I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
From the Goblonomicon/Deity-A-Week Guy:
STALKER
A diabolical entity more monster than god, Stalker is the boogeyman of the gobliniods, a dark creature that feeds on the souls of goblinoids that are not careful. He is associated with the underground, with caves, with the deep Underdark. He is the creature at the limits of darkvision. He is the consuming nothingness that threatens their very being. He is what can take them back to the cave, back to the darkness, away from the night, away from the sky. He is the undoing, the lurking death, the dispassionate hand of corruption. He is fear. He is ice. He is darkness.
And he is unaccountably ancient.
The legends of Stalker relate to freedom and liberation from him, in some ancient time when the goblin races were one, and when they were closer to fey than to humanoids. Since emerging from the deep darkness, the goblins have turned to other deities, and Stalker has been losing devotion. Today, he has no priests, and merely gets powers from the odd sacrifice of the goblin community that still remembers him. He has shrunk in power, from a great dark god of the Unseelie to a withered husk of his former self, a weak spirit of fear and cold. Many speak of his current form, a devouring, icy shadow, as being one of his final. He shows no interest in cultivating a new priesthood; his hunger for life and spirit does not know satiation, and he is concerned with little else.
In many respects, Stalker is the senile grandfather of the goblin pantheon. Great goblin gods such as Maglubiyet and Hruggek are said to have spawned from one aspect or another of his power, but also to have shifted the control of goblin religion from him to themselves, weakening him to the near-monstrous state he possesses today.
The most unusual feature of Stalker from a mythographic standpoint is his control of cold energy. The underground is generally a rather constant temperature, protected as it is from wind and weather. However, certain regions of the underdark have been noted as being "ice caves" or "necro-holes", where the planar energies of the plane of ice (or the plane of negative energy) seep through, draining natural heat from the environment and causing a supernatural darkness that even darkvision has difficulty penetrating. Scholars of the underdark have found several such regions, and goblinoid specialists believe that the true origins of the goblinoids can be found in such a region, along with Stalker (who, it is speculated, was originally a prominent goblin god of cold and death, with goblins being fey related to such forces). Hearsay even has that the secret of eliminating all goblinoids at the core of their racial identity, where they were birthed into being, may be found in one of these necro-holes, with Stalker as a key element. Many frustrated adventurers have fallen to the obstacles of such areas seeking a way to destroy every goblinoid on the planet once and for all in one fell swoop. One may also suspect that Stalker, despite his enmity to many goblinoids, is hardly friendly and warm in the face of those who share his desire to destroy them.
STALKER
A diabolical entity more monster than god, Stalker is the boogeyman of the gobliniods, a dark creature that feeds on the souls of goblinoids that are not careful. He is associated with the underground, with caves, with the deep Underdark. He is the creature at the limits of darkvision. He is the consuming nothingness that threatens their very being. He is what can take them back to the cave, back to the darkness, away from the night, away from the sky. He is the undoing, the lurking death, the dispassionate hand of corruption. He is fear. He is ice. He is darkness.
And he is unaccountably ancient.
The legends of Stalker relate to freedom and liberation from him, in some ancient time when the goblin races were one, and when they were closer to fey than to humanoids. Since emerging from the deep darkness, the goblins have turned to other deities, and Stalker has been losing devotion. Today, he has no priests, and merely gets powers from the odd sacrifice of the goblin community that still remembers him. He has shrunk in power, from a great dark god of the Unseelie to a withered husk of his former self, a weak spirit of fear and cold. Many speak of his current form, a devouring, icy shadow, as being one of his final. He shows no interest in cultivating a new priesthood; his hunger for life and spirit does not know satiation, and he is concerned with little else.
In many respects, Stalker is the senile grandfather of the goblin pantheon. Great goblin gods such as Maglubiyet and Hruggek are said to have spawned from one aspect or another of his power, but also to have shifted the control of goblin religion from him to themselves, weakening him to the near-monstrous state he possesses today.
The most unusual feature of Stalker from a mythographic standpoint is his control of cold energy. The underground is generally a rather constant temperature, protected as it is from wind and weather. However, certain regions of the underdark have been noted as being "ice caves" or "necro-holes", where the planar energies of the plane of ice (or the plane of negative energy) seep through, draining natural heat from the environment and causing a supernatural darkness that even darkvision has difficulty penetrating. Scholars of the underdark have found several such regions, and goblinoid specialists believe that the true origins of the goblinoids can be found in such a region, along with Stalker (who, it is speculated, was originally a prominent goblin god of cold and death, with goblins being fey related to such forces). Hearsay even has that the secret of eliminating all goblinoids at the core of their racial identity, where they were birthed into being, may be found in one of these necro-holes, with Stalker as a key element. Many frustrated adventurers have fallen to the obstacles of such areas seeking a way to destroy every goblinoid on the planet once and for all in one fell swoop. One may also suspect that Stalker, despite his enmity to many goblinoids, is hardly friendly and warm in the face of those who share his desire to destroy them.
