goddess of the Woodlands". Ehlonna is a very old goddess. She combats those who would harm or despoil the forest of its resources and beauty. Shown as either a dark-haired human woman or a golden-haired elf maid (in which form she is known to many as Ehlenestra), she is served by Novelee, a planetar whose heart is so pure it makes unicorns weep. She has a hostile rivalry with Obad-Hai, but is friendly with the elven gods and most good-aligned deities.
Ehlonna watches over all good people who live in the forest, love the woodlands, or of those who hunt, fish, and otherwise make their livelihood there. She is thus worshiped by rangers, foresters, trappers, hunters, woodcutters, etc. More females than males serve Ehlonna. She likewise protects forests and woodlands from destruction or overuse. Ehlonna exhorts her followers to live in harmony with their woodland homes, taking only what they need. The bounty of the forest, Ehlonna teaches, is a gift to be cherished and appreciated, not a treasure to be coveted or looted.
Deep within the Beastlands layer of Krigala is the Grove of the Unicorns, a realm she shares with the like-minded goddess Mielikki. The grove sits at the base of a cluster of great sequoias that form a natural cathedral for those beneath the canopy. The lowest branches of the great redwoods are hundreds of feet in the air, such that those with wings can fly through Ehlonna's cathedral without difficulty.
Those who reside within the borders of Ehlonna's realm live in peace with the trees and animals, and they are similarly left alone by the wild creatures. The thinking creatures of the Beastlands adore Ehlonna, such that she is often aware of occurrences that happen far from her Realm.
True to its name, the grove attracts groups of unicorns. These are both unicorns with the celestial template and half-celestial/half-unicorns. In addition, there are flocks of bariaurs in Ehlonna’s service. The grove is not far from Skerrit's realm; centaur petitioners are found in Ehlonna's realm and half-celestial/half-unicorns in Skerrit's.
Ehlonna has taken advantage of the Beastlands' divinely morphic trait to give her realm the enhanced magic trait. All spells cast by rangers within the Grove of the Unicorns are extended (as the Extend Spell feat), and all spells that create food or water are maximized (as the Maximize Spell feat). Ehlonna has the power to make other alterations to the traits within her realm, if she so desires.
- Animal Lover: The thinking creatures of the Beastlands adore Ehlonna, ensuring that she is often aware of occurrences that happen far from her domain.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: Her favored weapons are the longbow (that always hits its target) and the longsword.
- Earth Mother: She's the goddess of nature and fertility, though she's not associated with motherhood.
- Friend to All Living Things: Ehlonna believes that nature should be monitored so as to ensure that all creatures are free of harm and living in harmony. As a result, those who reside within the borders of Ehlonna's realm live in peace with the trees and animals, and they are similarly left alone by the wild creatures.
- Nature Hero: She protects the woodlands from those who would harm and exploit it, either driving them out or destroying them.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Ehlonna sometimes appears as a raven-haired human and sometimes as an elf with golden tresses. Her garb varies, ranging from the serviceable clothing of a forester or ranger to the delicate gown of an elven princess, but it is always pale green.
Joramy (pronounced JOR-um-ee) is the goddess of fire, volcanoes, wrath, anger, and quarrels. Strangely enough she is not any kind of evil: she is neutral, and even tending towards Neutral Good. Shown as a nondescript woman with fiery hair and one fist raised, Joramy argues for the sake of arguing, and uses emotional arguments when rational ones fail. She is on good terms with nonevil gods who enjoy their aggressive side, but disdains emotionally distant beings such as Delleb, Rao, and her estranged lover Zodal.
Clerics of Joramy make good political leaders and revolutionaries. They are willing to defend their ideals to the death and have a gift for inspiring others to do the same. Many work as diplomats for small but aggressive nations, where their tendency to escalate talks into heated arguments makes their parent nation appear stronger than it is. They go adventuring to find new people to argue with and new causes to champion.
- Appease the Volcano God: Those who live near volcanoes engage in all manner of sacrifices and rites to appease Joramy's anger.
- Burning with Anger: Her anger and hot temper are closely linked to her fire powers.
- Good Is Not Nice: Although her rage is just, it often causes a lot of colatteral damage.
- Fiery Redhead: She looks like an average looking woman with fiery hair.
- Hot-Blooded: She has quite a hot temper but is of a good nature.
- Playing with Fire: She's the goddess of fire and volcanoes.
St. Cuthbert (pronounced CUHTH-burt) is the god of wisdom, common sense, honesty, truth, forthrightness, and zeal, properties necessary for small communities to survive and prosper. His origin is unclear and he has no obvious ties to any of the human races or pantheons, leading some to speculate his religion began on another plane and somehow spread to Oerth long ago. His worshipers claim he was once a great mortal man, now rightfully ascended to godhood to continue his good works. He is a deity familiar to all civilized folk and accepting of all races, creeds, and nationalities. He teaches that hard work, truth, forthrightness, and discipline are the keys to just rewards in this life and the next. Lies, sloth, and moral weakness lead to wickedness and failure. He is a stern paternal figure, stingy in praise and quick to lecture, but doing so out of love and concern for his followers and layfolk alike.
St. Cuthbert is the patron of honest, good-hearted folk willing to stand up for themselves and others in the face of danger, evil, or contrary opinions. He does not take kindly to ruffians, lawbreakers, and those who disagree too vocally with his methods. Saint Cuthbert is in the heart of the vigilant sheriff watching over a town, the farmer protecting their livestock from bandits, and the city guard patrolling a neighborhood to keep it safe. Although not a war god, he goes to battle when necessary, just as he expects his common worshipers to take up arms to defend hearth and home when evil threatens.
Despite his very specialized portfolio, his interests and practicality give him a broad appeal to many common folk, farmers, hunters, woodsmen, carpenters, or other tradesmen. This popularity means he has followers who might otherwise choose a more specialized deity, and it allows everyone in a community to hold him as their patron and be unified in faith (while still making token prayers to appropriate deities such as Pelor for healing). Cuthbertine communities tend to be more close-knit, increasing their prosperity and survival compared to a more religiously-divided community.
Saint Cuthbert sees things mostly in terms of black and white, with only a few narrow shades of gray in the middle, for it is just common sense to realize exceptions exist to every rule. For example, there are laws against thievery, but a man whose family is starving might have to steal food to provide for them. Such a man must be punished, but not to the same extent as someone who steals out of greed or to harm another. If the penalty for stealing is death, the food-stealing farmer certainly doesn't deserve that and might just get a whipping.
His realm, in Abellio, the first layer of Arcadia, is called the Bastion of Law or the Basilica of Saint Cuthbert. High walls manned by specially chosen paladins surround this mighty edifice of St. Cuthbert. Within the walls stands the basilica itself, whose highest dome reaches a mile into the sky.
At the very center of the basilica is Cuthbert's seat, called the Seat of Truth, though he rarely takes it. A curved open canopy supported by four serpentine pillars shelters the seat. St. Cuthbert brought the pillars home as trophies after a brief crusade into the Nine Hells.
Einheriar and privileged clerics, paladins, and others of deep faith stay in the basilica with St. Cuthbert, though he sends many out on missions in his name. Modest accommodations are set aside for occasional supplicants wishing to hear the wisdom of St. Cuthbert.
- Arch-Enemy: Great personal enmity exists between St. Cuthbert and Iuz the Evil, which adds to the former's popular appeal among the people living with the threat of Iuz to the north.
- Black-and-White Morality: St. Cuthbert is a stern deity who sees the world in black and white. For many folk living with the threat Of Iuz to the north, this is a very credible world view. However, St. Cuthbert does aknowledge and allow a few narrow shades of gray in the middle, for it is just common sense to realize exceptions exist to every rule.
- Carry a Big Stick: St. Cuthbert wields a powerful artifact-weapon, called the Mace of St. Cuthbert, which he sometimes loans out to worthy mortals.
- The Commandments: St. Cuthbert's religious teachings are passed on in the form of commandments, all of which begin "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not". In general, clerics of St. Cuthbert are more likely than most to pepper their speech with "thee", "thine", and other archaic pronouns.
- Deity of Human Origin: According to the minor holy book The Saint Among Us, St. Cuthbert was originally a mortal shepherd on a distant world who lived such a simple, blameless, charitable life that he was rewarded by the gods by being brought to Oerth, where he walked the world as a holy man teaching evil the error of its ways, and ultimately ascended to godhood on the strength of his saintliness.
- Depending on the Writer: Generally, writers go back and forth on whether he's brusque and pushy but ultimately goodhearted, or a full-on Knight Templar.
- Earth Drift: The implications that he was the real life St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne that didn't die of illness, but instead was brought to Oerth by the good gods, and eventually attained godhood. One early adventure even involved the characters crossing dimensions to recover his mace from a London museum. (His logic was that the best place to hide it was in a realm with no magic, where it'd never be suspected as anything other than a piece of history.) While this was never retconned, it has rarely been mentioned at all outside of some vague mentions of St. Cuthbert's origins being from another world, noting he has no cultural ties to any other human on Oerth.
- God of Order: He's basically this. He regards enforcing law and order in one's own community as more important than to go out looking for trouble by battling evil.
- Good Is Not Nice: Although he's a staunch enemy of evil, he's also kind of a dick, with a tendency to care more about telling people how they should behave than anything else. Firmly convinced of his own wisdom and authority, he can easily come off as self-righteous and arrogant. The goal of laws, in Cuthbert's eyes, is to show people the key to a better way of life and to "encourage" them to stick to the righteous path by punishing them for disobedience, tempering severity with understanding. Still, for all his rough edges, St. Cuthbert is a practical god who does care intensely for the people who follow him.
- Historical Domain Superperson: He is meant to be the real life St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, an Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop who lived in the 7th century A.D., except instead of dying of illness in 687 like real life, here his piety so impressed the good gods of Oerth that they brought him to this world and he was eventually able to attain godhood himself. His mace was even hidden back on Earth for several centuries before he had it recovered as he couldn't think of a better hiding spot than a world without magic.
- Holier Than Thou: St. Cuthbert is set in his ways, certain he knows best, and quick to gripe about the shortcomings of others. With his hard-line stance on following the rules, St. Cuthbert has little tolerance for actively chaotic deities such as Olidammara or even the good-aligned elven deities. He is gruffly tolerant of neutral good beings as long as they "do their jobs" and don't interfere with his interests; he knows he can call upon Pelor or Ehlonna despite their "faults".
- Martial Pacifist: He tends to take the view that it's more important to focus on enforcing law and order in one's own community than to go out looking for trouble by battling evil. Although he is quick to point out that when evil picks a fight first, as it always does, it's common sense to put it down hard.
- To Be Lawful or Good: He leans more towards good. As a god of common sense, he values judgment and individuality; the letter of the law should be strict, but people should be flexible in applying it, not just follow law blindly (the key trait distinguishing him from his rival Pholtus). For example, while approved of punishing thievery, a man who stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving family should just get a flogging and a scolding for not asking for help first, rather than getting his hand cut off.
- Too Much Alike: St. Cuthbert has a fierce rivalry with Pholtus, who is similarly a deity of inflexible law. The two have never seen eye to eye and their followers often come to blows after heated arguments, although never to the point of death.
Trithereon (pronounced Tri-THEH-ree-on) is the god of individuality, liberty, retribution, and self-defense. A foe of evil and oppression, his love of freedom sometimes causes him to come into conflict with other good deities, such as Pholtus and Heironeous. Trithereon teaches that everyone deserves life and the right "to choose their own place in the world", and that slavery and tyranny must be opposed and overthrown. The church should train the common folk to defend themselves and their possessions from those wishing to infringe on their freedoms. Those wronged have the right to seek vengeance, especially if no one else will aid them.
When upon the Prime Material Plane, Trithereon appears as a tall, well-built young man with red-gold hair and gray eyes. He is typically clad in pale blue or violet garb, with a shirt of golden chainmail often visible. He carries a broad-bladed spear, a broad sword, and a scepter in his broad girdle of gold-studded leather.
His realm, the Forking Road, isn't really a realm at all. It wanders all over the first layer of Arborea, and when a persons steps onto the road, they find that a world of possibilities opens up to them. Trithereon grants each visitor a glimpse of the major paths in their life, and the possible consequences of their actions.
- The Beastmaster: He often appears with three summoned animals which serve him without question: Nemoud the Hound, Harrus the Falcon, and Carolk the Sea Lizard.
- La Résistance: He advocates for the toppling of oppressive governments.
- Multi-Melee Master: Trithereon's best known artifacts are his sword, Freedom's Tongue, which can cause fear in all opponents of its wielder; his broad-bladed spear, Krelestro ("The Harbinger of Doom"), which returns to Trithereon's hand swiftly after being thrown; and the Baton of Retribution, his scepter, which can locate any enemy, anywhere, unless some extremely powerful magical protection against location exists. The scepter also permits its wielder to summon certain creatures.
- Rebellious Spirit: Trithereon strives for liberty and seeks to bring to an end to those who are bent on abridging life or freedom. He's known for his relentlessness in hunting down oppressors and tyrants. He also despises all deities who demand domination and absolute obedience, even if they're deities of good, because he feels that any limitation on freedom necessarily destroys those limits.
- Revenge: He believes that if someone is wronged, they are right to exact vengeance themselves, especially if none will help them.
- Slave Liberation: As a god of liberty, he strongly opposes slavery.
- Training the Peaceful Villagers: He advocated for training the common folk to defend themselves and their property should another wish to take their freedom.
Neutral Gods
Boccob (pronounced BOK-kob) is the god of magic, arcane knowledge, balance, and foresight. The Bakluni know him as "Al-Zarad". Boccob is a distant deity who promotes no special agenda in the world of mortals. As a god of magic and knowledge, he is worshiped by wizards, sorcerers, and sages. Boccob is known throughout the Flanaess, oversees the maintenance of magic's existence on Oerth, and is interested in the creation of new magic items and spells (he is said to have a copy of every magic item made by mortals). He sees that Oerth's magic is declining and will eventually fade away; he combats this effect and suspects that Tharizdun is responsible. He is distant from all other gods save his servant Zagyg. Shown in purple robes with shimmering runes of gold, Boccob carries the first staff of the magi. All times and places are open to him, and he has visited many alternate realities and planes unknown to the wisest of sages, places even the Elder Evils avoid.
Boccob makes his home in a sprawling citadel known as the Library of Lore, located in the Outlands. This massive complex sits atop a barren bluff. The only access to the library is by ascending a single great staircase guarded by an elder elemental of each type. No one can reach the library without the permission of these great elemental creatures, who answer only to Boccob. The walls themselves are proof against teleportation and astral meddling, and those who try find themselves at the base of the great stair. Within the walls of the library, spells that access other planes do not function.
The library is a convoluted mazework of passages that cross beneath and occasionally through each other, leaving no mark of their passage but foiling the most diligent of mapmakers. Within this structure are private meditation cells for wizards, sealed armories of magic items, and both true and false libraries that contain much of the magic knowledge of the world. Those granted access to a true library (done with the approval of Boccob himself) can find the answer to any questions as if a 12th-level caster had cast the commune spell. One hour of research is required for each question answered.
The Library of Lore contains a copy of every nonartifact magic item created by mortal hands. They are sealed beneath magical wards and traps, and golems and shield guardians patrol the halls.
Boccob is a greater deity, and as such the effects of his realm can be felt up to a hundred miles beyond the walls of his library. Within this area he can apply the limited magic trait to spells with the law, chaos, good, or evil descriptor, one at a time, at will.
In addition, Boccob has applied the enhanced magic trait to his realm. All divination spells cast within Boccob's domains are extended, and all spells within the Library of Lore itself are silenced (as with the Silent Spell feat). He has the power to further modify the magic trait of his realm.
Petitioners of Boccob appear human and have abilities typical to Outlands petitioners. In addition, they have the ability to detect chaos/evil/good/law, as the spells cast by a 2nd-level cleric, up to twice per day; they often use this ability to determine whether a visitor deserves to receive the information desired. Petitioners are usually librarians, scribes, researchers, inventors, or guides.
- The Archmage: As the Lord of All Magics, he knows every spell ever created.
- Balance Between Good and Evil: He advocates others to seek balance above good, evil, law, or chaos, telling them to fight to push back the encroachment of good just as they would the oppression of evil.
- Dimensional Traveler: He can travel to any time and dimension.
- The Magic Goes Away: He sees that Oerth's magic is declining and may eventually wane. He combats this effect by overseeing the maintenance of its existence by promoting the research and creation of new spells and magical items, under the theory that this increases the amount of magic available to everyone.
- Magic Librarian: His realm is known as the Library of Lore, which is the only magical library that contains a copy of every potion, spell, and magic item in existence.
- Magic Staff: Boccob carries the very first staff of the magi with him at all times.
- Stop Worshipping Me: You don't get the official title "The Uncaring" by being generous and open with your followers. Boccob doesn't actively reject worship, but he doesn't cultivate it either. Fans have long joked that prayers to him open with, "Oh Great Boccob, who is up there, rightly not giving a crap..."
Olidammara (pronounced Oh-lih-dam-MAH-rah) is the favorite deity of many thieves. Olidammara delights in wine, women, and song. He is a vagabond, a prankster, and a master of disguise. His temples are few, but many people are willing to raise a glass in his honor.
The Laughing Rogue is often involved in good-natured schemes involving the other gods (less good-natured for the more evil deities), with repercussions that can make life difficult for his faithful. He has few proper priests, but is held in high regard in almost all non-evil regions of the Flanaess. His favorite haunts are city slums or their exact opposite, rural glens and woodlands.
When Olidammara was once trapped by Zagyg, the Mad Archmage forced him into a carapaced animal shape as punishment for attempting to steal Zagyg's trove. Even though Olidammara escaped this fate, he retains the ability to create a horny shell on his back. Beneath this cover, the Laughing Rogue can use his spells to escape, leaving the shell to cover his getaway (it is said that he returned to loot Zagyg's treasury, employing the magical carapace to frustrate the Mad Archmage's capture). The discarded carapace remains as a hemispherical shell, about 2 feet wide and 3 feet long. It welds itself to stone and must be smashed or otherwise destroyed to be removed or passed.
