Ok, here is are the stats and writup for Urslaad. Her abilities are derived mostly from the three core books plus Deities & Demigods, but i did use a few rules from the Book of Vile Darkness, because I just love that friggin' book.
Dirge
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Urslaad
Intermediate Goddess
Symbol: An Empty Cradle
Home Plane: Plane of Shadow
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Portfolio: Slain children, bereft mothers, death, necromancy
Worshipers: Childless mothers, necromancers
Cleric Alignments: LE, LN, NE
Domains: Death, Corruption, Protection
Favored Weapon: Staff
Urslaad, The Last Mother
Cleric20/Necromancer20
Medium Undead (Lawful, Evil)
Divine Rank: 13
Hit Dice: 20d12+20d12 (440 hp)
Initiative: +9 (Dex)
Speed: 60ft
AC: 54 (+9 Dex, +5 natural, +13 divine, +12 deflection, +5 ring)
Attacks: Dreadpale +5 unholy, frost, impact staff +38/+33/+28 melee and
Dreadpale +5 unholy, frost, impact staff +38/+33 or +35 melee touch or +37 ranged spell or touch
Damage: Dreadpale +5 unholy, frost, impact staff 1d6+12 plus 2d6 unholy plus 1d6 frost and energy drain and
Dreadpale +5 unholy, frost, impact staff 1d6+8 plus 2d6 unholy plus 1d6 frost and energy drain or touch 1d8+5
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Domain powers, salient divine abilities, spell-like abilities, fear aura, paralyzing touch (DC 36)
Special Qualities: Undead traits, divine immunities, DR 48/+4, fire resistance 33, spontaneous casting of divine spells; understand, speak and read all languages and speak directly to all beings within 13 miles, remote communication, godly realm,
teleport without error at will, turn resistance +4, SR 82, divine aura (1300 ft., DC 35)
Saves: Fort +36; Ref +39; Will +57
Abilities: Str 24; Dex 28; Con --; Int 34; Wis 40; Cha 35
Skills: Alchemy +50, Concentration +56, Diplomacy +50, Heal +47, Intimidate +45, Knowledge (arcana) +68, Knowledge (anatomy) +45, Knowledge (religion) +68, Knowledge (undead) +68, Listen +48, Scry +50, Search +45, Sense Motive +48, Spellcraft +68, Spot +48, Survival +48,
Feats: Ambidexterity, Brew Potion, Combat Reflexes, Craft Staff, Craft Wand, Craft Wondrous Item, Expertise, Empower Spell, Extend Spell, Forge Ring, Greater Spell Focus (necromancy), Heighten Spell, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Maximize Spell, Scribe Scroll, Spell Focus (necromancy), Spell Mastery, Silent Spell, Still Spell, Two Weapon Fighting
Domain Powers: Death touch 1/day, generate protective wards, ignore hardness rating of an object 1/day
Salient Divine Abilities: Arcane Mastery, Automatic Meta-Magic (quicken spell), Automatic Meta-Magic (maximize spell), Automatic Meta-Magic (Empower Spell), Divine Blast, Divine Shield, Divine Spellcasting, Divine Spell Focus (necromancy), Frightful Presence, Hand of Death, Increased Spell Resistance (2), Life Drain
Spell-like abilities: Urslaad uses these abilities as a 23rd level cleric. The save DCs are 35 + spell level.
Animate dead, antimagic field, befoul, blindness/deafness, cause fear, contagion, create greater undead, create undead, death knell, death ward, despoil, destruction, doom, feeblemind, insanity, mind blank, morality undone, pox, prismatic sphere, protection from elements, repulsion, sanctuary, shield other, slay living, spell immunity, spell resistance, wail of the banshee.
Cleric Spells/Day (levels 0-15)6/10/10/10/9/9/8/8/7/7/3/3/2/2/2/2; base DC = 25 + spell level
Wizard Spells/Day (levels 0-12)
4/8/8/8/8/7/7/7/7/6/3/3/3; base DC = 22 + spell level, 39 + spells level for necromantic spells.
Divine Immunities: Ability damage, ability drain, acid, cold, death effects, disease, disintegration, electricity, energy drain, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stunning, transmutation.
Possessions: Urslaad carries
Dreadpale a +5 quarterstaff with the unholy, frost and impact abilities. In addition
Dreadpale bestows eight negative levels on any creature struck that is not of divine status. The staff also commands the full powers of a
staff of darkness and a
staff of corruption with save DCs equal to that of a spell cast by Urslaad herself. Besides Dreadpale Urslaad carries a
ring of protection +5, and a
cloak of resistance +5.
Other Divine Powers
As an intermediate deity, Urslaad automatically receives a die roll of 20 on any check. She treats a 1 on a saving throw or an attack roll normally and not as an automatic failure. She is immortal.
