Jendekit
2016-05-13, 09:00 PM
I was inspired by LudicSavnt's series of god write up to make my own, and this is the first of my homebrew deities or personal takes on other deities.
Erebos, The Black Sun
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/be/25/cd/be25cd07d05c8276cbd63c2e009faf54.jpg (https://www.pinterest.com/search/?q=erebus)
“We all wear masks. Everyone has many façades that they show to the rest of the world. One is shown to acquaintances, one to friends, one to family, one to lovers. All our lives we wear these masks, and if we care not careful then we can forget who we really are.”
- opening to the sermon spoken on The Day of Black Sun, an annual holy day to the Church of Erebos celebrating his ascension to godhood
Domains (D&D 3.5): Darkness, Dream, Evil, Fire, Knowledge, Magic, Pride, Purification, War
Domains (Pathfinder): Blood, Darkness, Evil, Fire, Knowledge, Magic, Nightmare
Domains (D&D 5): Knowledge, Light (all abilities are refluffed to black and/or dark purple light), War
Portfolio: Ambition, battle, nightmares, self-knowledge, self-reflection, shadows, solar eclipses, terror
Theme: https://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch?v=jMq8Vb0WrfI https://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch?v=vKTTS5FU4uQ
Knowledge (Religion) DC 10:
Erebos, the Lord of the Eclipse, is the forsaken son of Pelor. Though borne of the Sun, he is a god of darkness and nightmares. When Erebos was born, Pelor saw the darkness within him, and as such cast him from the heavens. Yet the darkness within him could not be so easily extinguished. Decades later, Erebos returned and tried to extinguish his father. The coup failed, and again Erebos was cast down. Yet to this day, Erebos plans and seeks to overthrow his father.
The fourth day of the seventh month is the anniversary of Erebos’s divine birth. Called the Day of Black Sun, temples to Erebos spend the day in sermon and in self-reflection.
While Sehanine Moonbow is the source of all dreams, nightmares are dreams corrupted by Erebos.
Knowledge (Religion) DC 15:
Erebos is the son of Pelor, the sun, and Lunas Larethian, the moon and daughter of Corellon Larethian. Raised by his mother, Erebos spent his childhood desiring to meet his father the sun. Upon meeting Pelor, he was infuriated to learn that the sun had no interest in him. Declaring that if Pelor would not recognize him by way of being his child, then he would recognize Erebos by the blade, challenging his father to a duel. Erebos was swiftly defeated, and was promptly banished from Pelor’s court.
Temples to Erebos are warmed by a central bonfire of black flames that give off a bluish-purple light. This bonfire is initially ignited by a flame or an ember from another, older temple. Through the central fires, one can trace each temple back to the first temple to Erebos, whose bonfire was ignited by Erebos’s first High Priest calling forth the flames from Erebos’s coup against his father.
Deeper within the temple are rooms lit by torches of continual flame. These rooms double as gardens where the clergy grow food for themselves and the communities they are in. The plants that are grown within were specially bred by a grove of druids that the first temple aided in removing a horde of undead from their forest.
While on rare occasions the priesthood of Erebos will perform a living sacrifice, most often seeking aid against an invading force, the most common offering is one of ritualized blood-letting. The person making the offering cuts the palm of their hand and bleeds onto a piece of parchment containing scriptures that resonate most strongly with the individual. After the parchment has received the blood, the parchment is then placed within a bowl of black fire. The offering of blood, fire, and scripture is then received by Erebos.
Those that have dedicated themselves to Erebos are cremated upon death, serving as fuel for his divine fires and denying the possibility of being raised as undead. The matter of the undead is the one thing that Erebos and his father both agree upon, for both despise the undead with every fiber of their being.