The Den of Olidammara is located on the top layer of Ysgard. Wood, stone, and stranger substances create a grand but haphazard structure, as if several mansions of various cultures were mashed together.
On the inside, mazes, locked doors, blind hallways, and secret treasuries surround a grand hall where music and dancing are mandatory. Usually, the guests of this inmost den include rogues, bards, performers, and entertainers of all stripes and all places. Wine, romance, and song rule here, where Olidammara lounges at his ease on a grand divan, unless he is disguised as one of his many guests using his magic laughing mask. Because some terrible prank often draws him far away from his den, other deities treat Olidammara with deserved caution no matter where they are.
- Allergic to Routine: Olidammara teaches his followers to avoid predictability and routine and also inspires them to upset those too stuck in the routine of their lives.
- The Bard: He is known as the Bard of the Gods. As the patron of music and art of any kind, all those who try to make the world a more beautiful place through these means have his blessing.
- For Happiness: Olidammara teaches his followers to seek out happiness, joy, entertainment, and the company of others. He advises his faithful to appreciate both the jokes they play and the jokes played on them. He also teaches that misery, temperance, and solemnity are the greatest poisons to the soul.
- Fun Personified: He regularly throws parties in the great hall of his Den, which is filled with all kinds of rogues, bards, performers and entertainers alike. He considers drinking wine in good company to be one of the most joyful things one can do in life.
- Just Like Robin Hood: Olidammara wanders the Prime Material Plane in many guises, stealing from the rich, haughty, or evil and giving wealth to those without means, often distributing his pilfered gains through high revels.
- Lovable Rogue: His charm and humor have made him very popular with rogues and even resulted in an evil god like Hextor being willing to tolerate him.
- Royal Rapier: His favorite weapon is a rapier named Swiftstrike.
- Sdrawkcab Name: His name is very nearly that of the carapaced animal he was transformed into, backwards.
- Trickster God: Olidammara is the god of tricks and loves upsetting those who are too attached to their boring and controlled worlds.
Zagyg (pronounced ZA-gig) is the god of humor, eccentricity, occult lore, and unpredictability. He was once the Zagig Yragerne, the most famous lord mayor of the city of Greyhawk. Part of his apotheosis required the capture of nine demigods of opposing alignments (including Iuz, Merikka, Wastri, and Rudd). While some of these demigods were freed by a group of adventurers, their temporary confinement (and Boccob's sponsorship) was sufficient to allow Zagig's ascendance.
Zagyg promotes "enlightened neutrality and uncertain humor" everywhere. He believes it incumbent to afflict his jokes on all he meets, preferably in a way that leaves them wondering for some time afterwards. He never creates a puzzle unless it has some solution. He continually searches for odd bits of arcane knowledge and occult lore, and his followers do the same. He frequently changes his habits, believing that predictability is the bane of creativity and wit. Zagyg is also a servant of Boccob, the Lord of All Magic. He is Boccob's primary agent and liaison to mortals and other deities, although he puts his own odd twist on any mission. Somehow, despite his seeming madness, Zagyg completes every assignment that Boccob gives him.
Zagyg can travel all planes, but he divides the majority of his time between the Outlands and the Prime Material Plane. He also has a number of demiplanes that he has created, including the Isle of the Ape and Zagyg's Maze.
Zagyg's Maze is a labyrinth made of the foglike substance of the Ethereal Plane. From without, it seems bigger than a mountain range. Its entrance resembles the face of a harlequin. Entering Zagyg's Maze is tricky: it gets closer as visitors move away from it, and as they move toward it, the maze gets further away. Zagyg will periodically restock the maze with new challenges and add new bait to attract adventurers with.
- The Archmage: His magical prowess is revered by many wizards.
- Author Avatar: Gary Gygax named Zagig after himself as a joke because the person who designed the crazy, purposeles dungeon must be insane.
- Benevolent Mage Ruler: His time as mayor of Greyhawk. He had walls built around the city and built its first university. Was generally considered the city's best ruler.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: He bribed his way into a seat on the Directing Oligarchy before they elected him mayor.
- Carry a Big Stick: His favored weapon is a club.
- Deity of Human Origin: He was originally a human named Zagig Yragerne. His apotheosis occured after he succeeded in capturing nine demigods of opposing alignments and imprisoning them beneath Castle Greyhawk in an artifact known as the Godtrap.
- ​In-Series Nickname: Greyhawk locals called him "The Mad Archmage".
- Mad God: His sanity had started gradually declining back when he was human, which resulted in many of Greyhawk's citizens living in fear of his outbursts of humor and rage. Realizing what he was becoming, he decided to leave the Prime Material Plane behind for the sake of the safety of those he came in contact with.
- Mage Tower: Had two of them in Castle Greyhawk;
- The Tower Of Magic: Basically a Wizarding School for housing and training apprentices, Magical Libraries, workshops and rooms for creating golems and summoning demigods.
- The Tower Of Zagig: More personal things such as vaults for collected loot, prisons for deities and crypts for his family.
- Man of the City: Regarded by many as Greyhawk's greatest Lord Mayor and citizen, Zagyg is in many ways responsible for making Greyhawk what it is today. He reformed Greyhawk's legal code, established a currency for the city, founded the Greyhawk Guild of Wizardry, brought scholars to the city to found colleges, oversaw the creation of the mining towns of Diamond Lake and Steaming Springs in the Cairn Hills, and organized the city's first Desportium of Magick. He also oversaw the construction of the city's sewers, the Free City Arena, and Castle Greyhawk. It was Zagyg who named Greyhawk the "Gem of the Flanaess", in a speech voicing his wish that Greyhawk become the "keystone of civilization".
- Meaningful Rename: He adopted the name Zagyg after he ascended to godhood.
- Sdrawkcab Name: "Zagyg" is a reverse homophone of Gygax and "Zagig Yragerne", a reverse homophone of his full name, "Ernest Gary Gygax".
- Wizards Live Longer: He lived for centuries before he became a god.
Evil Gods
Incabulos (pronounced in-CAB-yoo-lohs) is the god of plagues, sickness, famine, nightmares, drought, and disasters. He is a dread god feared by mortals, fiends, and (it is said) even some gods. The bringer of disease and blights is a terrifying figure, with a deformed body, skeletal hands, nightmarish visage, and garbed in a black robe lined with orange and green. He rides a nightmare and is accompanied by hags. He causes a nightmarish slumber in any who meet his eyes, and his great staff causes seeping wounds and withers flesh with a touch. Incabulos hates all other gods, although he is indifferent to Nerull, who completes the work Incabulos starts.
Incabulos is hated by just about every deity in the cosmos who knows of him. Even the other gods of disease despise him on principle, for they see him as a leatherhead and pretender with no hope for survival when he finally has to leave his enclosed little sphere. Most of the other deities dislike him simply because he's someone who turns stag every chance he gets.
As the pantheon's deity of disease and nightmares, Incabulos favors battlefields and other sites of carnage. He draws much of his strength from such places; both sickness and horrid dreams come from the massed bodies of the dead. Naturally, in the current climate of war that's sweeping across Oerth, Incabulos grows ever greater. The mortals don't worship him, but they appease him, and that's often just as good.
Charnelhouse is just as disgusting (if not more so) as the realms of the other deities of disease in Oinos. The first thing a person notices is the stench, not even the Gray Waste can wash away the smell of the dead that permeates the place. The second thing a person notices is their deepest fear coming to life in front of them. Whether that's a skeletal horse with rags of twitching flesh in its teeth or the cruel betrayal of close friends, it all seems to come true in Charnelhouse. That's why people steer clear.
- Brown Note: His eyes give nightmares to any who look at them directly.
- The Dreaded: Since he is the bringer of plagues, famine, and drought, and because of the immense joy he gets from the suffering these things bring, he is feared by even the demon princes of the Abyss and the archdevils of Baator.
- Dream Walker: The world of dreams is his battleground, and he wages war against minds just as he rots bodies.
- Emotion Eater: He feeds on suffering, gaining power from illness, famine, nightmares, and other evils and woes.
- Magic Staff: He carries a staff that causes seeping wounds and withers flesh.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Incabulos delights in suffering and gains immense joy from it.
- Plaguemaster: Both he and his followers enjoy spreading disease and blight.
Ralishaz (pronounced RAL-ih-shaz) is the god of chance, misfortune, ill luck, and insanity. He is also the patron god of gamblers and those who take unusual risks. Most often, Ralishaz will not reward the latter, but if he does, the rewards may be great indeed. Ralishaz teaches that Order does not exist; only Random Chance exists. He also teaches that insane people are the ones who are most in tune with the true nature of the universe.
Ralishaz is portrayed in a variety of forms. He may appear as an idiot or dolt, a hideously wrinkled old man, a scabby beggar, or even as a beautiful maid. He employs only wooden weapons, usually a staff. He is a formidable purveyor of curses and magical aging, and has a gaze that can cause sleep.
Victims of misfortune may try to placate Ralishaz; gamblers invoke him; those in peril beseech him; those planning speculative, high-risk adventures will make offering to him. His cult has grown somewhat during and after the war. Services to Ralishaz include playing semi-random note sequences on musical instruments, babbling paeans, the casting of augury spells, and wild interplays of light and darkness, heat and light, noise and quiet.
Ralishaz's realm is located in Limbo and is called the Kiss of Luck.
- The Cynic: He teaches that Order does not exist, only randomness and chance, and the odds are stacked against everyone. While some may have a good run against the odds, eventually the universe will balance itself out against them. He also regards kindness and prosperity as illusions, as misfortune comes to all sooner or later.
- Mad God: He is the god of insanity; many debate whether his appearance and whims are truly random or just madness.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Ralishaz's appearance constantly shifts and changes, one moment beautiful the next hideous, one moment male the next female, or any other such combination of opposites. However, he also often appears as an oddly dressed beggar, carrying a quarterstaff and three sticks of bone.
Scahrossar is the goddess of pain, torture, sadism, and cruelty. Known by all as the Mistress of Exquisite Pain, Scahrossar is usually portrayed as a woman covered entirely in tight, studded black leather so that even her face is concealed. She usually holds a whip and a hook. She is selfish, cruel, and domineering, and so are most of her followers. Scahrossar is Olidammara's sister, but the two deities have nothing to do with each other, only the most obscure religious texts even mention their relationship.
Scahrossar's clerics dress as their mistress does, preferring to hide their identities with leather or iron masks. They are all sadists (and most are also masochists) who prefer to give pain rather than actually kill. Sacrificial victims dedicated to Scahrossar often take days to die, for they are tortured to death, the more slowly the better. Scahrossar's followers delight in the sounds of screams and tearing flesh, and because they try to prolong a victim's agony, many are skilled in the healing arts. In their spare time, the clerics devise new tortures and new torture devices.
Temples to the Mistress of Exquisite Pain are hidden behind false facades. The clerics often maintain front businesses, such as bakeries, dairies, and curiosity shops, with the temples accessible through hidden doors. The temple's rooms are soundproofed to muffle the cries of pain. Although most of Scahrossar's clerics are compulsive about keeping their temples clean, it is usually impossible to keep a dribble of blood or a loose tooth from dropping to the floor at any given time. Altars are usually baroque monstrosities of spikes, spines, clamps, and chains.
- Cleanup Crew: Her priests tend to be scrupulous about cleanliness, although their duties are so messy that it is almost impossible for spots of blood, stray teeth, and the like not to be missed in their daily housekeeping.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Her clerics are all sadists who prefer to cause pain rather than actually kill, and most are masochists as well. They devise new torments and devices in their spare time.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Scahrossar is depicted as a woman wearing tight black studded leather that conceals even her face.
- Human Sacrifice: Scahrossar's sacrificial victims often take days to die as they're slowly tortured to death. Scarhossar's priests often use healer's arts to prolong their suffering.
- Sadist: She is selfish, domineering, and cruel.
- Whip of Dominance: She's a goddess of pain, torture, sadism, and cruelty whose favored weapon is the whip.
Baklunish Gods
Al'Akbar is the Baklunish god of guardianship, faithfulness, dignity, and duty. His symbol is a cup and eight-pointed star, images of the legendary Cup and Talisman that now bear his name. Al'Akbar is subordinate to the other Baklunish gods, remaining a mere demigod out of respect for them. Despite this fact, the nations of Ekbir and Tusmit seem to place him before other gods.
- Cool Sword: His favored weapon is the falchion.
- Deity of Human Origin: Al'Akbar was originally a cleric of the Baklunish gods who survived the Invoked Devastation. The Baklunish gods tasked him with restoring the people back to the path of righteousness and dignity, and to help him he was given a golden cup and a platinum talisman in the shape of an eight-pointed star, which would later go on to be named after him. Al'Akbar went onto teach the Baklunish that true religion should include proper devotion to the gods, protection of the community, and guidance of the faithful, and the people begun to worship him alongside their other gods, eventually raising him to godhood. He actually has enough worshippers to reach a higher status among the gods, but chooses to remain a demigod out of respect for the rest of the pantheon.
- The Paladin: Paladins of Al'Akbar, known as Exalted Ones, work to lead by example, demonstrating by their words and deeds that faithfulness to and guardianship of the old traditions are the only correct path to revelation.
- To Be Lawful or Good: His faith is divided into two major sects who have opposing interpretations of his dogma. The True Faith has a harsher, lawful neutral interpretation, emphasizing hard work, plain speech, and obedience, while the Exalted Faith is lawful good or neutral good, stressing rhetoric, diplomacy, and academic achievement.
Azor'alq is the Baklunish hero-deity of courage, light, purity, and strength. He was a paladin during the Baklunish Heqira, when the baklunish left their homeland and travelled to Flanaess, defending the royal family from the "darkness" that followed them. Eventually he made his way to a group of stone pillars, later named the Pinnacles of Azor'alq, where he sleeps, along with a host of paladins called the Thousand Immortals.
- Light Is Good: His dogma associates light with purity and courage. The theme of "light" is advanced as both the sun and fire.
- The Paladin: He used to be one himself and commanded a host of them called the Thousand Immortals. Some his few remaining paladins make quests to the Pinnacles of Azor'alq, hoping to pass the tests and challenges prepared by their master.
- Proverbial Wisdom: There are many metaphors in Azor'alq's dogma. Azor'alq compares courage to a light source that grows strength just as the sun grows plants. An unsheathed sword must remain so until victory is acheived; true leaders are those who rest last, only after their troops have done so. Truth is compared to flame, and good thoughts and deeds to kindling. Tyranny is compared to darkness. Light is associated with purity. The theme of "light" is advanced as both the sun and fire.
- Sinister Scimitar: Averted. He wields a long curved scimitar of elven make, which is known as Faruk, but he is a just god that serves as the patron of many paladins. Scimitars are also the favored weapon of his clerics.
Daoud (pronounced dah-OOD) is the baklunish hero-deity of clarity, humility, and immediacy. His symbol is a multi-colored patch of cloth or tangle of yarn, with seven threads, one of each color of the spectrum, extending from the bottom. Daoud was once the philosopher-pasha of Tusmit, a wealthy and well-respected man in his youth. In middle age, however, he lost everything, reduced to begging on the streets far from his homeland. He became a mendicant priest of Istus and contemplated the harshness of Fate before arriving at his radical new philosophy. He decided that the Four Feet of the Dragon which define Baklunish society, piety, honor, generosity, and devotion to family, were mere ostentation. In their place he proposed four superior virtues: honesty, humility, piety, and endurance. He called this new philosophy the Path of the Seeker.
- Brutal Honesty: His dogma teaches that a fabric of lies must be cut with sharp words. As a result, his followers are known for their brutal honesty and contempt for claims based on mere social position.
- The Chessmaster: Daoud urges his followers to seek out both good fortune and bad in order to unravel the threads of destiny. As a result, despite their humble lives, his followers are known to manipulate the strings of Fate, bringing down the mighty and uplifting the humble, scattering whole tribes in their inscrutable ways.
- The Fatalist: He teaches his followers to strive to be content with what Fate allows and demands of them, no more and no less.
- Riches to Rags: Daoud was once a respected son of a noble family who eventually became a philosopher-pasha of Tusmit, but as he reached middle age, he lost everything and became despised.
Geshtai (pronounced GESH-tie) is the Baklunish goddess of lakes, rivers, streams, and wells. Her symbol is a waterspout. Her temperament is modest and she treats all others with care and patience. When the Kingdom of Sulm fell, Geshtai turned all those who prayed to her into the first asherati, and became their patron. Should one of them worship another god, they crumble to sand.
- Ethnic Goddess: She is the sole patron of the asherati race, although she's also worshipped by humans.
- Making a Splash: She's the goddess of lakes, rivers, streams, and wells.
Istus is the Baklunish goddess of fate, destiny, divination, future, and honesty, and the leader of the Baklunish pantheon. Her symbol is a golden spindle with three strands. Istus is the most powerful of the Baklunish deities, but aloof from mortals and immortals alike, concerning herself only with the fate of the universe.
- Dimensional Traveler: All times and places are open to Istus as long as she holds her spindle; if she loses it, she must return home immediately.
- The Hecate Sisters: She can appear in three different ways: as an old crone, as a mature and haughty noble dame, and as a cold and unfeeling young maiden.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: She carries a golden spindle, with which she spins the future into the present, thus weaving the web of fate.
- Top Goddess: She is the leader of the Baklunish pantheon, but generally holds herself aloof from all other gods.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Her dogma teaches that acceptance of one's fate is the only honest approach; those who strive too hard against Fate will only meet their own foreordained ruins.
Mouqol (pronounced moh-KOHL) is the Baklunish god of trade, negotiation, ventures, appraisal, and reciprocity. His symbol is a set of scales and weights. Mouqol is a skilled bargainer, but his greatest talents, however, are his ability to discern the true desires of his clients and procure rare items from exotic and seemingly impossible sources.
- Do You Want to Haggle?: Mouqol is able to haggle skillfully even with the notoriously tricky and sly genie races.
