LAOGZED
The Eater of Souls
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Worshipers: Troglodytes, Gluttons
Domains: Chaos, Death, Destruction, Evil
Favored Weapon: Javelin
Home Plane/Domain: Perdition/The Feeding Trough
Pantheon: Independant
Divine Rank: 6 (Lesser)
Classes: None
Portfolio: Food, Death, Hunger
Salient Abilities: (8) Divine Blessing (Constitution), Divine Fast Healing, Energy Burst (Acid), Extra Domain [Death], Extra Sense Enhancement (Taste), Increased Energy Resistance (Acid), Life Drain, Wave of Chaos.
Special Possessions: None
Alternate Domains: Community, Darkness, Scalykind
Symbol: A reptilian head with a gaping maw and a javelin-point tongue.
DESCRIPTION
From Defenders of the Faith: "The ever-hungry god of the troglodytes is a deity of eating, of gluttony, and of wanton destruction."
A great toad-like reptile that bears the qualities of an iguana, the Eater of Souls is an entity that bears frightening power for being so far down on the ladder of deific heirarchy. He is an entity of primordial hunger and base instinct whose only purpose is to continually consume for eternity.
DOGMA
Though of dubious sentience and therefore of dubious ability to espouse a philosophy, Laogzed seems to dictate a philosophy by his very actions: feed me, and damned be those who get in the way. As quite an essence of death in it's most raw form, the Eater of Souls is a complete negative, destroying even those who worship him if they come within range of his peircing tongue. By this, those who worship him see a way to live life: if you have no care, if you reduce yourself to a pure negative, you can achieve power and respect that may be beyond your station.
CLERGY AND TEMPLES
The only 'official' clergy of Laogzed are those troglodyte adepts and (rare) clerics that espouse his dogma of heartless, random obliteration. These creatures have resepct in the community as guiding forces of wisdom and learning, though they represent the stomach: they give commands. It is up to the maw, the chief of the tribe, to obey them or not. The clergy and the kingship have always had a tense relationship, as often the clerics, with the public's support, will create a revolution to oust a king that does not obey them. Of course, they risk the king winning the propoganda war, and being devoured themselves as unfaithful. The clergy often wield steel javelins as a mark of power and a badge of office.
Temples created by these troglodytes are by nessecity temporary encampments, often simply marked with bones of various humanoids as a mark of their power over death. Bone powder is also a common tool of the clergy, representing the destruction of even that long-lasting material, eventually.
RITES AND RITUALS
Determining where the tribe should hunt next, in the form of a prayer to the Eater of Souls, is the most common rite of the individual troglodyte cleric. Even non-divine trogs will often petition their god for advice and guidance in direction when they are lost. They do this by a ritualized gorging, followed by the consumption of a potent poison. They vomit up the meal, then, along with the poison, and that trail gives them the direction then need.
Larger ceremonies are often held after a successful conquest, when a banquet is held where all the soft and tender prisoners are boiled alive into a rich soup that the trogs hungirly consume. Even after the date, many trogs will carry this soup around, and use it as unholy water.
MYTHOGRAPHY
The most intriguing aspect of the Eater of Souls is that he seems to represent a deity in composition. Not yet a fully sentient individual, the deity seems to have risen out of the worship of a force -- specifically, the force of negative energy. As an all-consuming energy, the troglodytes put a face upon it, and gave it a name, and started paying it homage in hopes it would avoid them and destroy their enemies. In fact, it is theorized that the entymology of the draconic word for 'death' (gezid) is related to the name of this deity (which may be related to the draconic phrase: "All Die," or "lay ogezid").
Worship of Laogzed has increased recently as well, with troglodytes surging in birth rates and bravery, as well as being adopted by the less noble aspects of 'civilized' society. He has skyrocketed within the last several hundred years from being a somewhat obscure deity of a lizard people to being a deity worshiped in the halls of the indulgent rich. It may be related to the 'new rich' of the Adventurers, who would have been the most to have contact with the dark deity, and who would probably have the most flexible morals when choosing a lord to worship in their splendor.
LEGENDS
Legends about the Eater of Souls are few. The troglodytes speak of him as their afterlife and grim reaper all in one, and pay him great homage, but he is seen as an icon to strive toward, not nessecarily a being of interaction on his own. Still, rumors abound linking him to any number of other dark deities, that may eventually become legend. Tiamat is mentioned in some, and Panzuriel in others, but there seems to be an unnamed abyssal queen to which his ancestry belongs as well.
ETC.
PrC's
· Devourer of Life: A PrC focused on negating healing and regeneration, and on eating fallen warriors not to gain their strength -- but to make sure they can never rise again.
· Unsanitary Disciple: Taking base behavior to a new level, this troglodyte worshiper will make a fetish of anything his body excretes, from the nominal troglodyte stench, to spoor, to the 'guiding vomit' mentioned above. Even other trogs seem disturbed by it's behavior.
Plot Hooks
· A Thief of Steel: In a trog community, things are getting tense. The clergy and the chief have come to a head against each other politically, the clergy encouraging a nighttime raid to the surface, and the chief insisting that it would be suicide. The PC's stumble accross this battle as it reaches it's most violent level -- the chiefs have secured a rust monster, and are getting ready to sick it on the valued weapons of the clergy, destroying their sacred fetishes. The clergy offers help if the PC's are willing to stop the thing, and the chiefs promise more if they're willing to protect it...
· A Great Maw: There is a creature that some adventurers know of called a Trapper. A stealthy predator, it lurks on the floor, and enfolds creatures within it to devour. Well, it turns out that the trapper has a cousin -- the immense and destructive surface trapper. Measuring hundreds of miles around, the creature resembles the terrain of the surrounding area very well. It lies dormant for millenia, allowing cities and towns and empires to be built upon it's flesh. It grows crops for the hungry townsfolk, and it provides stone in it's flesh for cities. Though few know of their existence, one is about to be woken by a zealous troglodyte cabal. It just so happens that one of the most populous metropolisis in the city is sitting right above. Can the PC's stop the destruction of the town by stopping the cabal? Or can they save an entire city when the thing wakes up and begins folding in on itself, opening the ground, and eating everything...?
Certainly, 'paradise' is often described as a place where pleasures are entailed forever, and the efforts of Good people are to bring pleasures to those who are experiencing pain. Damh sees people ignoring the pleasure, inhibiting themselves, because of the dictates of an unkind and unfair Law. What higher good can there be but the pursuit of happiness, for all, regardless of what the Law would say?