Knowledge (Religion) DC 20:
Erebos teaches his followers to look inward, so that they may know who they themselves are. His clergy ask each other as a greeting, “Who are you in the dark?” This question is rhetorical, but it is meant to prompt the one being asked to ponder, if they were placed in a situation where a tempting act that goes against their espoused morals with no one to see, what would they do? Would they resist? Would they give into temptation? Erebos does not care if you present a façade to the world, he only cares that it remains such. His use of nightmares is a tool he uses in his teachings. Every nightmare has a hidden lesson, and the nightmare will return until you learn the lesson that it is hiding.
A good number of the martial members of the faith of Erebos are not paladins, but are instead Eldritch Knights or Maguses. Much like Erebos himself, the church teaches that magic and the sword are most useful when intertwined together. There is a caveat to this however: the magic must be learned and studied. Sorcery is viewed with suspicious and not a small amount of disgust. To ask a priest of Erebos, sorcery is cheating. In order to be truly appreciated, one must understand how the magic works. Sorcerers just twiddle their fingers and poof, fireball.
This view of magic only partially extends to the sword. Best put by the knight Ser Valdis Seawrath “There is no such thing as too much brute force. But all the brute force in the cosmos is nothing without control.”
(*Knight quote is a paraphrase of a developer comment on the Diablo III barbarian class*)
Knowledge (Religion) DC 25:
When a follower of Erebos dies, he is presented before the Lord of the Eclipse. There, Erebos asks a question that he must have an answer for before he died: “When all light is gone, when no one can see, who are you?” There is no shame in an honest answer, whatever it may be. If the follower does not know, depending upon how they died, they may be permitted a second chance. If they lie, or are not permitted a second chance, they are fed to Blacksoul, Erebos’s scimitar.
Erebos was born shortly after the fourth Obad-Hai was planted, when Nerull’s grip on the world was weakening. After his years as a toddler, he was sent to Boccob to learn under the scholarly god. Under Boccob, Erebos learned a large store of magical knowledge as well as an appreciation for knowledge in general. As he was leaving childhood, Boccob was visited by Hextor. The general of the gods saw potential within Erebos, and made the young god his squire. Under Hextor, Erebos learned the art of war, and the myriad of ways that the most dangerous weapon isn’t the sword, the bow, or even magic. The most dangerous weapon is the mind.
The lessons he learned while fostering under Boccob and as a squire under Hextor remained with Erebus throughout the rest of his life. More than that, he sought to find a way to seamlessly merge the teachings of both. He spent decades training himself, hunting down any monster or beast that would provide an opportunity to test the fruits of his experimental techniques. Eventually, he felt he had come as close to perfecting his hybrid fighting style as he could without more instruction.
Knowledge (Religion) DC 30:
The Scrolls of Night tell the tale of how Erebos came to be. The Age of Winter was ending, and the undead created during it were being hunted down. It was seen as a new beginning for the world, and the perfect time to bring forth new life. Lunas Larethian, the daughter of Corellon and Lolth, the moon itself, approached Pelor and asked that he father a child for her.
Pelor, to his regret, felt that he had to turn down her request. He needed the night to rest, and having been created by Corellon along with Moradin and Grummsh he thought of Lunas as a sister not a lover. But Lunas was not deterred, and night after night she continued to tempt her daytime counterpart. Night after night she devoted more and more of her attention to seducing Pelor, and each night less of her appeared in the night sky.
Then, one night, Pelor gave in. That night was everything that Lunas had been dreaming of and more. Then the next morning, Pelor resumed his route as usual. That night, Lunas was still so exhausted that she could barely appear in the night sky. Each successive night, she was a little more recovered, but still not totally. When she was finally recovered, she was determined to have a repeat performance with Pelor, child or no child.
These nights together eventually bore fruit: Erebos. Upon learning that his daughter was pregnant, Corellon flew into a rage, determined to kill the one that had “defiled” his daughter. Upon learning that the father was Pelor, Corellon calmed himself and instead chose to compromise. Instead of killing Pelor, Corellon gelded him. Corellon then burned Pelor’s genitals, and threw the ashes into the night sky. However, even the ashes retained enough of Pelor’s light to shine.