- Intrepid Merchant: Mouqol teaches that no reward comes without risk, but also that too much risk is foolhardy.
- Team Switzerland: During the ancient war between Darkness and Light that resulted in the Baklunish Hegira, he refused to take a side, trading with both antitheses.
Xan Yae is the Baklunish goddess of twilight, shadows, stealth, and mental power. Her symbol is a black lotus blossom. Xan Yae's highest ideal is the mastery of the unseen. Anything that achieves true balance attains invisible perfection. The greatest mysteries are hard to find.
- Balance Between Good and Evil: She teaches that one must achieve symmetry and balance between Good and Evil and all things. When the individual achieves a similar state of balance, harmony with nature can be attained.
- Cool Sword: She wields a pair of magical falchions that she can shrink to easily conceal.
- Flower Motifs: One of her titles is "Supreme Mistress of Petals" and her symbol is a black lotus blossom.
- Humanshifting: She can appear as a Baklunish human of any age or sex, but is always slender and graceful.
Zuoken is the Baklunish god of physical and mental mastery. His symbol is a striking fist. He is a servant of the goddess Xan Yae and his followers are almost always monks or psionicists, whom he encourages to be disciplined and serene masters of both their bodies and minds.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: He used to be monk who had mastered both martial arts (his unarmed style was called da'shon, or "falling hail") and psionics. With 38 other monks, all unarmed, he held off a crucial mountain pass for three days and nights against a vastly numerically superior army of Suloise invaders.
- Captured Super-Entity: Zouken was one of the Gods who got captured by the insane Archmage Zagyg and was imprisoned in the depths of Castle Greyhawk for almost a century while Zagyg sucked out his divine power to become a Deity himself. Luckily, he was eventualy rescued and released by adventurers.
- Deity of Human Origin: He was once a mortal man who worshipped the Goddess Xan Yae. After inspiring an entire generation of new monks, Zuoken traveled to the Pinnacles of Azor'alq where he passed the tests needed to become a demigod. It is said that Zuoken ascended to the heavens on the moon's silvery staircase.
- Psychic Powers: He had mastered psionics back when he was mortal and regularly sends his followers into the world to improve themselves and advance the cause of psionics (known as Edel, the Gift of Fate, in the Baklunish tongue).
- Sole Survivor: He was the lone survivor of the monks who fought off the army of Suloise invaders.
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: Invoked; prayers to Zuoken are worded in ways that make little sense if you're not familiar with how Zuoken's clergy operates. A given example starts with, "Zuoken, me to the pinnacle take."
Oeridian Gods
Atroa is the Oeridian goddess of spring, the east wind, and renewal. As Goddess of Spring, Atroa is the invigorating breath that awakens the world from its slumber. She gifts the world with new love and new life, renews old friendships, and plucks the heartstrings of lovers, travelers, and poets. The Sad Maiden promotes spring as a time for burying old feuds, repairing old items, and eliminating old biases. She is usually worshipped with her siblings as part of the Velaeri, the Oeridian agricultural gods. She is thus revered by farmers and others who depend on the land's bounty.
- Babies Ever After: Celibacy is frowned upon by Atroa, who encourages marriages and pregnancies. Pregnant priestesses of Atroa are considered the holiest of them all.
- Friend to All Children: It is a great sin in Atroa's faith to allow a child to go hungry.
- Relationship Reboot: She encourages people to bury their feuds and renew their friendships.
Bleredd (pronounced BLAIR-ed), is the Oeridian god of metal, mines, and smiths, who taught the Oeridians how to work iron. His holy symbol is an iron mule, as sturdy and patient as himself, or a hammer and anvil. He is a pragmatic sort, preferring work to idle talk. Bleredd encourages the free flow of information; the knowledge of smithcraft should never be hoarded, but taught freely to anyone with a talent for it. Those who are miserly in sharing what they have learned ought to be punished. He is primarily worshiped by gnomes, dwarves, and humans.
- The Blacksmith: He created many of the artifacts used by his family, including his hammer of thunderbolts, Fury, and his wife's hammer Skull Ringer.
- Forged by the Gods: Everything he makes counts as this.
- Interspecies Romance: He is married to the Dwarf goddess Ulaa.
Celestian (se-LES-tee-an) is the Oeridian god of stars, space, and wanderers. His symbol is a black circle set with seven stars. Celestian is brother to Fharlanghn. It is said that the two followed similar but differing paths; where Fharlanghn chose to wander the wide world, Celestian chose the void of outer space and the Astral Plane.
- Dimensional Traveler: He regularly travels between the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, and the Inner Planes.
- Magic Meteor: According to legend, Celestian sent an enormous meteor hurtling toward the Oerth thousands of years ago. This celestial body buried itself miles beneath the surface somewhere in Western Oerik. The pulsing core of the meteorite has never cooled in the countless centuries since. This core is said to hold a priceless gift from the Far Wanderer, though the precise nature of this gift has not been agreed on. Some say it is the purest adamantine in the multiverse, while others say the gift is a deep philosophical truth.
- Psychopomp: In oerdian lands, Celestian has the the duty of psychopomp and guides the souls of the dead to their final destination.
- Weather Manipulation: He has access to minor weather-based powers, likely to make the stars more easiliy visible from Oerth.
The Chalice of Heironeous is a "goddess-angel" and the daughter of the deity Heironeous and, presumably, a female angel. Though presumably from the Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia originally, she was kidnapped by Hextor and given over to Dispater to enable him to shirk responsibility for his deed, as well as to keep the prisoner more secure.
- Captured Super-Entity: She is currently imprisoned within the Iron City of Dis, part of Dispater's foul realm.
- Classified Information: The true identity of the Chalice of Heironeous is known only in a secret myth revealed to the highest echelons of the Chalice, a knightly order devoted to slaying fiends and freeing her from her prison. Most believe the Chalice to be a powerful relic of Heironeous's faith kept safe by the Masters of the order.
- Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: Her father is a god and her mother is presumably an angel.
Cyndor (pronounced SIN-dohr) is the Oeridian god of time, infinity, and continuity. His symbol is a rounded hourglass of black and white set on its side, much like the symbol for infinity. Cyndor is worshiped in urban centers of learning, including the Free City of Greyhawk, and is also served by temporal dogs, time dimensionals, and more exotic beings.
- The Fatalist: Cyndor teaches predestination. All time, for his faithful, is a path along a lifeline that Cyndor has already foreseen.
- Time Master: Cyndor has three duties: meditate upon how manipulating time-space alters the universe, record the actions of every creature on Oerth in his Perpetual Libram, and guard the time-stream from powerful beings that might alter it to their advantage.
- Time Police: Cyndor directs a small group of mortal chronomancers known as the Guardians of Infinity. Their duty is to defend Oerth's timestreams from interference or damage by outside forces.
Daern (pronounced DAY-ern) is the Oeridian hero-deity of defenses and fortifications. Daern's holy symbol is a shield hanging from a parapet. She is often associated with griffins. Her priests often advise military leaders on proper placement and construction of fortifications, castles, and keeps.
- Bag of Holding: She owns a magic item called Daern's Instant Fortress that appears as a small metal cube. When its command word is spoken, the cube grows into a 30-foot tall tower instantly.
- Deity of Human Origin: She was a mortal human whose apotheosis was sponsored by the god Delleb.
- Person of Mass Construction: Daern was in life famous for having constructed several famous fortifications, such as Castle Blazebane in Almor, Goldbolt near Rel Deven, and the Tower of Daern in Irongate. She supposedly also had a hand in costructing the Imperial Palace in Rauxes, though this event occurred some time after her supposed death.
Delleb (DEL-leb) is the Oeridian god of reason, intellect, and study. His symbol is a phoenix-feather quill, or an open book. Delleb's order teaches that the purpose of existence is the accumulation of knowledge, although they are careful to remind others that this does not supersede the sanctity of life. Ideally, this is knowledge that must be passed from teacher to student. What cannot be learned from teachers may be learned in personal research through books. What cannot be learned from books may be learned through experimentation.
- Badass Bookworm: On rare occasions, Delleb appears as a fully armored warrior riding a warhorse and carrying a sabre (Delente-Vinnos, "That which strikes down ignorance") and a strange projectile weapon of metal and wood.
- Bookworm: He considers the accumulation of knowledge to be the purpose of existence.
- Canine Companion: He is always accompanied by a large black war dog called Shadow.
- God of Knowledge: He is the god of scholarly knowledge, and is typically worshipped by sages.
- Improbable Weapon User: Although he prefers debate to combat, he once used his phoenix-feather quill as a dart to fend off the murderous god Hextor.
Erythnul (pronounced eh-RITH-nul) is the Oeridian god of hate, envy, malice, panic, ugliness, and slaughter. His symbol is a red blood drop or a hideous mask. He is known as the Many, and is worshipped by many gnoll, troll, ogre, and bugbear tribes, in addition to humans. His title comes from his appearance in battle, as he continually shifts from human to bugbear to troll to ogre to gnoll and back to human again.
- Blood Knight: He teaches that battle is a test of merit and strength, and living and dying by the sword is the definition of the good life.
- Fertile Blood: His spilled blood transforms into similar creatures, who are allied with him.
- The Rival: To Hextor, who is ordered and intelligent compared to the undisciplined Erythnul. Their rivalry stems from the fact that Hextor became the god of war by stealing the title from Erythnul.
- Shapeshifting: During battle, his features constantly change between human, gnoll, bugbear, ogre, and troll.
- War God: He used to also be the god of war, but that portfolio was stolen from him by Hextor, with whom he has since formed a long-standing rivalry.
Fharlanghn (pronounced far-LAHNG-un) is the Oeridian god of horizons, distance, travel, and roads. His symbol is a disk with a curved line representing the horizon, and an upturned crescent above that. He wanders the world in person, his petitioners present in spirit form at crossroads and in mysterious oases. He is the lover of Atroa and the brother of Celestian, who instead chose to wander the void of outer space and the Astral Plane. Fharlanghn is always willing to stop and chat, but not at great length; the road calls to him, and he must continue wandering on.
- At the Crossroads: The souls of those dedicated to Fharlanghn in life remain on the Material Plane, often lingering near crossroads.
- Dimensional Traveler: He occasionally travels to the Elemental Plane of Earth, but seldom enters the Elemental Plane of Air. He has the ability to travel to any Inner Plane, but seldom does so.
- It's the Journey That Counts: Fharlanghn teaches that everyone should travel in order to discover and learn new things. He urges people to look to the horizon for inspiration. Because the road is the best teacher, initiates are trained in the ways of Fharlanghn by being taken on long trips. They are dismissed if they ask when the journey will be over, because to the faithful of Fharlanghn, the journey never really ends.
- Walking the Earth: Fharlanghn wanders the roads of the Prime Material Plane in person.
Heironeous (pronounced high-ROE-nee-us) is the Oeridian god of chivalry, justice, honor, war, daring, and valor. His holy symbol is a silver lightning bolt, often clutched in a fist. Heironeous is the son of Stern Alia, the goddess of Oeridan culture, motherhood, and law. At his birth, Heironeous' skin was imbued with a secret solution called meersalm that protects him from all but the most powerful weapons. Heironeous sees the world as a deadly place, filled with perpetual challenges and trials for those who battle for justice and defend the weak and innocent. His followers should always act with honor and chivalry, and to uphold justice.
- Cain and Abel: He is sworn enemies with his half-brother Hextor.
- Church Militant: The faith of Heironeous is a very militaristic one, launching crusades against evil and championing causes. His clerics travel the world, fighting evil as dictated by their church commanders.
- Cool Sword: He recently has been promoting usage of the longsword in order to appeal to common soldiers as well as paladins and leaders.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Due to having been anointed with a special salve called meersalm, he is virtually invulnerable.
- The Paladin: He is one, and teaches his followers to fight for justice and protect the weak and innocent. Danger is to be faced head-on, with calm and resolve. Those who defeat evil are rewarded with glory, while those who uphold the tenets of the Arch-paladin are rewarded with virtue.
- Knight in Shining Armor: As one would expect to a deity tied to a code-bound class like the Paladin, Heironeous operates under a threefold code of conduct, which has been codified in a chivalric code known as the Heironean Code.
- Duty to the People: This duty stresses courage, justice, mercy, valor, protection of the weak, and faithfulness to church superiors of officer of righteous law.
- Duty to the Arch-paladin: This duty stresses obedience to Heironeous himself, devotion to the church, generosity, championing good against evil, putting the needs of the church and the faith above those of mortals.
- Duty to a Lady: This duty pertains to the concept of courtly love, devotion to one's beloved, and respect toward all women in general.
Hextor (pronounced HEKS-tore) is the Oeridian god of war, discord, massacres, conflict, fitness, and tyranny. The symbol worn and used by the followers of Hextor is a black, spiked gauntlet holding six arrows. His mother is Stern Alia, the goddess of law and motherhood, who is the one responsible for starting his slide into evil after she gave her blessings to Heironeous instead of Hextor. He seeks to conquer or destroy any that oppose him.
- Cain and Abel: He is the half-brother and sworn enemy of Heironeous.
- Despotism Justifies the Means: Hextor teaches his followers that the world is a dark and bloody place where the strong rule the weak, and power is the only reward worth anything. The cruel and unrelenting pursuit of one's goals is the only reliable path to success. Order must be forged out of chaos and law out of anarchy. Tyranny brings order out of chaos and dissenters must be oppressed or destroyed lest anarchy reign.
- Epic Flail: His favored weapon is the flail.
- Jerk Jock: Physical fitness is part of his portfolio, and he's a sadistic bully.
- Might Makes Right: He claims the right to rule based on strength and ability and that the weak exist only to serve the strong.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He originally only had two arms, but made a bargain with the Lords of Evil to have two new pairs of arms grafted on to his torso in order to become equal in combat with Heironeous.
- The Rival: Hextor has a long-standing rivalry with Erythnul, from whom he took the portfolio of War.
- War God: He became the god of war after he took the portfolio from Erythnul.
Johydee (pronounced JOY-dee) is the Oeridian hero-deity of deception, espionage, and protection. Her sacred animal is the chameleon. Her symbol is a small stylized mask of onyx. Johydee lived in Western Oerik, before the Oeridians migrated to Flanaess, and was once a wise priestess of great magical power in the most prominent of the nations. However, her nation was ruled by servants of evil deities. Favored by the gods themselves, Johydee tricked the oppressors into creating a magical mask, which she used to free the Oeridians from their dark overlords. Ultimately she became a queen in her own right, though the location of her realm is lost to time. Followers of Johydee are urged to protect themselves with many layers of deception, keeping their true intentions hidden from the knowledge of their enemies, and to know more of their foes than their foes know of them.
- The Chessmaster: She teaches her followers to never let their enemies know their true intent, and that even casual allies should, at most, know only little more. They are taught to know more about their foes than they know about themselves, and to tell their secrets to those who would use that information against them.
- Chessmaster Sidekick: Johydee's priests often work as spies for powerful patrons. Skilled at deception, they enjoy opportunities in which they can pretend to be someone else. Many take on different identities in different cities. They thwart tyrants, seek information on renowned evil-doers, and humble the overly-prideful and ambitious.
- The High Queen: In life, she eventually ruled as queen.
- Mask of Power: Her mask is an artifact that makes the wearer immune to gaze attacks and allows the wearer to assume the guise of a humanoid being.
Kurell is the Oeridian god of jealousy, revenge, and thievery. His holy symbol is a grasping hand holding a broken coin, fingers pointed upwards. Kurell was once pursued by Atroa, but he rejected her in order to pursue her sister, Sotillion, which earned him the displeasure of both goddesses, as well as Sotillion's husband, Zilchus, who is also Kurell's brother.
- Ambiguously Evil: He's technically Chaotic Neutral, but his portfolio and character definitely put him on the border of "Evil" at least. He might not order a follower to maim or kill an innocent for selfish reasons, but he wouldn't necessarily disapprove if they did so either.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Kurell is terribly jealous of Olidammara and Norebo, who are more popular among rogues than he is.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Unlike Olidammara, who is the patron of Lovable Rogues, Kurell is the god of selfish thieves. Kurell teaches his worshippers to take what is rightfully theirs and to seize all their desires.
- Sexier Alter Ego: Kurell manifests as a tall, handsome, virile Oeridian man with bright green eyes and olive skin. In his true form, which he does not deliberately reveal to anyone, he is a small, unattractive, slightly overweight man.
Kuroth is the Oeridian hero-deity of theft and treasure-finding. Kuroth's symbol is a gold coin bearing the image of a key or a quill. Said to have been the greatest thief of his day, the Oeridian man known as Kuroth was quite wealthy even before attaining godhood, and only continued to pursue his thieving career in for the sake of keeping his skills honed and his reputation hale.
- Deity of Human Origin: After completing a particularly risky quest for Olidammara, Kuroth was sponsored to godhood by the Laughing Rogue.
- Gentleman Thief: He is said to have been the greatest thief of his day and has continued his career as a hero-deity.
- Karmic Thief: He teaches his followers to constantly push their limits in their attempts to acquire newer, more valuable, and unusual things, for stealing from a common merchant is little sport compared to stealing from a dragon's hoard.
Lirr (pronounced LEER) is the Oeridian goddess of prose, poetry, literature, and art. Her symbol is an illustrated book. Lirr teaches that the written word is the lynchpin of civilization. To her, the preservation of written works—fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose—is paramount, and oral works must be transcribed into written format. Art is also to be protected and revered, as pictures are often worth thousands of words.
- Bookworm: She is the goddess of literature.
- Great Big Book of Everything: She carries a tome that can show any prose, poetry, spell, or artwork ever created.
Merikka is the Oeridian goddess of agriculture, farming, and the home. Her holy symbol is a basket of grain and a long scroll. Merikka is described as a quiet, gray-haired woman of faded beauty, carrying a basket of grain and holding a scroll, though her image in her temple in the village of Orlane is that of a beautiful young woman. Merikka is obsessed with dates and cycles and is a cousin of Velnius, Atroa, Sotillion, Wenta, and Telchur. Merikka teaches her faithful about orderly schedules, caring relationships, prudent savings, and honest labor. She teaches that children must respect their parents, husbands must respect their wives, wives must respect their husbands, and parents must love and teach their children, just as Merikka teaches her flock.