Senses: Urslaad can see, hear, touch and smell at a distance of 13 miles. As a standard action, she can perceive anything within one mile of her worshipers, holy sites, objects, or any location where one of her titles or name was spoken in the last hour. She can extend her senses to up to ten locations at once. She can block the sensing power of deities of her rank or lower at up to thirteen remote locations at once for up to one hour.
Portfolio Senses: Urslaad sense the death of any child the instant it happens and retains the sensation for thirteen weeks after the event occurs.
Automatic Actions: Urslaad can use Alchemy, Knowledge (arcane), Knowledge (anatomy), Knowledge (religion), Knowledge (undead), and Spellcraft as a free action if the DC for the task is 25 or lower. She can perform up to ten such free actions per round.
Create Magic Items: Urslaad can create any kind of magical item, as long as the item’s market price does not exceed 200,000 gp.
The wrenching cry of an infant cut short is followed closely by the agony-wracked sobs of a young mother clutched in the grip of that most terrible loss. The death of a child, especially an infant, is the paramount of suffering, a cataclysmic ordeal that can leave the mind and the body empty of life and spirit. Grief that men cannot fully understand is the domain of the bereft mother, but her prayers, lingering in the tear stained night do not fall on deaf ears.
The gods have no pity for mortals it is said, they care not for the suffering of lesser beings, prayers go unanswered, and pain goes unmended. But one goddess, an ancient and terrible power of grief and loss, harkens closely to her faithful and turns her dark gaze to their plight. Urslaad, the Last Mother, the brooding darkness of the empty cradle, holds a place in the hearts of all mothers who have lost a child. The collector of the unborn and protector of slain innocence, Urslaad is the divine emissary for those that have no voice of their own. Ushering the souls of children and infants to their eternal rest, she is the final mother and all who come under her care are well protected.
The souls collected by Urslaad are taken to Vicaria, a demi-plane devoted to dead children. Since the soul of a child had no chance to choose a patron deity they are spared the fate of the faithless, those who knew no devotion in life and are damned to wander the planes of existence as near mindless shells of their former selves. No deity may enter Vicaria, even Urslaad herself is barred from the plane of eternal youth, she serves only as the guardian and guide to those souls bound there.
Urslaad’s history is a dark one, and like those who call out her name in anguish, she too knows the pain of ultimate loss. Once a mighty priestess of a goddess whose name has faded into antiquity, Urslaad was the matriarch of a faith devoted to fertility and feminine power. Expectant mothers and those wishing for increased fertility often called upon her blessing and Urslaad herself was the proud mother of an infant boy whom she had named Feronar. Feronar was the crux of Urslaad’s existence, her very reason for living. The powerful priestess raised the child alone as her faith barred her from taking a husband, her devotion viewed motherhood as the pinnacle of a woman’s life, an experience deemed lessened by more than a man’s most necessary involvement.
The few historical records that remain from Urslaad’s time as a mortal all point to a sudden tragic loss, the death of her son Feronar. It is unclear how the boy died but it is well documented that despite Urslaad’s considerable power she could no bring her son back. Urslaad was shattered. The priestess went mad with grief and was inconsolable, she prayed to her goddess day and night but her incessant intonations went unheard. Finally, realizing that her goddess would not help her, Urslaad turned her back on her faith and stepped down as matriarch. A broken woman, Urslaad nonetheless set out to find a way to bring her son back from the grave. She journeyed long and across the entirety of the known world until at last on the plains of Vrack, she found what she was looking for, or so she thought.
The plains of Vrack, long scoured clean of living things, had once been home to a powerful necromancer who had ruled his kingdom of death from a tall black tower. Obsessed with power the necromancer had tried to make the transition to undeath by becoming a lich, but his spells and rituals went awry and he was destroyed in an immense explosion of negative energy. The necromancer’s tower, long shunned, had lain unoccupied for centuries since its owner’s demise and it was here that Urslaad’s ascent to true power began.
The necromancer had left behind his accumulated arcane lore in the form of various tomes and scrolls. The highly detailed and voluminous arcana intrigued Urslaad, and as she poured over the necromancer’s tomes, hope once again found its way into the grief stricken priestess. Urslaad was not a practitioner of arcane magic but she saw within the necromancer’s tomes lay a chance to restore life to her son, and for this reason she set to learning the ways of necromancy with a furious devotion.
Many years passed and Urslaad’s power grew. She had quickly mastered the ways of the necromancer and bolstered by her considerable magic spent every waking moment attempting to divine a way to restore life to Feronar. In addition to refining her skills with necromancy, Urslaad found her faith again, this time in the form of Nedreshek, the enigmatic god of death.