Organization: Hunters of Erebos
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/fe/ba/9b/feba9b5a288d202850e0c03a505f900f.jpg (https://www.pinterest.com/search/?q=erebus)
“As the priests say, ‘We all wear masks.’ The first hunters just took that a bit…literally.”
— Iron Mask, a low ranking Hunter
The Hunters of Erebos are a mercenary organization clad in black cloth with their faces hidden under a skull mask. The material of the mask correlates with rank: clay denotes a trainee, iron with a full member, silver with an overseer, and silver inlaid with onyx the head of the organization. The mask becomes the hunter’s outward identity, and hunters are forbidden from willingly removing the mask in front of outsiders (if a hunter is unconscious then it is hardly his fault if someone removes his mask).
Most frequently hired as bounty hunters (hence the name), part of every contract that the Hunters of Erebos take is that any documents, books, and tomes that are found while completing the job is the property of the Hunters. In addition, rather than just accepting coin, part of the cost of hiring the Hunters is a tome of some kind worth at least half of what the job is worth. These tomes, documents, and books are kept in a library known only to Overseers and the highest ranking priests of Erebos.
Aside from bounty hunting, the Hunters of Erebos are most frequently used in the eradication of undead. In fact, earning the next mask and increasing in rank requires that a Hunter destroy a particularly challenging undead while witnessed by a higher ranking member.
Code of Conduct: Paladins of Erebos
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/d6/80/18/d68018f88685bca2c9f26b987efecadd.jpg (https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=erebus%20god&rs=guide&0=god|guide|word|0&add_refine=god|guide|word|0)
“This,” gestures to royal court garb, “is what I do. That,” points to old longbow, handle worn from long use, “is who I am.”
— Geoffrei Marcheant, Court Mage and avid hunter and outdoorsman
This code of conduct applies to those who would call themselves paladins of the faith, not just any follower of Erebos.
- Know thyself. Never forget who you are.
- Never tell others who they are. If you are asked who someone is, answer with who you are in relation to them.
- When knowledge is in danger of being lost, do all that you can to preserve it. Enough knowledge has been lost to history, and we are all lesser for it.
- Be wary of evil in the light and the dark.
Erebos, The Black Sun
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/be/25/cd/be25cd07d05c8276cbd63c2e009faf54.jpg (https://www.pinterest.com/search/?q=erebus)
“We all wear masks. Everyone has many façades that they show to the rest of the world. One is shown to acquaintances, one to friends, one to family, one to lovers. All our lives we wear these masks, and if we care not careful then we can forget who we really are.”
- opening to the sermon spoken on The Day of Black Sun, an annual holy day to the Church of Erebos celebrating his ascension to godhood
Domains (D&D 3.5): Darkness, Dream, Evil, Fire, Knowledge, Magic, Pride, Purification, War
Domains (Pathfinder): Blood, Darkness, Evil, Fire, Knowledge, Magic, Nightmare
Domains (D&D 5): Knowledge, Light (all abilities are refluffed to black and/or dark purple light), War
Portfolio: Ambition, battle, nightmares, self-knowledge, self-reflection, shadows, solar eclipses, terror
Theme: https://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch?v=jMq8Vb0WrfI https://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch?v=vKTTS5FU4uQ
Knowledge (Religion) DC 10:
Erebos, the Lord of the Eclipse, is the forsaken son of Pelor. Though borne of the Sun, he is a god of darkness and nightmares. When Erebos was born, Pelor saw the darkness within him, and as such cast him from the heavens. Yet the darkness within him could not be so easily extinguished. Decades later, Erebos returned and tried to extinguish his father. The coup failed, and again Erebos was cast down. Yet to this day, Erebos plans and seeks to overthrow his father.
The fourth day of the seventh month is the anniversary of Erebos’s divine birth. Called the Day of Black Sun, temples to Erebos spend the day in sermon and in self-reflection.
While Sehanine Moonbow is the source of all dreams, nightmares are dreams corrupted by Erebos.