- Captured Super-Entity: Merikka was imprisoned for some years in the Godtrap beneath Castle Greyhawk by the archmage Zagyg, but is now free.
- Farm Girl: She is the goddess of agriculture and is mainly revered by farmers.
Murlynd (pronounced MURR-lind) is the Oeridian hero-deity of magical technology. His symbol is a solid, six-pointed star with rounded points. Murlynd dwells in a variety of unusual planes and demiplanes, moving between his various abodes as suits his mood. Murlynd encourages others to learn from the advancements of civilized races in order to improve the lives of the common folk. His followers will not use inferior items if superior ones are available to them; they are commanded to protect the weak and innocent and to act with honor.
- Cowboy: He looks and acts like one, which makes him stand out in the setting.
- Deity of Human Origin: He was originally a paladin of Heironeous and a member of the Company of Seven who was sponsored to godhood by Heironeous.
- Genre Refugee: He's a revolver-wielding Cowboy in a Medieval European Fantasy setting.
- The Gunslinger: His weapons of choice are a pair of hand-held weapons that emit powerful projectiles. He has referred to these weapons variously as "45's", "six shooters", and "hog legs".
- Magitek: As the god of magical technology, Murlynd is very driven to discover and develop new technologies for the good of the common people. His paladins share his fascination with otherworldly weapons and technology, seeking to use such items in their crusade against Evil.
- The Paladin: In life, he was a paladin of Heironeous. Paladins dedicated to Murlynd are called the White Paladins. They are actually an extremely rare sect of the church of Heironeous rather than an independent faith.
Pholtus is the Oeridian god of law, light, and order. Pholtus's symbol is a silvery sun with a crescent moon on the lower right quadrant. His colors are white, silver and gold. Pholtus has made many enemies among the gods, mainly as he believes himself to be the highest authority when it comes to Law and the natural order. He's engaged in an unfriendly rivalry with St. Cuthbert, as their faithful often come into conflict.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: He's pretty much this among the other
Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral deities, due to his Holier Than Thou attitude and general inflexiblity. - God of Light: He's the god of light, the sun, and the moon. His Staff of the Silvery Sun can act as a Wand of Illumination, as well as sending out a beam of light that goes through the infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet spectra. Unfortunately, he's also a strong example of Good Is Not Nice, as while he is Lawful Good he encourages fanaticism and Church Militant tendencies in his worshippers, and tends to discourage if not outright ban all other worship (even of other good deities) in lands where his church is preeminent.
- Good Is Not Nice: His insistence that he's the ultimate authority over Law and nature has resulted in him being enemies with good-aligned nature deities, like the Velaeri, and chaotic deities such as Trithereon.
- Knight Templar: Pholtan teaches his followers that the One True Way is a strict path, but that it guarantees rightness. He instructs them to show no tolerance for those who do not give all for the cause of Law. Fanaticism in the name of the Blinding Light is praiseworthy, and Law's champions shall be rewarded in the era when chaos has been vanquished.
- The Paladin: Paladins of Pholtus are known as templars or inquisitors. Pholtan paladins traditionally dress in white and pale yellow tunics of fine linen or silk, with silvery borders decorated with suns and moons or excerpts from Pholtan scripture. The Knights Templar of the Theocracy of the Pale are the most infamous of Pholtus's paladins, combining Pholtan conviction with nationalistic zeal. The Lords of the Gloaming are a group of Pholtan paladins who seek to destroy portals to the Lower Planes of existence.
- The Theocracy: The Pholtan church is the state religion of the Theocracy of the Pale, and is the only religion permitted or recognized within that nation. An even more severe Pholtine theocracy exists in the Bandit Kingdom state of Dimre. Pholtus's church is also widespread in Nyrond and the Shield Lands.
- To Be Lawful or Good: Questions of morality are considered to be secondary to faithfulness to Pholtus and his One True Way. They seek the destruction of chaos, darkness, and evil, in that order. While some individual Pholtan paladins can be as merciful as paladins of Pelor or Heironeous, doubt and mercy are not considered virtues in their tradition, and many believe them to be weaknesses.
Procan is the Oeridian god of seas, sea life, sea weather, salt, and navigation, as well as the founder of the Oeridian pantheon. His holy symbol is a gold and coral trident above or piercing a cresting wave. Procan is an ancient, primal god. He is wild and tempestuous; he can be benevolent or malevolent at turns, but generally cares nothing for humanity unless carefully propitiated - and perhaps not even then. He is also the father of the nature deities Atroa, Sotillion, Telchur, Velnius, and Wenta.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Procan is portrayed as a muscular man with blue-green skin and hair.
- Disappeared Dad: As the younger and newer generations of Oerdian gods grew more civilised along with the Oerdian people, Procan became more distant and disinterested from them as he is a wild, untamed god of nature who prefers a life of freedom.
- Lord of the Ocean: Procan rules the seas and can protect his worshippers against doom. They also note that he can help them reap the bounty of the seas. The ocean—and, by extension, Procan—is seen as the origin and destination of all life.
- Nature Is Not Nice: Priests of Procan stress the protean and changeable nature of the seas and skies. They portray nature as a harsh, treacherous mistress that Procan can hope to avail against.
- Prongs of Poseidon: He's a sea god whose favored weapon is a trident called Undertow.
- The Rival: He has a rivalry with fellow sea-god Xerbo.
Rudd is the Oeridian goddess of chance, good luck, and skill. Rudd's holy symbol is a bull's eye target. Rudd's priests advocate "making" their own luck by relying chiefly on their skills, yet they'll never rule out the long shot. Her clerics don't abide cheaters, but teach secretly that cheating is acceptable if you don't get caught, as successfully cheating can also be a skill. In Rudd's theology those who are able to recognize and take advantage of good luck may become heroes, while those who mistake bad luck for the good are merely fools.
- Captured Super-Entity: Rudd was one of the nine demigods of opposing alignments captured in the Godtrap by Zagig Yragerne in his own bid for godhood. Rudd eventually escaped, but not before her mentor was himself briefly captured by the archmage.
- Deity of Human Origin: Rudd was born in what is believed to be Bissel, with her later ascending to godhood with the help of Olidammara.
- Improbable Weapon User: One legend has it that on her eighteenth birthday, Rudd successfully fended off an entire battalion of bugbears using only a cake and a spoon.
- King of Games: As the Great Gambler, she knows every card game invented. Rudd avoids completely cerebral games like Dragonchess, finding them too easy.
- Royal Rapier: She wields a rapier named Keleshe.
Sotillion is the Oeridian goddess of summer, the south wind, ease, and comfort. She's the wife of Zilchus, daughter of Procan, sister to Atroa, Telchur, Wenta, and Velnius, and cousin to Merikka. Sotillion is usually worshiped with her siblings as part of the Velaeri, the Oeridian agricultural gods. She is thus revered by farmers and others who depend on the land's bounty. Sotillion is also often prayed to by those seeking any type of comfort or relief from their burdens. Sotillion promotes all the joys of comfort: warm weather, good food and drink, pleasant company, good conversation, and relaxing quiet. Stress and hard work should be avoided when possible. One's comforts should be protected and defended with zeal, as a life without comfort is worth little.
- Always Identical Twins: Averted. She is Atroa's twin, but the two sisters look nothing alike. Sotillion is slightly younger than Atroa, although she is more mature in appearance.
- Druidic Sickle: Sotillion rarely wields a weapon, but she owns a sickle called Deshaand that looks as if it has never been used.
- Farm Girl: Sotillion is mainly worshipped by farmers, alongside her siblings.
- The Slacker: Always seeking to enjoy comfort and avoid unnecessary activity, Sotillion often finds herself being prodded to her duties by her friends and family.
Stern Alia is the goddess of Oeridian culture, law, and motherhood. Her holy symbol is an Oeridian woman's face. Alia is the mother of Heironeous and Hextor, although they have different fathers. She also had a third son, Stratis, though he is deceased. It was the Shield Mother who gave Heironeous the gift of meersalm, coating him with it at birth, which made his skin immune to mortal weapons. She neglected to do so for his brother Hextor, which began the jealousy that eventually led Hextor to the Lords of Evil.
- Action Girl: She is depicted as a fully armed and armored maternal figure.
- Deity Identity Confusion: It has been suggested in some sources that Stern Alia is somehow an aspect of the Flan god known as Allitur. However, she is presented as entirely separate from Allitur in 3rd edition materials.
- Ethnic Goddess: She is also the tutelary goddess of the island nation of Thalos in Western Oerik, which was settled by Aerdi explorers many centuries ago.
- The Paladin: At the moment, paladins of the Shield Mother are on a quest to recover the Shield of Stratis, one of the artifacts left scattered across the land when that son of the Mother of War was killed. The church would do anything to win this holy relic.
- Parental Favoritism: Probably not on purpose, but her annointing Heironeous with the meersalm and not doing the same with Hextor resulted in him eventually becoming enemies with Heironeous and reserving particular animosity for Alia herself.
- Really Gets Around: Alia had many lovers, and was often out visiting them even after the births of her sons.
Stratis was a Oeridian god of war once worshipped in Western Oerik until he was killed. Stratis was a son of Stern Alia, and therefore a brother or half-brother of Heironeous and Hextor. He was morally neutral in alignment, neither good like Heironeous nor evil like Hextor. It may seem likely that he was lawful in alignment like his mother and brothers, but the fact that he grew to adulthood on the plane of Ysgard makes a chaotic neutral alignment a possibility.
- Clothes Make the Superman: The various factions of Western Oerik battle for control over Stratis's panoply, for it is believed that whoever gets enough of Stratis's armaments will become the new god of war.
- Dying Curse: Upon being killed, Stratis ascended into the sky in a pillar of fire and scattered his weapons and armor to the four winds. With his dying breath, he decreed that there would be nothing but war until a new god of war ascended to replace him.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Stratis had four arms.
- Multi-Melee Master: He possessed a large arsenal of sacred arms: a greatclub called Bonebreak, a glaive/polearm called the Ebon Glaive, the Longsword of Stratis, the Shield of Stratis, the Spear of Stratis, the Axe of Stratis and the Flail of Stratis.
- Posthumous Character: Stratis was killed five years ago by a party of mortal adventurers who foolishly thought that by killing him they could win peace for their peoples. Instead, Stratis's death embroiled all of Western Oerik in conflict.
- War God: Stratis was a god of war in all of its forms, both just and unjust.
Telchur is the Oeridian god of winter, cold, and the north wind. His symbol is a leafless tree in a field of snow. He is the son of Procan, brother of Atroa, Sotillion, Velnius, and Wenta and the cousin of Merikka. He is bitter over being assigned to watch over the coldest and bleakest time of year, and thus shuns his family. He is disliked in particular by his youngest sister, Wenta, because he spoils the festivities of autumn with the harshness of winter. Telchur teaches that while spring and summer bring life and cause it to flourish, winter always lies at the end, stilling life and preventing new life from emerging from the frozen soil. The cold northern wind shrouds all, draining life from man and beast alike, blowing out the flames of hope, leaving naught but infinite white silence.
- An Ice Person: He can control how harsh the winter becomes. Offerings are often left to Telchur to request that he peacefully leave, and to speed the coming of his sister Atroa.
- Farm Boy: He is usually honored with his siblings as part of the Velaeri, the Oeridian agricultural gods. He is thus revered by farmers and others who depend on the land's bounty.
- Jerkass Gods: Telchur's followers seek to placate him more than worship him. As a result, his priests tend to be brooding and withdrawn.
- Multi-Melee Master: He is usually depicted wielding an icy shortspear. However, he is also represented with Vexxin, an axe made of ice, as tall as he is; with a great club of bronzewood called Tla, or with a broadsword called Issai.
- Weird Beard: He has a long beard made of icicles.
Velnius is the Oeridian god of sky and weather. His holy symbol is a bird perching upon a cloud. He is the oldest child of Procan, elder brother of Atroa, Wenta, Telchur, and Sotillion, and cousin of Merikka. He leads his siblings in their duties as the Oeridian agricultural gods. Velnius teaches that the necessities of life flow from the sky, the "dome of heaven". The desert and the parched field cry out for rain while the road and swamp ask for the drying sun, and the request of each is answered. Velnius oversees all weather, no matter the wind's direction. All weather is a blessing from the Rainshroud, even droughts and storms; though they bring hardship, eventually they move on to where they are needed.
- Farm Boy: Velnius is usually worshiped with his siblings as part of the Velaeri, the Oeridian agricultural gods. He is thus revered by farmers and others who depend on the land's bounty.
- Happy Rain: He brings rain to parched fields and deserts.
- The Power of the Sun: He allows the sun to dry swamps and muddy roads.
- The Reliable One: As the most responsible member of his family, Velnius often finds himself supporting or taking over for his siblings when they are lax in their duties or overwhelmed.
- Weather Manipulation: His dogma teaches that no matter which direction the wind blows, it is all part of the weather that Velnius controls.
Wenta (pronounced WEN-tah) is the Oeridian goddess of autumn, brewing, harvest, and the west wind. Her symbol is a large mug of beer. Wenta is the youngest child of Procan, sister of Velnius, Telchur, Atroa, and Sotillion and cousin of Merikka. Wenta sends the cool winds of autumn as a signal that it is time to reap the harvest. She advocates staving off winter's chill with beer and ale, and instructs brewers to care for their product as they would a lover. Wenta rewards each day of hard work with pleasantly cool nights, boon companions, and plenty of good spirits to loosen the tongue and quicken the heart.
- Blithe Spirit: Wenta is a free spirit, travelling where the wind takes her.
- Farm Girl: Wenta is usually worshiped with her siblings as part of the Velaeri, the Oeridian agricultural gods. She is thus revered by farmers and others who depend on the land's bounty.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: She can regularly be found in Arvandor, drinking beer with the Elven pantheon.
- Hot Goddess: Wenta always appears as a young, rosy-cheeked, buxom woman with straw in her hair, holding a large mug of beer.
- Really Gets Around: She prefers to go where her heart takes her, and thus has been romantically linked to many deities, but never for long.
Zilchus (pronounced ZIL-chus) is the Oeridian god of power, prestige, money, business, and influence. His holy symbol is a pair of hands clutching a bag of gold. Zilchus is the brother of Kurell and husband of Sotillion. He acts as a dealmaker between deities, and has many contacts reflecting his ability to establish business relationships. Typically, Rao will convince warring gods to talk, and Zilchus the dealmaker will finalize their treaties. Zilchus became estranged from Kurell when the thief-god spurned Atroa in order to pursue Zilchus' own love, Sotillion. Kurell now lives alone with his jealousies, although it is said that the others would forgive him if only he would ask. Zilchus teaches that the desire for power, prestige, influence, and money can be overwhelming in the world of mortals, but this desire must be tamed in one's own life so that it can be more easily exploited in others. The profit motive is viewed as something that improves the quality of all endeavors. Worshipers of Zilchus should strive to recognize the opportunities to increase their power, prestige, money, and influence and seize hold of them in order to one-up the competition. One's own currency, whatever its form, should be spent more wisely than ones' rivals spend theirs.
- The Almighty Dollar: He's the god of money.
- Honest Corporate Executive: Zilchus is revered primarily by those who are fair, honest, and scrupulous in their dealings; shady merchants are more likely to look to his brother Kurell instead.
- War for Fun and Profit: Zilchus teaches that politics and war are only aspects of trade, using words or lives as currency rather than precious metal, and should therefore be approached in the same way.
Flan Gods
Allitur is the Flan god of ethics and propriety. His holy symbol is a pair of clasped hands. Allitur is said to be the younger brother of Rao and maintains close ties with all members of the Flan pantheon. Allitur teaches respect and understanding for laws, rituals, and other cultural traditions.
- Deity Identity Confusion: Some sources claim that the Oeridian goddess Stern Alia is an aspect of Allitur.
Beory (pronounced bay-OH-ree) is the Flan goddess of the Oerth, nature, and rain. Her symbol is either a green disk marked with a circle or a rotund, female figurine. She is also known as the Oerth Mother, the personification of the world of Oerth, and cares for nothing else but the well-being and fate of the world. Due to the distance she puts between everyone, she has few allies.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Beory is considered to be a manifestation of the Oerth itself.
- Deity Identity Confusion: The goddess Berei is thought to be a lesser aspect of the Oerth Mother.
- Mother Nature: As the personification of Oerth, she loves the planet unconditionally and will always protect it.
Berei (pronounced BEAR-ay) is the Flan goddess of agriculture, family, and home. Her holy symbol is a sheaf of wheat stalks. Berei tries to strengthen the ties of family and community, and urges care in the planting of crops.
- Deity Identity Confusion: Berei is thought by some to be a lesser aspect of the goddess of nature, Beory.
- Druidic Sickle: Berei is depicted carrying a sickle.
The Earth Dragon is the Flan spirit of earth, weather, and hidden treasures. Its symbol is a coiled dragon. It is the spirit of Mount Drachenkopf in the Pomarj. The Earth Dragon is one of the few remaining nature spirits that are still worshipped as gods, having been worshipped well before the other gods. Every culture that settled in the Drachensgrab Hills has added the dragon to its pantheon. The Earth Dragon is the great provider and the spirit of the earth. Those who worship it and obey it are promised protection. The Earth Dragon is said to know all the secrets of the land, favoring its chosen with power and knowledge. To please their god, the faithful must worship, sacrifice, and spread the faith to others.
- Dishing Out Dirt: It can manifest as an avalanche and an earthquake to indicate its displeasure.
- Dragons Are Divine: The Earth Dragon may manifest as a mottled serpent or a gargantuan dragon formed of variegated stone laced with precious ores.
- Human Sacrifice: Important sacrifices are made to it in the third week of each month at his temple beneath Mount Drachenkopf, in which the sacrifices are dropped down a shaft of unknown depth into its realm. During Growfest, hundreds of humans are sacrificed at the Drachenkopf Temple. The sacrifices are not limited to just humans either, as the derro do not enter its realm without first performing ritual sacrifices.