Urslaad performed many experiments with dead flesh, attempting to create a vessel to contain the essence of her son. The abominations that resulted from her failed experiments served as guardians in her tower, but still she persevered. Her singular desire to bring back her son began to damage her mind, bitter, obsessed and unable to create anything beyond shambling undead monstrosities Urslaad began to hate life in all its forms. Eventually, well into her eighties the aging Urslaad set about to affect her transition into undeath. Following the same ritual that the long dead necromancer, whose tower she now inhabited, Urslaad enacted the ritual to transform her into a lich.
She was successful.
As the negative energy coalesced around her withered body and the ritual that would lead to her immortality came to a close, Urslaad felt the presence of another, a being of incomprehensible power and undeniable finality. Her newly undead body was weak and she stood helpless before a black cloaked figure that had suddenly materialized in her ritual chamber. Urslaad needed no introduction; she knew without doubt that she stood in the presence of an aspect of her deity, Nedreshek, lord of the dead.
With a voice that echoed hollow like a thousand empty tombs, Nedreshek greeted his faithful worshiper and offered her something far beyond lichdom and simple immortality. The fell god had watched Urslaad throughout her life and was intrigued by her singular devotion to her long dead son. Nedreshek offered to raise Urslaad to godhood and give her dominion over the souls of slain children. Without second thought she accepted, believing that as a deity nothing could stop her from finding the soul of her son, she was of course, wrong. Nedreshek knew that the soul of Feronar, Urslaad’s son, now resided in Vicaria, the realm of slain children. No deity could enter the demi-plane on order of a mysterious power far greater than even the gods themselves. The cruel and devious Nedreshek knew that by granting divine ascension to Urslaad he would extend her suffering for all eternity.
As a deity, Urslaad was devoted to her task of collecting and guarding the souls of unborn and slain children, and soon became known as the patron of grieving mothers. In this aspect Urslaad was revered as a merciful and sympathetic deity, but a far darker side of Urslaad still existed. Occasionally the soul of a child was not delivered to Vicaria, kept instead by Urslaad so that she might experiment on the young and innocent soul. Typically these stolen souls resembled her son Feronar in life and struck a chord with the still grieving deity. These souls without fail underwent terrible experiments and magical rituals that most often resulted in the semi-divine horrors known as atropals. Stunted infant like abominations, these atropals wielded terrible power and served their creator in all things.
Urslaad’s power has grown, and she now holds the rank of an intermediate deity. A bizarre and aloof god she maintains little contact with other divine beings beyond her patron Nedreshek. A tormented creature, Urslaad’s evil is great but is derived from eons of misery, grief and loss. The goddess does have a more sensitive side and savagely protects children and motherhood, exacting terrible vengeance on any who would seek to harm her chosen faithful.
Clergy & Temples
Urslaad’s clergy is an anomaly among evil deities, as most of her faithful are not evil themselves. Urslaad only accepts women into her clergy and those petitioners found worthy must undergo a bizarre and savage ritual that renders them infertile for the remainder of their lives. It is believed that because Urslaad herself cannot create life she cannot abide that ability among her priests. Dressing in somber robes of black and red, Urslaadian clerics devote their life to protecting the welfare of children and motherhood in general. Men are not allowed within the few temples devoted to Urslaad, but orphans and unwed mothers are welcome and often cared for at the church’s expense.
A small sect of female necromancers also worship Urslaad, these women are known as the Sisters of the Empty Womb. The sisters are uniformly evil and are masters at the creation and controlling of undead creatures. The more traditional church of Urslaad does not recognize the sisters and disavows their relationship with Urslaad.
The few temples devoted to Urslaad are dark and foreboding places, looking more like mausoleums than places of worship. Each temple is led by the most experienced cleric, known simply as Mother, and her word is law among the various under clerics and temple staff. Temples devoted to Urslaad are often large and contain extra wings containing simple living accommodations for orphans and bereft and unwed mothers.
Appearance
Urslaad is somewhat of a dual aspect deity and as such appears as two very different beings to her various worshipers. In her aspect as the guardian of dead children and the protector of shattered motherhood, Urslaad is depicted as a matronly woman dressed in simple homespun garb of black and red, her face concealed by a thick cowl. The matron aspect carries a simple wooden staff and is most often seen on in the religious texts of the more traditional branch of Urslaadian faith.
Urslaad’s second, and true appearance is that of a horrible withered lich-like creature with a many-horned skeletal face and covered in a myriad of thick squirming tentacles of black necrotic flesh. This aspect of Urslaad carries two artifacts of immense power, the staff known as Dreadpale and an orb of purest black known as the Nemedrek. Dreadpale is rumored to have vast necromantic powers while the Nemedrek is a modified sphere of annihilation with the power to destroy souls.