Knowledge (Religion) DC 15:
Erebos is the son of Pelor, the sun, and Lunas Larethian, the moon and daughter of Corellon Larethian. Raised by his mother, Erebos spent his childhood desiring to meet his father the sun. Upon meeting Pelor, he was infuriated to learn that the sun had no interest in him. Declaring that if Pelor would not recognize him by way of being his child, then he would recognize Erebos by the blade, challenging his father to a duel. Erebos was swiftly defeated, and was promptly banished from Pelor’s court.
Temples to Erebos are warmed by a central bonfire of black flames that give off a bluish-purple light. This bonfire is initially ignited by a flame or an ember from another, older temple. Through the central fires, one can trace each temple back to the first temple to Erebos, whose bonfire was ignited by Erebos’s first High Priest calling forth the flames from Erebos’s coup against his father.
Deeper within the temple are rooms lit by torches of continual flame. These rooms double as gardens where the clergy grow food for themselves and the communities they are in. The plants that are grown within were specially bred by a grove of druids that the first temple aided in removing a horde of undead from their forest.
While on rare occasions the priesthood of Erebos will perform a living sacrifice, most often seeking aid against an invading force, the most common offering is one of ritualized blood-letting. The person making the offering cuts the palm of their hand and bleeds onto a piece of parchment containing scriptures that resonate most strongly with the individual. After the parchment has received the blood, the parchment is then placed within a bowl of black fire. The offering of blood, fire, and scripture is then received by Erebos.
Those that have dedicated themselves to Erebos are cremated upon death, serving as fuel for his divine fires and denying the possibility of being raised as undead. The matter of the undead is the one thing that Erebos and his father both agree upon, for both despise the undead with every fiber of their being.
Knowledge (Religion) DC 20:
Erebos teaches his followers to look inward, so that they may know who they themselves are. His clergy ask each other as a greeting, “Who are you in the dark?” This question is rhetorical, but it is meant to prompt the one being asked to ponder, if they were placed in a situation where a tempting act that goes against their espoused morals with no one to see, what would they do? Would they resist? Would they give into temptation? Erebos does not care if you present a façade to the world, he only cares that it remains such. His use of nightmares is a tool he uses in his teachings. Every nightmare has a hidden lesson, and the nightmare will return until you learn the lesson that it is hiding.
A good number of the martial members of the faith of Erebos are not paladins, but are instead Eldritch Knights or Maguses. Much like Erebos himself, the church teaches that magic and the sword are most useful when intertwined together. There is a caveat to this however: the magic must be learned and studied. Sorcery is viewed with suspicious and not a small amount of disgust. To ask a priest of Erebos, sorcery is cheating. In order to be truly appreciated, one must understand how the magic works. Sorcerers just twiddle their fingers and poof, fireball.
This view of magic only partially extends to the sword. Best put by the knight Ser Valdis Seawrath “There is no such thing as too much brute force. But all the brute force in the cosmos is nothing without control.”
(*Knight quote is a paraphrase of a developer comment on the Diablo III barbarian class*)
Knowledge (Religion) DC 25:
When a follower of Erebos dies, he is presented before the Lord of the Eclipse. There, Erebos asks a question that he must have an answer for before he died: “When all light is gone, when no one can see, who are you?” There is no shame in an honest answer, whatever it may be. If the follower does not know, depending upon how they died, they may be permitted a second chance. If they lie, or are not permitted a second chance, they are fed to Blacksoul, Erebos’s scimitar.
Erebos was born shortly after the fourth Obad-Hai was planted, when Nerull’s grip on the world was weakening. After his years as a toddler, he was sent to Boccob to learn under the scholarly god. Under Boccob, Erebos learned a large store of magical knowledge as well as an appreciation for knowledge in general. As he was leaving childhood, Boccob was visited by Hextor. The general of the gods saw potential within Erebos, and made the young god his squire. Under Hextor, Erebos learned the art of war, and the myriad of ways that the most dangerous weapon isn’t the sword, the bow, or even magic. The most dangerous weapon is the mind.