- Nature Spirit: The Earth Dragon is an ancient spirit of nature who was originally just one of many worshipped by the primitive people of the Pomarj. When newer gods of Oerth appeared to supplant primitive spirit-worship, The Earth Dragon was one of a few spirits who stubbornly remained in the new era. Every new culture that colonized the Pomarj had to deal with it, adding it to their pantheons and propitiating it when they crossed its territory.
Iuz (pronounced YOOZ,EE-uz or Eye-ooze) is the demigod of deceit, evil, oppression, pain, and wickedness. His symbol is a grinning human skull, or a human skull with blood-red highlights. Unlike most Greyhawk deities, Iuz makes his home on Oerth, where he rules a broad swath of the Flanaess known as the Empire of Iuz. Appearing on Oerth as a shriveled old man or as a huge demonic being, Iuz has many fiendish allies and impersonates other gods to fool mortals and increase his territory. He remains a great threat to the balance despite setbacks since the Greyhawk Wars.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: In his human form, he appears as a gnarled, old human male who is barely five feet in height. He takes this form when he wishes to put his supplicants at ease.
- Big Red Demon: In his demonic form, he is seven feet tall, with reddish skin, pointed ears, and long, steely fingers.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: His mother is a notorious witch and his father is the Demon Lord she kidnapped and raped to conceive him. His maternal grandmother is another evil witch Baba Yaga, and depending on what version of Graz'zt's backstory you believe his paternal grandparents may be the Demon Queen Pale Night and the ruler of the Nine Hells Asmodeus himself.
- Captured Super-Entity: Along with eight other demigods, Iuz was incarcerated in Zagig's Godtrap beneath Castle Greyhawk until being released by Lord Robilar. Later on, he was trapped again in Zagyg's Godtrap by a simulacrum of his mother Iggwilv, who hoped to use his power to make herself into a true living being. Iggwilv's simulacrum was defeated by a party of adventurers, however, and a weakened and chastened Iuz returned to his lands to plot anew.
- He was also captured and drained of his power by Vecna at one point. Guy can't catch a break.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Most of his titles are pretty Obviously Evil, and his symbol is a human skull.
- The Conqueror: He first came to prominence by gaining control of a petty fiefdom in the Howling Hills. Using cunning and guile, Iuz cultivated alliances with the other local lords and subsequently manipulated his "allies" against one another and against stronger opponents. His conquest ultimately resulted in him ruling a vast empire known as the Empire of Iuz.
- The Devil Is a Loser: While Iuz is extremely dangerous, he's got a pretty embarrassing track record of being humbled by other beings who are stronger or smarter than he is. His Split-Personality Makeover was the result of standing on the sidelines of a fight between his more powerful parents, and he's been captured on at least three separate occasions by Vecna, Zagyg and a simalcurum of his mother, the latter two even using the exact same trap to do so.
- Early Instalment Weirdness: His first edition profile shows that his parentage had not been established yet and said that nobody knew exactly where he came from and just offered several theories; one early theory being he was a worshipper of Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead.
- God of Evil: As the demigod of evil, he teaches his followers that the strong should exploit the weak, that the infliction of pain and suffering is a delight comparable with none other, and he also cultivates a twisted culture in which his clerics consider being commonly known as Liars or Oppressors to be flattering.
- Half-Human Hybrid: He is a cambion, the half-fiend son of the demon prince Graz’zt, and the powerful human witch Iggwilv.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Iuz was originally a strikingly handsome cambion. In the epic battle that resulted from Graz'zt striking out against Iggwilv in a bid for freedom, Iuz's handsome form was split into two "halves".
- Split-Personality Makeover: He can either appear in the form of a gnarled, old human male, or as a bloated, red-skinned demonic figure.
- Super Spit: In his human form, he can attack with a disgusting spittle that withers all that it touches.
- Unholy Matrimony: Has a thing with Zuggtmoy, the Demon Queen of Fungi, who keeps a soul gem in her possession that Iuz discorporates to whenever his mortal form is killed. If this gem is destroyed, he discorporates somewhere on Oerth, and without it he is at risk of being permanently killed, so he has an unusual amount of trust in her that he doesn't show to anyone else.
Krovis is a Flan quasideity and sleeping hero, resting in a crypt beneath the Drachensgrab Hills for almost 2000 years, off and on, emerging only to prevent the conquest of the entire Flanaess by a single group. He has been resting since the time of Lum the Mad and, before that, since the heyday of the Isles of Woe. Whether he awoke during the Greyhawk Wars is unknown.
- King in the Mountain: He rests in a crypt beneath the Drachensgrab Hills, only waking up and emerging to protect Flanaess from conquerors.
- The Stoic: His mood is perpetually somber and grim. He is only merry after his foe is conquered, and then only for a short time before once again he returns to his crypt.
- The Strategist: Whatever Krovis does, he plans carefully, allowing for no improvisation.
Kyuss (pronounced kai-OOSS) is a hero-deity concerned with the Creation and Mastery of the Undead. His symbol is a skull erupting with writhing green worms. Kyuss's faithful believe that life is obscene, death offers only nothingness, and that undeath is the only worthwhile goal. Followers of Kyuss are committed to creating undead wherever they can; whilst they are permitted to control them if necessary, they are encouraged to set their creations free when they have no further use for them. Undead are sacred to Kyuss, and his followers are forbidden from destroying them except in self-defense.
- Big Bad: He is the final boss of the Age of Worms adventure path.
- Deity of Human Origin: He was once a human priest of Nerull in the Flan kingdom of Sulm. After getting exiled from that realm over 2,000 years ago, he fled to the Amedio Jungle with his followers, where he constructed the Spire of Long Shadows and sacrificed all of his followers to achieve hero-deityhood.
- Imperfect Ritual: Kyuss was not able to properly channel the power he gained from the sacrificed lives and faith of his followers, and the altar of Nerull was consumed in a burst of necrotic energy, trapping him within the same obelisk with which he channeled his power.
- Leaking Can of Evil: Being imprisoned hasn't stopped Kyuss from getting dracolich and vampire silver dragon followers, fashioning whole new types of wormy undead to fill out monster manuals, and creating the Ebon Triad as a front for his cult.
- Necromancer: He concerns himself with the Creation and Mastery of the Undead.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: For over 1,500 years, Kyuss has been imprisoned within an obelisk in the Wormcrawl Fissure, in a chamber known as the Writhing Sanctum. Very recently, this obelisk was moved to the city of Alhaster.
- The Worm That Walks: In his divine form, Kyuss appears as a towering humanoid shaped entirely of green Kyuss worms.
Mayaheine is the goddess of Protection, Justice, and Valor. Her symbol is a downward-pointing sword with a V on either side. Mayaheine is a servant and paladin of Pelor, and her faith serves as a more strongly martial complement to Pelor's church. She teaches her followers to protect those who need it. For good to survive it is necessary to defend the weak and innocent. Bravery, strength of mind, and perseverance in times of hardship or danger are virtues, and adherence to the concepts of justice, fairness, and righteousness are essential. Obedience to Pelor the Sun Father is as important as devotion to the Shield Maiden. Just as Mayaheine traveled a long way to aid their world, it may be necessary for the faithful to travel far to uphold her word.
- Action Girl: Mayaheine serves as protector during battles.
- Amazon Brigade: As many as three in five of her paladins are female.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: She carries a bastard sword and a longbow.
- Deity of Human Origin: Mayaheine was originally a mortal paladin of Pelor who eventually achieved godhood.
- The Paladin: She serves as Pelor's paladin and her faith also features them. Paladins of Mayaheine are known as Valiants. Their motto is "Fortitude within and valor without". They are few, as their organization is still a young one, and most of them have emerged from existing Pelorian knighthoods.
- Trapped in Another World: She was brought to Oerth from another world during the Greyhawk Wars to help fight the rising tide of evil.
Myhriss is the Flan goddess of love, romance, and beauty. Her symbol is the lovebird. Myhriss teaches that love can cure all the ills of the world. She urges that love and beauty be protected and celebrated wherever it is found.
- Love Goddess: She's the goddess of love.
- The Power of Love: She teaches that love can cure all the world's ills and should be protected and celebrated wherever it is found.
Nerull is the Flan god of death, darkness, murder, and the underworld. His symbol is a skull and scythe. Nerull is the patron deity of those who seek the greatest evil for their own enjoyment or gain. His realm is Necromanteion, described as a citadel carved from black ice, where the souls of the dead are trapped within the walls, ceilings, and floors. Demonic clerics perform twisted experiments and recite ghastly litanies. Nerull's throne is within a wide hall called the Hidden Temple, and even more unspeakable horrors are said to be buried in tunnels beneath. Services to Nerull are ghastly things performed in absolute blackness, featuring litanies of fear and suffering. Murder is done as a homage to the Reaper.
- Alternate Self: Nerull is still alive in the Greyhawk setting. In the Nentir Vale setting, he was overthrown and killed centuries ago by Nera, the Raven Queen, who became the new goddess of death.
- Enemy to All Living Things: Every living thing is an abomination in the eyes of the Reaper.
- The Grim Reaper: He's the god of death.
- Jerkass Gods: It's been suggested that Nerull deliberately sabotaged Kyuss' ritual, which resulted in him being imprisoned inside an obelisk, in order to prevent him from potentially challenging Nerull's authority.
- Sinister Scythe: He carries a staff called Lifecutter that at his command grows a scythe blade made of scarlet energy.
- Touch of Death: He flies through the skies, slaying the living and undead alike, crumbling them to dust with a mere touch of his bony finger.
Obad-Hai (pronounced oh-bod-high) is the god of nature, woodlands, freedom, hunting, and beasts. His holy symbol is a mask of oak leaves and acorns. He is also considered to be the god of summer by the Flan and is most favored by druids and other nature priests. Obad-Hai teaches that one should live in harmony with nature, and that those who would damage the natural balance deserve swift vengeance. Obad-Hai's faith is colder and less compassionate than Ehlonna's, preaching death in balance with life. When followers of the Shalm hunt, they target the weak and sickly first.
- Born-Again Immortality: According to the ancient traditions of the Old Faith, Obad-Hai is reborn every spring, hatching in the form of a young boy from the fruit of a sapling that grows from his own grave. By summer Obad-Hai takes the form of a strong young man, the Stag King, leading the Wild Hunt against those who would defile Nature. By autumn he has grown into the weathered old man of his standard depictions. When winter begins he is slain by Nerull, who hangs his corpse on the Summer Tree. After seven days, Pelor cuts him down and buries him in the earth, where Beory's tears cause a new sapling to grow, which drops the fruit that hatches into the young Obad-Hai once again in the spring.
- Nature Is Not Nice: Obad-Hai believes that those who mess with nature and are foolish deserve swift retribution.
Pelor (pronounced PAY-lor) is the god of the sun, light, strength, and healing. His holy symbol is a face in a sun. Pelor is worshipped throughout the Flanaess, and on other worlds as well. He rides a mighty ki-rin named Star Thought, summoning eagles and destroying evil with bolts of light. Pelor is wrathful against the forces of evil, and is especially opposed to the undead. However, Pelor urges his followers to remember that excessive attention to things of evil can blind one to the truly important things: compassion and goodness. These are what must be emphasized above all.
- Alternate Self: He is native to the Greyhawk setting within the Great Wheel multiverse, but an alternative version of him is also part of the Nentir Vale setting of the World Axis.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Some versions of his holy book portray Pelor as the sun (named Liga) itself, rather than its creator.
- God of Light: He's the god of the sun, light, strength, and healing. Flan myth says he either created the sun or is the sun and Pelorian dogma has it that the energy and power of life originates in the sun. As a Neutral Good greater god, he's also one of the top contenders for Big Good status among the Greyhawk deities.
- I Have Many Names: He was known as Sol by the early Oeridians, Al'Asran among the Bakluni, and Aurifar among the Flan nomads of the Bright Desert.
- Light Is Good: Pelorians believe that the life-giving sun is the best cure for all of Oerth's ills.
- The Paladin: Pelorian paladins, known as Crusaders, are rare, having appeared in large numbers only since the Greyhawk Wars. Pelor's paladins see themselves as the burning light of the sun which scours away darkness and evil and brings strength and comfort to the innocent. Though uncommon, they can be found in nearly every nation in the Flanaess, their dress varying according to the local culture. They are most common in Nyrond, the Urnst States, and the Sheldomar Valley.
- The Power of the Sun: Pelor created the sun and Pelorian dogma has it that the energy and power of life originates in the sun.
Quaal was a ranger of Flan descent and a crafter of magic, once part of the famed Company of Seven. After many adventures, he rose to the status of quasideity.
- Cool Sword: He wielded a sword.
- Deity of Human Origin: He was originally a mortal ranger from the Vesve Forest.
- Ranger: He was born among the woodsmen of the Vesve Forest and, after returning to his homeland, organized a society of rangers.
- Spell Crafting: Quaal learned spellcrafting enough to fabricate original magic items late in his career.
Rao (pronounced RAH-oh) is the Flan god of peace, reason, and serenity. His holy symbol is a heart-shaped mask with a calm expression, or a simple white heart crafted of metal or wood. Rao teaches that the greatest gift is reason, which leads to discourse, which leads to peace, which leads to serenity. For those who refuse to see reason and resort to violence first, action-governed by reason and wisdom-is required to restore the peace. Sometimes this action is violent, regrettably.
- Emotion Control: With a mere glance, he can cause any being to fall into agreeable calmness.
- Good Is Not Soft: When Raoans are stirred to battle, their foes find them a difficult challenge: as they are calm, implacable, and utterly convinced through the power of reason of the righteousness of their cause. Though slow to act, Rao's followers act surely, carefully, and with great force.
- Martial Pacifist: Rao teaches his followers that they should only resort to battle when the foundations of law and good are threatened.
The most clever of the animal spirits worshiped by the Rovers of the Barrens, Red Fox is credited with teaching men crafts and bringing them the gift of fire. Red Fox hopes for increased contact between the Rovers and the forces for good in the outside world.
- Cunning Like a Fox: Red Fox values cleverness and dexterity.
- Fantastic Foxes: Red Fox's true form is that of a giant fox with bright red fur.
The Serpent (called Mok'slyk by the ancient Flan peoples) is an entity of godlike power, believed to be the personification of arcane magic. The Serpent is believed to have personally instructed Vecna in the ways of magic. Vecna's mother, Mazzel, told her son that the Serpent gains its power by devouring the souls of those who honored it in life. Indeed, this appears to have happened to her when she was burned at the stake by religious fanatics. According to Mazzel, only the great god-kings of the Ur-Flan were able to communicate with the Serpent while still alive. Appearing in the sky one night, the Serpent gifted arcane magic to the ancient Ur-Flan people. By Vecna's time, his was the last Ur-Flan tribe to revere the Serpent; all others had forgotten Mok'slyk, or had been wiped out by witch hunters.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Serpent is said to be a member of a group of unfathomably old entities known as the Ancient Brethren, which though similar to gods, are not exactly gods, though some beings honor them as such.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: There are rumors that the Serpent is merely a guise of Asmodeus, or that the Serpent doesn't exist at all. Perhaps it is is only Vecna's own madness and insight whispering back at him from within the darkness of his own one-eyed skull.
- Soul Eating: The Serpent devours the souls of its followers to gain power.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: The Serpent gains the souls of those who honored it in life.
Vathris is a hero-deity of anguish, lost causes, and revenge worshiped by some few in the Bright Desert. His symbol is a black spear. Vathris was once a god of ingenuity and progress, worshipped in the ancient kingdom of Itar. When Itar went to war for the last time against Sulm, Vathris took part in the battle, falling along with many soldiers of Itar. The descendants of Itari continued worshipping the dead god for generations, but when a horrible vision came to the Qolat Sisterhood, the 36 high ranking priests of Vathris performed a ritual, bringing the dead god back to life. The side-effect of this has been that the priesthood has split in two, one worshipping Vathris as the god of progress, the other as a god of revenge.
- Back from the Dead: He was dead for generations until his priesthood managed to resurrect him.
- Came Back Wrong: Following his resurrection, Vathris is much diminished from his previous form, with a grisly torso wound that still oozes black bile, wielding the onyx longspear that killed him. His eyes are empty sockets. Where he once stood for the future, now he only obsesses about the past.
- Not Afraid to Die: The faithful of Vathris do not fear death or suffering, for they believe a Day of Vindication will come when all virtuous martyrs rise again to dwell with the righteous tribes to torment the wicked forever.
- Resurrective Immortality: He can manifest only once or twice a year, and then he dies again, to reemerge a year later.
Vecna (pronounced VEK-nah) was a once-human archlich who ascended to godhood. He was eventually destroyed, and his left hand and left eye were the only parts of his body to survive. Vecna's holy symbol is an eye in the palm of a left hand. Vecna did not stay gone forever, and eventually achieved godhood, becoming the god of destructive and evil secrets, magic, hidden knowledge, and intrigue.
- Anti-Magic: The fifth edition stat-block of Vecna in the "Vecna Dossier" gives him the ability Dread Counterspell. He can use it like the spell Counterspell to stop a spell from being cast, but his version is uniquely strong. First, he can do it three times in-between his turns. Second, he can do it at any range as long as he can see the person. And lastly, his counterspell also does damage to the target if Vecna successfully counters them.
- An Arm and a Leg: Vecna lost his left hand and eye in his original "mortal" lich-form, which have never been replaced in his later more powerful incarnations and are the only traces left of his physical body. They have since become high-valued and very dangerous magical artifacts.
- Appendage Assimilation: To use the powers of the Hand or the Eye of Vecna, one is required to cut off one's own corresponding body part and affix Vecna's in its place.
- Breakout Villain: Vecna is unquestionably one of the single most popular tabletop villains period. Despite being from the Greyhawk setting, he is so popular that his status bleeds into most works of the Dungeons & Dragons settings, including the Forgotten Realms. He is so much of this trope in fact, that his character became officially integrated into the lore of the Forgotten Realms, and he is one of the few non-Forgotten Realms characters to appear or be referenced in the setting regularly, such as the Tomb of Annihilation.
The 2023 D&D Direct
would even reveal an adventure module called Vecna: Eve of Ruin revolving around him as part of the 50th Anniversary Milestone Celebration. - Dark and Troubled Past: Vecna was born as a human, centuries ago as a member of the untouchable caste in the Flan city of Fleeth on Oerth. He was initially trained by his mother, Mazzel, in the art of magic, before she was executed by the government of Fleeth for practicing witchcraft. Vowing revenge, Vecna eventually assumed a mastery of the dark arts achieved by no mortal before or since.
- Deal with the Devil: A theory to explain how Vecna ascended to lichdom posited in 5e's Dungeon Master's Guide is that he made a deal with the demon lord, Orcus, to learn that dark magic.
- Deity of Human Origin: He was a human who became a lich and eventually ascended to godhood.
- Eviler than Thou: Pulled this on Iuz when he stole his power in an almost successful bid to transform himself into a Greater God.
- Godhood Seeker: In the Greyhawk adventure Die, Vecna, Die, Vecna plan is to ascend from a mere demigod to a full-blown divinity and rule the multiverse from the city of Sigil. This arc of his is adapted in the first campaign of Critical Role and is referenced in details of the 5e mini-adventure "Don't Say Vecna."
- Hero Killer: The terror Vecna produces is a big point in many of adventures featuring him. He will often be surrounded by re-animated corpses of those he killed. More pointedly, it was Vecna who killed all Dungeons and Dragons most famous adventuring group, the Circle of Eight. Players of Vecna Lives! are ensured they know about this, since they play as the Circle going to their death before moving on to their real characters.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Vecna forged the powerful Sword of Kas as an instrument of his lieutenant's authority. However, Vecna's evil, manifested in the sword, seduced Kas into usurping and killing his master.
- Imperfect Ritual: As he began a ritual to ascend into godhood, Vecna was betrayed by the vampire Kas, his most trusted lieutenant. In a climactic battle that cost the lich his left eye and hand, Vecna reached apotheosis followed by an explosion that leveled the new god's empire and flung both of them across the planes.
- Multiversal Conqueror: He's always wanted to conquer the multiverse, but is normally stopped before he can get that far to try. However, Vecna: Eve of Ruin revolves around him actually putting his plan to do so into motion, requiring a Crisis Crossover to stop him.
- Our Liches Are Different: Vecna learned the ritual of lichdom from Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead, later becoming one of the most powerful liches ever in existence.
- Power at a Price: Using the hand or eye of Vecna gives the user many new abilities, and having both can make someone really powerful. However, having one gives Vecna a foothold in the being who did so, and using the newly acquired powers causes the user to be affected by Vecna, depending on which the user had; the Eye of Vecna has a chance of Vecna consuming the users soul and gaining control of their body, while the Hand of Vecna has a high chance of forcing the user to commit an evil deed with little control over who they target.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: Vecna was the original author of both the Tome of the Stilled Tongue and the Book of Vile Darkness, which later received additions from other evil scholars.
Zodal is the Flan god of mercy, hope, and benevolence. His holy symbol is a man's hand partially wrapped in gray cloth. Zodal's philosophy teaches that kindness and mercy is the sole cure for evil, and that these traits can turn even the most evil from their path. Zodal urges that one retain faith and hope despite adversity and trouble. Zodal will guide those who would be pulled into pain, anger, and despair. Zodal teaches that the individual is capable of mastering their feelings and acting only on their positive ones, setting an example for others.
- All-Loving Hero: Zodal considers even the most hateful gods to be his friends, believing that with his encouragement they might change their ways.
- Combat Medic: His clerics often visit battlefields in order to minister to the wounded and attempt to convince the combatants to make things right and stop committing atrocities.
- Hope Bringer: Clerics of the Gentle Hand live in simple conditions, and use their knowledge and abilities to alleviate pain in others and aid those in need.
Suel Gods
Beltar is the Suel goddess of malice, caves, and pits. Her holy symbol is a set of opened fangs poised to bite. Beltar was formerly a goddess of earth and mines, but was supplanted by other Suel gods and nonhuman deities associated with earth, until her only worshippers were nonhuman slaves. Beltar's followers are encouraged to mine and explore caverns for riches and foes to kill. Her worshipers are mostly savage humans and evil nonhumans, barbaric dwellers in vast subterranean caverns. She encourages her faithful to join together in great armies and ally themselves with beholders, demons, red dragons, liches, and other powerful creatures. Her followers are relentless explorers and raiders who take whatever they can find in the darkness and make it their own.
- Black Widow: Beltar will often take mates in her various forms, but few survive, as she eats them afterwards.
- Hates Everyone Equally: Beltar hates nearly everything, even other deities.
- Necromancer: Clerics of particular devotion are known to rise as undead a year after their death, where upon they return to their original tribe as proof of their goddess' power.
- Offing the Offspring: She tends to eat any young born from her unions.
- The Power of Hate: Beltar's priests preach hatred of one's enemies, rather than fear.
- Shapeshifting: Though often depicted as a haglike human female, Beltar is known to also appear as a beholder, red dragon, or marilith.
Bralm is the Suel goddess of insects and industriousness. Her symbol is a giant wasp in front of an insect swarm. Bralm teaches that everyone in society has their proper position that people are obligated to master even if they don't understand their importance in the greater scheme. She instructs her followers to obey those with higher social positions and greater knowledge. She urges contentment in hard labor, and compares her followers to insects in a hive.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: She can take the form of an ankheg, giant wasp, or giant scorpion.
- Pest Controller: She can control insects.
- Magic Staff: She fights with a magical staff.
- Winged Humanoid: She is sometimes depicted with insect wings on her back.
Dalt is the Suel god of portals, doors, enclosures, locks, and keys. His holy symbol is a locked door with a skeleton key beneath it. He is the brother of Vatun, the Suel god of winter and cold. Dalt is the god of finding innovative solutions to problems and obstacles, teaching his followers to simultaneously be better mice even as they fabricate better mousetraps.
- Dual Age Modes: Dalt is usually depicted as either a white-haired old man with piercing eyes or as a young red-haired thief.
- Master of Unlocking: Dalt's clerics are a mix of those who seek to keep things locked and those who seek to open those locks. One group works to build locks and traps, then the other figures out ways to defeat them.
Fortubo (pronounced for-TOO-boh) is the god of stone, metals, mountains, and guardianship. Fortubo's holy symbol is a warhammer with a glowing head, though any hammer will serve. Originally a member of the Suel pantheon, Fortubo abandoned the Suloise upon discovering that the Suel Imperium were behind the creation of the derro. Fortubo now favors dwarves above any other race, and has relatively few human worshippers.
- Defector from Decadence: He left the Suel pantheon in disgust after discovering the Suel Imperium was behind the creation of the derro, a Slave Race of monstrous humanoids descended from enslaved magically crossbred dwarves and humans. He has since cut off all ties to the human gods, with the exception of his brother Jascar.
Jascar is the Suel god of hills and mountains. His holy symbol is a snow-capped mountain peak. He is the brother of Fortubo. Jascar teaches his followers to stand against orcs and goblinoids, as well as those who marr the beauty of hills and mountains. He stresses that the riches found beneath the earth are not to be plundered by evil, but were placed there as rewards for the good. Though chiefly a human god, Jascar is also honored by many dwarves and gnomes.
- Arch-Enemy: He is the sworn enemy of the goddess Beltar, the patron of underground-dwelling humanoids that Jascar fights against.
- The Dreaded: His visage is said to strike terror into the hearts of goblins and orcs.
- Shapeshifting: He can also appear as a pegasus or a horse.
Kord is the Suel god of athletics, sports, brawling, strength, and courage. His symbol is an eight-pointed star composed of spears and maces. Kord is the son of Phaulkon and Syrul, and the grandson of Lendor. Kord's followers are urged to scorn cowardice, and taught that the strong and fit should rule the weak. To Kord's faithful, a leader's best quality is bravery. Kord loves physical contests, and this inspires many barbarian tribes to use nonlethal sports as a method for resolving disputes. Because battle claims the weak and cowardly alike, there is nothing to lose by seeking battle; indeed, battle determines who is most worthy of life, and ensures a place at Kord's side after death. Those who flee from battle are often publicly excommunicated.
- The Berserker: Kord has a tendency to go into berserk rages in the heat of battle from which he cannot be roused by anyone short of his grandfather, the creator deity Lendor. In such a fugue, he will attack friend or foe alike.
- Blood Knight: Kord loves to fight and teaches his followers that battle determines who is most worthy of life.
- Child by Rape: Technically the case: The goddess Syrul used an illusion to pretend to be Lydia (who was Phaulkon's lover at the time) in order to have sex with him. Luckily, Kord is a lot more like his father than mother.
- Cool Sword: He wields the greatsword Kelmar in battle.
- The Dragonslayer: He is a foe of dragonkind, especially lawful evil dragons. He wears a fighting girdle made from a red dragon's hide, gauntlets from a white dragon's hide, and boots from a blue dragon's hide.
- Lovable Jock: He's basically the god of them.
- Offing the Offspring: If his children do not enter their father's clergy, do not become fighters, or are otherwise considered to be cowards in their father's eyes, Kord may show up in person to kill them.
- One-Handed Zweihänder: He also carries an ordinary two-handed sword that he may wield in one hand.
- Really Gets Around: Many tales are told of Kord's dalliances with humans, elves, and even giants, and the sons and daughters born from such unions. When his children reach the age of 17, if Kord finds them worthy, he appears before them and gives them some great task involving fighting. Some few, if they pass their father's tests, may be considered "demigods" in his eyes and gain special powers.
- World's Strongest Man: Kord is one of the most powerful of the Suel gods, said to be second only to his grandfather Lendor.
Lendor is the Suel god of time, tedium, patience, and study. His holy symbol is a crescent moon superimposed upon a full moon surrounded by stars. Though the exact number of stars varies, it is usually fourteen. Lendor is a distant deity who has withdrawn from the affairs of the world to care for larger issues. He considers himself superior to other deities, especially his children. He has the ability to banish or undo the magic of any his brood. Lendor is the leader and progenitor of the Suel pantheon. He is the father of Phaulkon, Wee Jas, and Norebo and grandfather of Kord. Lendor's followers teach that the present should be kept in perspective. Time is infinite, and what seems important now may not be so critical in the long term. One must look at the stretch of history and the greater universe in order to see the significance of what is perceived with the immediate senses. Lendor knows that age brings experience, wisdom, and the urge to take things more slowly.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: He is the leader of the Suel pantheon and their most powerful member, being the only one capable of halting Kord's famous rages.
- Flaming Sword: He wields a flaming sword named Afterglow.
- Grandpa God: Lendor is usually depicted as a husky older man with flowing hair and a long beard of white.
- Shapeshifting: He sometimes manifests as a silver dragon or a female elf.
- Time Master: Lendor is said to have started the flow of time at the birth of the universe with a single blow from Afterglow.
- Top God: Lendor is the leader and progenitor of the Suel pantheon.
Llerg (pronounced LERG) is the Suel god of beasts and strength. His symbols are representations of a bear, a snake, or an alligator. Among the savage Suel tribes of the Amedio Jungle and Hepmonaland, he is known as Hlerg. Llerg ignores most other gods, seeing them as too civilized for his taste, although he is allied with the god Vatun and has a friendly rivalry with Kord.
- Appeal to Nature: Llerg teaches that humans have lost contact with their inner animal nature and should watch and learn how the predator lives to again be as they should be.
- Beard of Barbarism: He has a long, wild beard.
- Loincloth: He is dressed in furs and a fighting girdle
- Shapeshifting: Llerg can also appear as a huge bear, snake, or alligator.
- Strength Equals Worthiness: He teaches that Be strong and fierce like the creatures of the animal world so that others will respect them.
- Wild Hair: He has wild shaggy hair.
Lydia (pronounced LIH-dee-ah) is the Suel goddess of music, knowledge, and daylight. Her holy symbol is a spray of colors from an open hand. Lydia promotes the progress of knowledge in each individual for the sake of their self-improvement. She teaches that music is a key to learning, and that light permits the ignorant to see the truth.
- Light Is Good: She teaches that light permits the ignorant to see the truth.
- The Muse: Lydia is favored by musicians, bards, sages, and by women seeking fame.
- Phosphor-Essence: She is constantly surrounded by a sphere of force.
- Saintly Church: Her church helps women who want to travel and provides them with education to uplift them from lesser stations in life. This tends to make her church unpopular with patriarchies.
- Seeker Archetype: Her clerics are constantly driven to learn and discover. When praying, priests of Lydia are required to give their patron updates on the things they have learned.
Nazarn (pronounced NAZZ-arn) is a half-orc hero-deity of formal, ritualistic, and public combat. His symbol is a chain wrapped around a short sword. Nazarn was once a popular gladiator slave owned by a member of the Scarlet Brotherhood, but he escaped to find a better place for himself elsewhere in the world. During his travels, he impressed a half-giant descendant of the god Kord, and eventually convinced Kord himself to elevate him to godhood after defeating all opponents (including a young green dragon) in a Hepmonaland arena run by yuan-ti.
- Cool Sword: He carries a short sword called Crowdpleaser.
- Gladiator Games: He was a popular gladiator in life and his priests are often professional duelists or gladiators, or they act as referees in such contests. They may adventure to seek out new arena clients, to test their mettle against new or unusal foes, or to collect mementos and scars that will add to their reputations.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Nazarn appears as an older half-orc with a strongly orcish appearance.
Norebo is the Suel god of luck, gambling, and risks. His symbol is a pair of eight-sided dice. Norebo teaches that life is full of risks and gambling with fate is the only thing that makes life worth living. Owning property and life itself are fleeting things, and best be enjoyed while one still has them.
- The Casino: Temples to Norebo, often called "Churches of the Big Gamble," are found throughout the Barbarian States, as well as in large cities throughout the Flanaess. Donations to the churches are most often in the form of lost bets, as the churches usually double as gambling houses.
- Divine Incest: For the past thousand years, he has been the lover of his sister Wee Jas.
- Lovable Rogue: Norebo is one of the most popular Suel gods, perhaps second only to Kord, and is very popular among rogues.
- Opposites Attract: He's a chaotic god of rogues and gambling. Wee Jas is a lawful god of, well, law.
- Professional Gambler: Norebo is known for his love of dice games, and his willingness to bet on nearly anything.
- Sdrawkcab Name: "Oberon" backwards.
- Shapeshifting: He can assume the forms of animals, and often does so when wishing to remain hidden.
Osprem (pronounced AH-sprem) is the Suel goddess of sailors, ships, and sea voyages. He symbol is either a barracuda or a sperm whale. She protects those who sail and their vessels as long as they respect her and abide by her laws. She guides vessels through dangerous waters and is the patron goddess of naval explorers.
- Berserk Button: Protect the sea as you would your own home, or face Osprem's wrath.
- Hot Goddess: In human form, Osprem appears as a beautiful woman in a flowing gown.
- It Was a Gift: In human form, she wears a ring carved from a whale's tooth, a gift from the grandfather of all whales.
- Prongs of Poseidon: She wields a trident.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Osprem teaches that the sea is a powerful ally and an implacable foe, and protects those who travel upon it.
- Shapeshifting: She can also appear as a dolphin, barracuda or whale.
Phaulkon is the Suel god of air, wind, clouds, birds, and archery. His symbol is winged human silhouette. He's the son of Lendor, brother to Wee Jas and Norebo, and the father of Kord. Phaulkon teaches that victory in battle depends upon archery. The sky is the dome over creation, and creatures of the sky are blessed for freeing themselves from the soil. Take the fight to the enemy; do not wait for the encroach of evil. The ancient devices of war are best left alone, as their use involves great danger.
- The Ace: Among the gods of the Suel, Phaulkon is regarded as second only to Kord in fighting prowess.
- Winged Humanoid: Phaulkon appears as a powerful winged man.
Phyton (pronounced FIE-tahn) is the Suel god of nature, beauty, and farming. Phyton's symbol is a scimitar in front of an oak tree. Phyton teaches that the nature in its natural, untouched state can only be made more beautiful by the hand of mankind. Therefore, gardens, crop fields, and swamps drained for fertile soil are no less wondrous than mountains and forests. He also teaches that animals should be domesticated whenever possible, but those which prove harmful to man or his works should be destroyed.
- Green Thumb: Prayers are often made to Phyton to ensure timely harvests and bountiful crops.
- Hunk: Phyton is most often depicted as a tall, handsome man, slender and youthful-looking.
- Science Is Good: Phyton was once like most other nature deities, but now represents man's dominance over nature, which pits him and his followers against druids, other nature gods, and others who would protect the wild from mankind's depredations.
- Shapeshifting: He can appear as any creature of the forest.
- Sinister Scimitar: He wields a scimitar.
Pyremius (pronouced pie-REH-mee-us) is the Suel god of assassins, fire, poison, and murder. His symbol is a demonic face with ears like a bat's wings (this is the head of a yagnaloth). Pyremius teaches that destruction by fire is the destiny of the world, and that those who are foolish enough to be poisoned or otherewise murdered by stealth deserve their fate. Pyremius urges his followers to burn those who threaten them and to murder those who keep them from getting what they want.
- Cool Sword: He wields a sword, the Red Light of Hades.
- Human Sacrifice: Sacrifices of slaves and prisoners are conducted at the beginning of winter, spring, and low summer. Victims are poisoned, stabbed, and burnt alive.
- Kill It with Fire: He teaches his followers to burn those who threaten them.
- Playing with Fire: Pyremius gained his fire aspect centuries ago when he poisoned Ranet, the Suloise fire goddess.
- Set the World on Fire: He teaches that the world will perish in fire.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Pyremius was originally just a demigod of poisons and assassins, but he managed to poison and kill Ranet, the Suloise goddess of fire, and assumed her portfolio after her death.