The lessons he learned while fostering under Boccob and as a squire under Hextor remained with Erebus throughout the rest of his life. More than that, he sought to find a way to seamlessly merge the teachings of both. He spent decades training himself, hunting down any monster or beast that would provide an opportunity to test the fruits of his experimental techniques. Eventually, he felt he had come as close to perfecting his hybrid fighting style as he could without more instruction.
Knowledge (Religion) DC 30:
The Scrolls of Night tell the tale of how Erebos came to be. The Age of Winter was ending, and the undead created during it were being hunted down. It was seen as a new beginning for the world, and the perfect time to bring forth new life. Lunas Larethian, the daughter of Corellon and Lolth, the moon itself, approached Pelor and asked that he father a child for her.
Pelor, to his regret, felt that he had to turn down her request. He needed the night to rest, and having been created by Corellon along with Moradin and Grummsh he thought of Lunas as a sister not a lover. But Lunas was not deterred, and night after night she continued to tempt her daytime counterpart. Night after night she devoted more and more of her attention to seducing Pelor, and each night less of her appeared in the night sky.
Then, one night, Pelor gave in. That night was everything that Lunas had been dreaming of and more. Then the next morning, Pelor resumed his route as usual. That night, Lunas was still so exhausted that she could barely appear in the night sky. Each successive night, she was a little more recovered, but still not totally. When she was finally recovered, she was determined to have a repeat performance with Pelor, child or no child.
These nights together eventually bore fruit: Erebos. Upon learning that his daughter was pregnant, Corellon flew into a rage, determined to kill the one that had “defiled” his daughter. Upon learning that the father was Pelor, Corellon calmed himself and instead chose to compromise. Instead of killing Pelor, Corellon gelded him. Corellon then burned Pelor’s genitals, and threw the ashes into the night sky. However, even the ashes retained enough of Pelor’s light to shine.
Organization: Hunters of Erebos
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/fe/ba/9b/feba9b5a288d202850e0c03a505f900f.jpg (https://www.pinterest.com/search/?q=erebus)
“As the priests say, ‘We all wear masks.’ The first hunters just took that a bit…literally.”
— Iron Mask, a low ranking Hunter
The Hunters of Erebos are a mercenary organization clad in black cloth with their faces hidden under a skull mask. The material of the mask correlates with rank: clay denotes a trainee, iron with a full member, silver with an overseer, and silver inlaid with onyx the head of the organization. The mask becomes the hunter’s outward identity, and hunters are forbidden from willingly removing the mask in front of outsiders (if a hunter is unconscious then it is hardly his fault if someone removes his mask).
Most frequently hired as bounty hunters (hence the name), part of every contract that the Hunters of Erebos take is that any documents, books, and tomes that are found while completing the job is the property of the Hunters. In addition, rather than just accepting coin, part of the cost of hiring the Hunters is a tome of some kind worth at least half of what the job is worth. These tomes, documents, and books are kept in a library known only to Overseers and the highest ranking priests of Erebos.
Aside from bounty hunting, the Hunters of Erebos are most frequently used in the eradication of undead. In fact, earning the next mask and increasing in rank requires that a Hunter destroy a particularly challenging undead while witnessed by a higher ranking member.
Code of Conduct: Paladins of Erebos
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/d6/80/18/d68018f88685bca2c9f26b987efecadd.jpg (https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=erebus%20god&rs=guide&0=god|guide|word|0&add_refine=god|guide|word|0)
“This,” gestures to royal court garb, “is what I do. That,” points to old longbow, handle worn from long use, “is who I am.”
— Geoffrei Marcheant, Court Mage and avid hunter and outdoorsman
This code of conduct applies to those who would call themselves paladins of the faith, not just any follower of Erebos.
- Know thyself. Never forget who you are.
- Never tell others who they are. If you are asked who someone is, answer with who you are in relation to them.
- When knowledge is in danger of being lost, do all that you can to preserve it. Enough knowledge has been lost to history, and we are all lesser for it.
- Be wary of evil in the light and the dark.