Ranet was the goddess of fire in the Suel pantheon until she died. Centuries ago, at some time during the height of the Suloise Imperium, she was poisoned and killed by Pyremius, who subsequently gained her fire aspect.
- Animal Motifs: Ranet has some connection to serpents, and may manifest as a giant serpent queen. It's conceivable that she is the "Suloise snake goddess" mentioned in Ivid the Undying and From the Ashes.
- The Flame of Life: When Ranet was goddess of fire, the emphasis was flame as a giver of life, implying Ranet was at least somewhat benign in temperament.
- Posthumous Character: She was killed centuries ago by Pyremius.
Syrul (pronounced SIGH-rul) is the Suel goddess of lies, deceit, treachery, and false promises. Her holy symbol is a forked tongue. She is the mother of Kord by Phaulkon. Syrul teaches her forktongues to protect their knowledge by shielding it with lies. They are taught that their tongues are potentially more deadly than any blade. They alternately tell truths and lies as is convenient, and know that betraying a fool is probably the best gift they can be given.
- Consummate Liar: She is worshipped by those who rely on lies and deceit.
- Living Lie Detector: Syrul is immune to all illusions and deceptions.
- Master of Illusion: Syrul appears as a smelly, dirty, old hag dressed in tattered clothing. However, this is but an illusion, as her true form looks completely nondescript.
- The Oathbreaker: She teaches her followers to give their word when it advances their cause, and break it when it is no longer of use.
Vatun (pronounced VAY-tun) is the Suel god of northern barbarians, cold, winter, and arctic beasts. His symbol is the sun setting on a snowy landscape. He is the brother of Dalt and popular among the Suel barbarians of the Thillonrian Peninsula. Vatun teaches that winter is an opportunity to cull the weak from the strong, and that cowards should be covered by snow and forgotten. The Great God of the North also speaks of a "Great Winter" which will cover the land, allowing the northern barbarians to inherit the Oerth.
- Nemean Skinning: Vatun appears as a massive Suel barbarian dressed in the skins of polar bears.
- Sealed Badass in a Can: Around the same time as the Battle of a Fortnight's Length, Vatun was imprisoned by priests of Telchur, who were perhaps aided by Telchur's associate Belial. Vatun's imprisonment is said by some to have caused the fall of the barbarian empire. His brother, the god Dalt, constantly searches for ways to free him.
- Weird Beard: His beard is made of snow and ice.
Wastri is the Suel god of amphibians, bigotry, and self-deception. His symbol is a gray toad. Wastri teaches his worshippers that humans are superior to all other races. Some humanoid races such as goblins, orcs, and bullywugs are fit to serve humanity as slaves; other races, like dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings, must be exterminated. Wastri is said to dwell deep in the Vast Swamp, where he is served by bullywugs and warped humans in a fortress-temple called the Sacred Polystery. There, they breed frogs to look more human, and humans to look more like frogs.
- Captured Super-Entity: Wastri was captured and imprisoned in the Godtrap beneath Castle Greyhawk by the mad archmage, Zagig Yragerne, and did not escape until decades later.
- Deity of Human Origin: Wastri is rumored to have once been a mortal human. "Wastri" had been the name of a student of Kevelli Mauk, the founder of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Three years after the Rain of Colorless Fire, Mauk, with his students and slaves, was hiding in the Vast Swamp, on the run from Oeridians. The one known as Wastri and one other were thought killed when the party entered a stone ruin half-buried in the muck, and nothing was heard from either student until the demigod Wastri revealed himself. The Brotherhood, disgusted by the demigod's amphibious, no-longer-human nature, privately declared him impure and never cooperated with his followers closely.
- Fantastic Racism: He advocates for human supremacy and the destruction of all non-humans.
- Gonk: Wastri appears as a human with froglike features.
- Small Name, Big Ego: He is at most a quasi- or hero- deity, but basically thinks he's the god of all humans.
Wee Jas (pronounced WEE jas) is the Suel goddess of magic, death, vanity, and law. Her symbol is a skull in front of a fireball, or just a red skull. Wee Jas is a daughter of Lendor and is romantically linked to her brother Norebo. Wee Jas thinks of herself as a steward of the dead and favors Law above all things. Though she is a relatively benign death goddess, she has no problem with undead being created - as long as they are not reanimated against their will, and their remains are procured in a lawful manner. Wee Jas is unconcerned with questions of morality; if it can be done within the confines of the law, she will allow it. Jasidan priests teach that magic is the key to all things. Jasidan are expected to show respect towards their predecessors and the departed.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Aside from being an attractive human female, details of her appearance vary wildly. It has been suggested that she could appear as another humanoid race if she so wished, and that her appearance varies by what her followers in the area would consider most attractive.
- Alpha Bitch: She's the goddess of vanity (among other things, and not a very nice deity (indeed, she's borderline Lawful Evil). She even considers Phyton her enemy just because she's afraid people think he's more beautiful than she is.
- The Archmage: Wee Jas is especially popular with Suel wizards and sorcerers, and many necromancers revere her.
- Curtains Match the Windows: She's invariably depicted with both red hair and eyes.
- Divine Incest: She is the lover of her brother Norebo.
- Don't Fear the Reaper: As a death goddess, more people look to her for safe passage into the afterlife than harsher deities like Nerull.
- Hot Goddess: Wee Jas always appears as a highly attractive human female.
- Love Goddess: She is sometimes revered as a love goddess.
- Psychopomp: She gained her death aspect when the survivors of the Rain of Colorless Fire looked to their goddess of magic for assurance that the dead were being escorted to the afterworld.
Xerbo (pronounced ZER-boh) is the Suel god of the sea, sailing, money, and business. His holy symbol is a dragon turtle. The Sea Dragon is worshipped as a merchant's god mainly, and only as a sea god when he needs to be placated. Xerbo teaches that the law of the sea states that no sea creature should be favored over another. Land creatures, including intelligent ones, have no place in the water; it is a place to be feared and respected, not exploited. Land creatures in danger on the sea deserve no help unless they act to protect sea creatures or the sea itself. Do not let one's emotions get in the way of making trade; no person should be favored over another.
- The Almighty Dollar: He's popular among the smaller merchants, as he preaches that no one person should be favored over another, and unpopular among guilds and unions.
- Lord of the Ocean: He is the god of the sea and his clerics act as protectors of the seas and their life, and are tied so tightly to it that extended leave from there, without a good reason, will cause him to disfavor them.
- Nature Is Not Nice: He provides no aid to land creatures who are in danger at sea unless they themselves have protected sea creatures or the sea itself. His clerics are not allowed to raise those who died at sea or were killed by sea creatures.
- Prongs of Poseidon: He wields a trident called Murky Deep.
- The Rival: He's a rival to both fellow sea-god Procan and fellow money-god Zilchus.
Touv Gods
Berna is the Touv goddess of passion and forgiveness. Formerly, she was the goddess of hatred and vendettas, but she got better. Her symbol is a red metal heart, preferably red gold. Berna is the third child of the serpent god Meyanok, transformed by the power of Xanag from a spirit of hate to one of passion. Her older siblings are Vara and Damaran. Berna is the patron of all small emotions, both positive and negative. She also represents the forgiveness of wrongs.
- Forgiveness: She's the goddess of forgiveness.
- Heel–Face Turn: Originally, Berna was the goddess of hatred and vendettas, whom Meyanok sent to torment Xanag, her great-aunt. However when she saw her, she could not hate such a beautiful person, and threw herself at her feet to be killed. Xanag took pity on her, and crafted her a heart out of red gold, transforming her into a goddess of all powerful emotions and forgiveness. This enabled Berna to finally forgive herself.
- Literal Change of Heart: Berna's heart transformed her from a spirit of dark passion to one that represented all powerful emotions, as well as the emotion of forgiveness.
- Whale Egg: She hatched from an egg which was laid by the serpent god Meyanok when his frustrated lust mated with his simmering rage.
Breeka is the Touv goddess of living things. Her holy symbol is a headdress of wooden beads and animal teeth. She is the daughter of Nola, goddess of the sun, and Vogan, the god of weather and rain, and from this mixture of rain and sunlight was born all the world's plants and animals. She is the mother of Katay, who has no father. Her birthing pains mingled with the darkness to create Meyanok, the god of evil. While sleeping, she vomited forth the nightmares inspired in her by her granddaughter Vara to create the living things that bring fear and danger to the night.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: She is depicted as a middle-aged Touv woman with dark green skin and worry lines on her face.
- Earth Mother: Breeka is the manifestation of all aspects of nature.
- Monster Progenitor: When tormented by her granddaughter Vara, Breeka was forced to vomit out all of her nightmares, which hid in the shadows and made the land dangerous at night.
- Nature Is Not Nice: She represents both the helpful and harmful aspects of nature (unlike her grandfather Uvot, who represents only nature's bounty). Breeka is, by turns, helpful, indifferent, and harmful.
- Truly Single Parent: She gave birth to Katay and Meyanok without a father.
Damaran is the Touv god of vermin and other creeping things, as well as the flight-instinct essential to survival. His symbol is ribbons of black metal. He is the son of the serpent god Meyanok and brother of Vara and Berna. The chief commandment of Damaran is to survive no matter what, to find food no matter how strange or disgusting the environment, to thrive where nothing should be expected to live, and to run away when necessary.
- Dirty Coward: He often flees when confronted by enemies of any strength. When Meyanok sent his children to torment the elder gods, Damaran was sent forth by his father to infest the home of Kundo with crawling and biting things, but he fled when confronted.
- The Swarm: He is depicted as being accompanied and surrounded by insects.
- Swarm of Rats: He is also depicted as being accompanied and surrounded by rats. His clerics can also call hordes of vermin on those who anger them, or if ordered to do so by those they serve.
- Undying Loyalty: Damaran obeys his father Meyanok unquestioningly, and is easily bullied into service by his older sister Vara.
- Whale Egg: He hatched from an egg which was laid by the serpent god Meyanok when his frustrated lust mated with his simmering rage.
Katay is the Touv god of time, inevitability, order, and decay. His symbol is a copper disk. He is the son of Breeka and brother of Meyanok. Katay represents the relentless cycle of birth, rot, and death in the realm of his mother, as well as the time that tugs on all. He is the inventor of the Touv Calendar, and records all events on a metallic wheel given to him by Xanag.
- Akashic Records: He records all events on a metallic disc given to him by Xanag.
- Nemean Skinning: Katay is depicted wearing a decaying animal pelt.
Kundo is the Touv god of building, noise, music, and defense. His symbol is an ornate but functional shield or breastplate. Kundo is the son of Xanag, goddess of metals, and Vogan, god of rain and storms, and is a loud and boisterous guardian god obsessed with building and construction. He is the sound of metal on metal, or the roar of the summer rains on the roofs of shelters, or the happy songs sung by those who build and protect.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Kundo's followers are expected to protect the weak and save those in danger. His clerics and shamans act as protectors of their tribe.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: He is depicted carrying a great shield.
- Person of Mass Construction: It is said that Kundo created the moons of Oerth, building two metal disks, one to honor his mother Xanag and one to honor his grandmother Nola. These disks, the aquamarine disk Koxanag and the larger, silver disk Konola, were placed in the sky so that all could remember Nola's light and beauty while the sun goddess slept.
Meyanok is the Touv god of serpents, poison, discord, darkness, and famine. His symbol is a snake coiled around a skull. Meyanok was born from Breeka's birthing pains, and was the only god to not have been born under Nola's light. Meyanok festered with hatred and rejection and his frustrated lust mated with his simmering rage, which resulted in him laying three eggs from which his children, Berna, Damaran and Vara, emerged. Meyanok seeks to corrupt the rest of his family and control or destroy their servants.
- The Chessmaster: He prefers subterfuge to overt action, as he is outnumbered by the non-evil gods.
- Dark Is Evil: Meyanok is an evil god of darkness.
- God of Evil: He is the main evil god of the Touv pantheon.
- Mister Seahorse: He laid three eggs when his lust mated with his anger.
- Snakes Are Sinister: He is an evil serpent god who is always depicted as being coiled around a skull.
- Truly Single Parent: He produced his children by himself.
Nola is the Touv goddess of the sun. Her symbol is a gold or copper image of the sun. She is the mother of Breeka and Xanag, grandmother of Katay, Meyanok and Kundo, and great-grandmother of Berna, Damaran and Vara. She is a nurturing force that abhors deadly cold and those who destroy things before they fully develop.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: As a greater spirit of nature, Nola is associated with the physical sun itself rather than any otherplanar realm.
- Hot Goddess: Nola appears as a serenely beautiful Touv woman.
- Light Is Good: Her essence shines on the land of mortals, filling it with her life-giving light.
- Phosphor-Essence: her head is surrounded by a corona of flame.
- The Power of the Sun: Nola represents the life-giving power of sunlight and its ability to reveal things that would otherwise be hidden by darkness.
Uvot is the Touv god of prosperity. His symbol is a depiction of fruit. Uvot personifies the bounty of the land and the prosperity to be gained by using his gifts. He is the antithesis of destruction.
- The Maker: Uvot is said to have been born when the world was lonely and soulless by rising as a great noise from the Oerth and all that was on it and in it. When Uvot thanked the sun for blessing the land with its warmth, he awoke Nola, the goddess of the sun. When a gentle rain fell, Uvot thanked the storm for the gift of water, and so he named and shaped Vogan, the god of weather. When Uvot blessed Nola, she gave birth to Xanag, goddess of metals and beauty.
- Sizeshifter: Uvot appears either as a Touv child surrounded by fruits, grains, and crafted items, or as a giant Touv man carrying these things in his arms.
- Top God: Uvot is the creator and leader of the Touv pantheon.
Vara is the Touv goddess of nightmares and fear. Her symbol is a necklace of mummified animal feet. She's the daughter of Meyanok and elder sister of Damaran and Berna. Vara's dogma involves inflicting misery, oppression, and terror on all others.
- Big Sister Bully: Vara considers herself to be superior to her younger siblings Damaran and Berna. She uses her status as the eldest to compel them to do her bidding.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Like her father, Vara loathes the other Touv gods, and revels in the act of twisting their minds.
- Nightmare Weaver: When she was newly hatched, Vara visited her grandmother Breeka's troubled sleep, and wracked her with nightmares.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Vara appears as a red-eyed Touv woman.
- Whale Egg: She hatched from an egg which was laid by the serpent god Meyanok when his frustrated lust mated with his simmering rage.
Vogan is the Touv god of rain, storms, and water. His symbol is a rain cloud. Through the sun goddess Nola, Vogan is the father of Breeka, and thus the grandfather of Katay. He is also the father of Kundo, through Nola's daughter by Uvot, Xanag. He is said to be temperamental, and to have a wandering nature and roving eye.
- Love Mother, Love Daughter: He's been romantically involved with both Nola and her daughter Xanag.
- Weather Manipulation: Vogan's followers pray to him for necessary rain, and to stave off severe storms.
Xanag is the Touv goddess of metals and beauty. Her holy symbol is a circle with seven lines radiating from it. She's the daughter of Nola and Uvot, and, through the weather god Vogan, the mother of Kundo. She represents the bounty of the earth transformed by fire (that is to say, metals) and the beauty of things made from it. Xanag is indifferent to good and evil, valuing beauty, art, romance, and the superficial.
- Befriending the Enemy: When Meyanok sent his children to torment the other gods, he sent Berna after Xanag. When Berna saw her, she could not bring herself to hate her, and threw herself to her feet begging for death for what she had almost done. Xanag took pity on her and fashioned her a red gold heart, transforming her into the goddess she currently is.
- Chrome Champion: Xanag is depicted as a Touv woman seemingly made of gold.
Olman Gods
Camazotz is the Olman god of bats and evil. His symbol is a giant bat. As Zotzilaha, he is the god of vampires and the underworld. Camazotz manifests as a great bat surrounded by a dark cloud made up of a thousand normal bats. He is a dual-aspected god, like many of the deities worshipped by the Olman people. He is a ravenous drinker of blood and spreader of rabies, but he is also a benign predator of harmful insects.
- Bat Out of Hell: He manifests as a great bat.
- Bloodsucking Bats: He drinks blood.
- God of Evil: He's the main god of evil of the Olman pantheon.
- Pet the Dog: Although he drinks blood and spreads rabies, he also protects people from crop-destroying insects.
- Public Domain Character: He's the Mayan god Camazotz, although his Zotzilaha aspect is unique to Oerth.
Chitza-Atlan (pronounced sheet-ZAH ah-TLAHN) is the god who guards the gates of the underworld. His symbol is a mummified centaur. He is a dark interloper who has established himself as the one who controls which spirits are allowed past him, both into the underworld and back out again. In this role, he guards both the tombs and cemeteries of centaurs to ensure the sanctity of their corpses, and wields power over the undead who threaten the living. He is worshipped by both Olman humans and by centaurs.
- Gate Guardian: He guards the gateway to the underworld. Crossing this threshold is a monumental task, for the Mummified Guardian takes his duties very seriously and is quick to strike down those who offer bribes; although it is said even he has his price.
- Necromancer: His actions on the Prime Material Plane consist primarily of creating and instructing undead guardians for tombs, barrows, and cemeteries, and direct conflict with him is likely to only arise should these activities be interfered with. He seems to care little for what his mortal followers do with the power he grants them, as his hold on them is only truly in place once they die, at which point he causes many to reanimate as undead guardians, sending them off to locations he wishes them to guard.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: Chitza-Atlan appears as a desiccated corpse of a centaur with dried skin the texture of paper and dyed jade-green.
Coatlicue is the Olman goddess of the earth from which all life arises, and also of the earth in which the dead are buried. She is the patron of mothers and fathers, but also of barren rocks and deep caves, revered by miners and those who mourn. Coatlicue's priests teach that the earth is like a womb from which all things emerge, and the grave to which they return. They teach that the land is not a thing that can be owned, only used for a while before it must lay fallow for a time.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: She is the embodiment of Oerth itself.
- Creepy Souvenir: She is normally depicted wearing a necklace of severed hands.
- Horror Hunger: In the world of the gods, Coatlicue was constantly hungry. She wept from hunger, but the gods could never feed her enough to satisfy her, so Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca took her down to the endless waters below, lying her down, and created a world from her. And yet still she hungers; whenever anything dies, she eats it. Whenever Tlaloc sends rain, she drinks.
- Mother Nature: She is the personification of Oerth, the forests were made from her hair, lakes from her eyes, and mountains from her shoulders.
- Non-Human Head: She is sometimes depicted with a serpent's head.
- Public Domain Character: She is the Aztec goddess Coatlicue.
- Snakes Are Sinister: She is normally depicted wearing a skirt made of living, writhing serpents.
- Too Many Mouths: She was so hungry, mouths grew on her wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles. Since the world was created from her body, she has mouths everywhere.
- Truly Single Parent: Coatlicue was somehow impregnated by a feather and gave birth to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war.
Huhueteotl is the Olman god who embodies the flow of time and the destructive side of fire. His symbol is an image of himself. Huhueteotl demands many sacrifices from his followers and does not hesitate before punishing them with bolts of flame.
- Jerkass God: He does not hesitate to punish his followers with bolts of flame when he is displeased.
- Non-Human Head: He has a demonic reptilian head.
- Playing with Fire: He can shoot bolts of flame and his body is shrouded in fire.
- Public Domain Character: He's based on the Mesoamerican god Huehueteotl, although he also contains numerous traits of the Aztec god Xiuhtecuhtli.
- Wreathed in Flames: He is always depicted as being shrouded in fire.
Hurakan is the Olman god of floods and unrestrained fury. His holy symbol is an image of floodwaters.
- The Great Flood: He's the god of floods.
- Public Domain Character: He's based on Huracan, the K'iche' Maya god of wind, storm, fire and one of the creator deities who participated in all three attempts at creating humanity. He also caused the Great Flood after the second generation of humans angered the gods.
- Unstoppable Rage: He's the god of unrestrained fury.
Mictlantechuhtli is the Olman god of death, darkness, murder and the underworld. His symbol is a skeletal canine (itzcuintli, the dog totem) or a skull and crossbones. Mictlantecuhtli is revered by the Olman people as the god of death. Mictlantecuhtli is also one of the patrons (with Zotzilaha) of the werebat nation of Telaneteculi in the Amedio Jungle. The primary responsibility of Mictlantecuhtli's priests is preparing the dead for their afterlife journeys and presiding over the death rights. Grim and cold, they never show mercy to their opponents, sacrificing them to their deity as soon as possible.
- Back from the Dead: His permission is needed before a priest may raise the dead or restore life. Failure to abide by this restriction is considered a gross violation of the code of conduct.
- Dark Is Evil: He's an evil god of darkness.
- Human Sacrifice: Mictlantecuhtli's worshippers get his attention by sacrificing 50 of their followers during the dark of the moons. These sacrifices then transform into undead to act as the god's agents in the mortal world. Mictlantecuhtli encourages his followers to send their enemies to be his slaves in the afterlife.
- Our Liches Are Different: He's normally depicted as a tall lich-like being.
- Public Domain Character: He's Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the dead and the king of Mictlan (Chicunauhmictlan), the lowest and northernmost section of the underworld.
Ometeotl is the Olman god of creation. His symbol is a footprint, or an infinity sign. Ometeotl is a personification of the Olman principle of duality, both male and female, negative and positive, and light and shadow. In a sense, he is the embodiment of the universe, and all things are part of him.
- Invisibility: No statue or image of Ometeotl has ever been made, for he is as invisible as the wind. The only image of Ometeotl that can be detected is his footprints.
- Literal Split Personality: He can even be thought of as two separate gods, Ometecutli and Omeciuatl.
- The Maker: Ometeotl is the progenitor of the Olman pantheon and can, at will, create anything he wishes without tiring.
- Public Domain Character: He's Ometeotl, the Aztec god of creation and duality.
Quetzalcoatl is the Olman god of air, wisdom, birds and snakes. His symbol is a feathered snake with wings. He is also a patron of the arts and the founder of metallurgy. Ehecatl is the name of his aspect as god of the wind. Quetzalcoatl's priests teach adherence to social conventions, kindness to others, and peaceful relationships with neighbors. They teach that civility separates humans from beasts, and that it is through civilization that humans achieve perfection.
- Feathered Serpent: He most commonly appears as a talking snake with green feathers.
- Like Cannot Cut Like: He cannot be harmed by creatues in the same form that he is using, so if he is in the form of a dragon, he cannot be hurt by any kind of dragon, and if he appears as a magic-user he cannot be harmed by magic spells.
- Public Domain Character: He's Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of wind and wisdom.
- The Rival: He and Tezcatlipoca are rivals, and the servants of the feathered serpent never support those of the jaguar-god.
- Token Good Teammate: He is the least war-like of the Olman powers.
- Top God: He has spent the most time leading the Olman gods.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: He can appear in any number of bizarre and monstrous forms.
Tezcatlipoca is the Olman god of the sun, moon, night, scheming and betrayals. His symbol is a jaguar. As Apocatequil, he is the god of lightning and the moon (specifically, the moon Celene, which is named for Apocatequil in the Olman tongue). He spreads disorder and war, but is also the origin of wealth. He personifies the harmful and destructive forces of nature, and is also the patron of sinful pleasures and arcane magic. He is also the vessel by which people gain absolution from their sins.
- Human Sacrifice: Every year, priests of Tezcatlipoca pamper a perfect young male from midsummer to midsummer before ripping his heart out and sacrificing it to their god. The public is required to attend these rituals, held at Tezcatlipoca's temples.
- The Power of the Sun: His priests sacrifice to him to bring gentle sunlight to crops and parching heat to the crops of their enemies.
- Public Domain Character: He's Tezcatlipoca, an Aztec god who is associated with a wide range of concepts, including the night sky, the night winds, hurricanes, the north, the earth, obsidian, enmity, discord, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war and strife.
- The Rival: He and Quetzalcoatl are rivals, and the servants of the jaguar-god never support those of the feathered serpent.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: He taught the Olman that wealth equals power.
Tlaloc is the Olman god of rain and moisture. His symbol is either a deer totem (known as a mazatl in the Olman tongue), a black reptilian head with bulging eyes and tusks, or a serpent chasing its tail. Tlaloc encourages obedience and discipline. He teaches that the will of the Olman gods must be obeyed if people are to receive their blessings, such as rain. Similarly, those who obey their superiors on the mortal plane will likewise be rewarded. Tlaloc also encourages his worshippers to seize opportunities to advance themselves, just as Tlaloc does.
- Happy Rain: He creates rain to sustain crops.
- Human Sacrifice: He requires sacrifices of children every month to grant rain, and numerous annual sacrifices to encourage a prosperous season.
- Jerkass God: If angered, he smites the crops with blight, cold fronts or rot.
- Lizard Folk: Tlaloc appears as a black-clad reptilian humanoid with bulging eyes and huge tusks.
- Public Domain Character: He's Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain, earthly fertility and water.
Tlazoteotl (pronounced Tlaz-ohl-TAH-oh-tel) is the Olman mother goddess of the earth. Her symbol is an ear of corn. Tlazoteotl is the sister of Tezcatlipoca. She helped trick Quetzalcoatl into getting drunk and debasing himself, an act that led to his exile. Priestesses of Tlazolteotl are tasked with exposing those of a base and immoral character by tempting them into indecent acts. Every three months (at the least) they must tempt a man into a guilty love. They subsist on garbage, filth, and offal.
- Continuity Snarl: In the first edition of Deities & Demigods and Second Edition of Legends & Lore, Tlazolteotl is identified as a chaotic evil goddess of guilty loves, bodily pleasure, and vice, and her symbol is an ocelot totem or a red serpent's head.
- Deity Identity Confusion: A gibbering mouther in the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is identified with Tlazoteotl and worshipped by the Olman.
- Hot Goddess: She normally appears as a beautiful woman, inspiring jealousy and lust in equal measure, but fifteen feet tall. She is scantily clad, revealing as much of her charms as possible.
- Mother Goddess: She is the mother goddess of the earth in the Olman pantheon.
- One-Winged Angel: When the goddess is under stress, rushed, or under attack, she manifests as a monster with a humanoid body, fiendish face, fangs, blazing eyes, talons on her feet and hands, and black, warty skin, slick with grease.
- Public Domain Character: She's Tlazolteotl, the Aztec goddess of of vice, purification, steam baths, lust, filth, and a patroness of adulterers.
- Squishy Wizard: She does not fight except with spells, and will teleport away rather than resort to physical combat.
- The Vamp: She is described as an eater of filth and a sinister temptress who seeks to ruin lawful good beings.
Tonatiuh is the fifth and current Olman god of the sun. His symbol is a solar face. He also has a lesser aspect and previous incarnation, Nanahuatl, who is the god of misfortune (including poverty, disease, and earthquakes). Tonatiuh is cruel and demanding, refusing to travel across the sky unless he is continually fed with the hearts and blood of humans and deities alike. He teaches his followers that happiness and success in life come only with pain and toil. His worshippers are bid to test their own limits.
- The Face of the Sun: It's his symbol.
- Human Sacrifice: Tonatiuh demands that the hearts of captured warriors are sacrificed to him on most days in order to give him the strength he needs to make his daily journey across the sky. Soldiers pierce themselves and scatter their blood as a sacrifice for Tonatiuh in the hope that he will grant them strength in battle.
- Light Is Good / Light Is Not Good: Although Tonatiuh is a cruel and demanding sun god, he is also worshipped as the defeater of darkness. His clerics may also channel positive energy even if they are evil and Tonatiuh expects them to oppose the monstrous creatures of the dark, just as he does in his nightly journey through the underworld.
- Phosphor-Essence: Tonatiuh is depicted with a face that blazes like the sun, obscuring the rest of his body with his light.
- Public Domain Character: He's Tonatiuh, the Aztec sun god of the day sky who ruled the cardinal direction of east.
Gods of Unknown Origin
Heward is the hero-deity of Bards and Musicians. Heward's holy symbol can be any musical instrument. Heward is notable not only for his musical prowess, but also for his technological skills. Heward adventured with the Company of Seven, joining them on the expedition to Veralos in 318 CY. He lived in the Thieves' Quarter in the Free City of Greyhawk for a time, associating with Zagig and teaching music, but he vanished shortly before Zagig did in 421 CY, abandoning his home there. He has not been seen or heard from since 505 CY, when he helped imprison Iuz beneath Greyhawk Castle. Recently (since 576 CY) he ascended from quasi-deity to hero-deity status, gaining priests and worshippers.
- Bag of Holding: He carries a magic item called Heward's Handy Haversack that appears as a leather backpack with a number of pouches. Each such pouch can hold far more material than it would appear to be capable of, as each one opens into a separate extradimensional space.
- The Bard: He's the god of bards and a great musician.
- Bigger on the Inside: Heward's eccentric dwelling is said to be extradimensional in nature, far, far bigger inside than it appears from outside, and a nexus between many alternate worlds, planes, and times.
- Vague Age: Heward appears as a human male of uncertain age, both youthful and elderly at once.
Kelanen (pronounced KEL-a-nen) is the hero-deity of swords, sword skills and balance. Kelanen's symbol is nine swords arrayed in a star shape, points outward. Possibly the most popular hero-deity in the Flanaess, Kelanen is an ancient being of unknown race and origin, having been around since at least the Great Migrations. Roughly two centuries ago, in Bissel, he fought and defeated in a duel, Dorl Tavyani, a vain, mortal man with aspirations to divinity, cursing Tavyani's followers and a temple dedicated to him. Kelanen only recently crossed the boundary between quasi-deity and hero-deity, however, having gained the ability to grant spells to his clerics only in the last century. Kelanen temporarily allied himself with Zagig Yragerne, Keoghtom, Heward, and Murlynd in order to bind Iuz beneath Castle Greyhawk, and therefore bears Iuz's eternal enmity.
- Balance Between Good and Evil: He advocates for preserving the balance between Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil (the "Four Dooms"). He has been known to aid any of these alignments in order to centralize the balance of power.
- Empathic Weapon: He is always accompanied by his intelligent swords, Swiftdoom and Sureguard, who are the closest he has to real friends or confidants.
- Master Swordsman: Kelanen is obsessed with all types of swords. He encourages the mastery of swordsmanship among all his followers, and warns them to avoid all extremes.
Keoghtom (pronounced KEO-tom) is the hero-deity of secret pursuits, natural alchemy, and extraplanar exploration. His symbol is a round disk, bisected by an upward-pointing arrow. Keoghtom is believed to have been born in the Sheldomar Valley some 300 years following the Great Migrations. As a mortal, Keoghtom dabbled in the Old Faith, the Faerie Mysteries, and the secrets of the Silent Ones, yet never became fully indoctrinated by any of them. His travels eventually brought him into the service (and friendship) of Fharlanghn, and into the Company of Seven, an adventuring band led by Zagig Yragerne. After Zagig attained godhood, Keoghtom retreated to the Celadon Forest, and then from Oerth entirely. Keoghtom teaches that the natural world has a pattern that can be discerned to those attuned to it, a pattern which natural phenomenon, the various planes of existence, and every soul is a part. His followers seek to discover this secret in nature, alchemy, and exploration.
- Dimensional Traveler: Keoghtom is seldom, if ever, found on the Prime Material Plane in the present day, preferring to roam the Astral Plane and similar planes and to visit the various demiplanes where Murlynd and his other associates dwell. He believes by traveling the planes, he will one day find enlightenment.
- Jack of All Trades: A jack of all trades, Keoghtom has mastered hunting, alchemy, and the Old Lore of the bards.
Tharizdun (pronounced thar-IZ-dun) is the god of eternal darkness, decay, entropy, malign knowledge, insanity and cold. His holy symbols are a dark spiral rune and a two-tiered inverted ziggurat known as an obex. His holy number is 333. He was imprisoned ages ago by a coalition of deities to prevent the destruction of existence itself. Although imprisoned, Tharizdun still has a degree of his original multiverse-threatening power.
- Ancient Evil: Tharizdun is an ancient, dark god of malign decay and madness. Some say that he originates from an earlier universe.
- Ax-Crazy: Tharizdun is completely insane and wants to destroy absolutely everything.
- Eldritch Abomination: He's been described as a pitch-black, roiling, amorphous form. As the Dark God, he is described as an incorporeal wraithform, black and faceless.
- Eldritch Location: The Demiplane of Imprisonment is hidden somewhere in the depths of the Ethereal Plane, resembling a swollen, crystalline cyst nearly a mile in diameter. The ethereal substance surrounding the demiplane boils with the dreamscapes of Tharizdun's worshipers and others whose dreams the dark god invades.
- Fighting a Shadow: Tharizdun created an aspect of himself called the Elder Elemental Eye to mask his cult from the forces of Good, to draw in worshippers who might otherwise avoid Tharizdun's service, and to gain the alliance of the Princes of Elemental Evil. He also created an avatar called Shothragot at the time of the Twin Cataclysms. The avatar was thought to have been destroyed, but in reality it only went into dormancy. Recently freed, Shothragot hopes to collect the 333 gems of Tharizdun and set its master free.
- Hated by All: He is universally disliked by all other deities due to his desire to destroy the entire universe. Should he ever escape from his prison, it is thought that even the most evil of deities would work with their good counterparts to return Tharizdun to his prison.
- Leaking Can of Evil: His prison may weaken at times, allowing his influence to creep out into the worlds beyond.
- Mystery Cult: By necessity, as very few people actually want to worship a deity that wants them along with everyone else dead. Most Tharizdun worship is generally worship of something else that turns out to actually be either subverted by Tharizdun or just another name for him.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Tharizdun's doctrine is to destroy all and everything encountered.
- Religion of Evil: Very few people willingly worship Tharizdun on account of the whole 'omnicide' thing and most have to be tricked into it, but occasionally the insane and deeply nihilistic turn to outright Tharizdun worship. Tharizdun's temples usually look like black ziggurats and are generally hidden by necessity due to how hated their god is.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: He was imprisoned by the other deities during the dawn of time. His prison a universe that has long since been destroyed by that realm's own version of the Abyss known as the Voidharrow. Mildly intelligent and with the ability to corrupt and warp living creatures, the Voidharrow spent eternity alone in this realm of utter destruction until Tharizdun was imprisoned there by the other gods for his creation of the abyss. The reason behind this realm as the prison in which he would be trapped was to leave him in a realm just like the one he would have turned the multiverse into if he had been able to; with all of his power intact, he would have nothing to destroy and an infinite amount of time to lay out an infinite number of plans to free himself, only for him to have no way of implementing any of them.
- In certain older versions, Tharizdun's prison is described as being so far removed from normal reality and the seperation so complete that the idea of "escape", even to the gods, is only a theoretical possibility. Nonetheless, they calculated the most likely theoretical weak point in all the multiverse and stationed a solar to guard it. A solar is one of the most powerful celestial beings in existence, certain of them being on par with a demigod. This one was one of those most powerful, and his one standing order for all eternity is to annihilate anything that enters his sensory perception, regardless of origin or any possible justification for doing so.
- Tragic Villain: One version of his backstory is that he was originally a more neutral and benign deity but had the misfortune of being the first being to encounter the Obyrinth Lords- the first demons- when they invaded from their own doomed universe, with their leader Obox-Ob making telepathic contact with Tharizdun and infecting him with his own madness, thus convincing / manipulating Tharizdun into believing that destroying and remaking the universe in his own image (which was what Obox-Ob was intending himself) was a good idea.
Tsolorandril (pronounced so-lo-RAND-ril) is the hero-deity of wave motions. Its symbol is a sphere with a simple wave-shape repeating around its circumference. It sees itself as a keeper of records, noting the natural cycles of things like politics, nature, and time, and predicts how these patterns will take shape in the future.
- Mysterious Past: Tsolorandril is a native of another plane. No one knows what plane this was, or what its reasons or methods were for coming to Oerth.
- No Biological Sex: Tsolorandril is a sexless being with an androgynous appearance.
