Llamalackelkloulothllimptishavakothvoutxikliklalpvanipvan
[Lama-lak-elk-loo-loth-limp-tish-ava-koth-vout-zik-lik-lal-p-van-ey-p-van]
Titles, Aliases:
The Cycle, The Devourer, The Wheel
Domains (Purviews):
Rebirth, natural order
Image or Symbol:
A specially adapted (and highly poisonous) white laklishi lotus which found only in the great swamp. Travelling clerics normally make do with a replica carved from white wood or bone.
Colour:
White
Special Spells:
Last Meal – level 2 cleric spell.
The cleric consumes the sensory organs of a recently dead humanoid and is able to commune with their soul from within the belly of The Devourer. After eating an organ they enter a trance and see, hear or smell (if eyes, ears or nose are eaten) whatever the body experience in the last 30 seconds before their death. If the tongue is eaten then they experience taste and speak any last words the body may have spoken. Each organ requires one use of the spell. Multiple uses can be made but each must be made separately
Alternatively the cleric can eat the brain giving them full access to the subject's senses (but not memories) at the time of their death. However, if the body died a violent death the cleric will experience this and must make a save against magic or suffer half the damage the body took in their final 30 seconds. They also have a 1 in 100 chance of developing Kuru within 1d4 days, causing uncontrollable tremors and conveying a permanent -1 dexterity modifier (Kuru is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy and thus can accumulate with multiple “doses” and cannot be cured with the cure disease spell).
Forbidden Spells:
Raising the dead is considered an abomination as it steals souls from the devourer. Spells that disintegrate the victim leaving no body to eat are frowned upon.
Rituals:
Eating the flesh of the dead, especially humans. If a body is cremated or otherwise disposed of without being eaten, their soul is destroyed. The whole body need not be eaten, an appropriate organ is normally enough.
Offerings:
Fertile laklishi lotus bulbs are considered a great gift, as would planting such bulbs in new habitats.
Special Clerical Requirements:
Destroyed souls are considered a waste (as no more can be created) but if someone dies by magical or otherworldly means and are not eaten, then their soul is trapped and the devourer will be unable to create the next age. It is the role of clerics to destroy such monsters and free the souls they have trapped.
Taboos:
Killing someone purely in order to eat them is deeply heretical.
Enemies:
Most civilized people find cannibalism an affront, and clerics of The Cycle often face prejudice. Thankfully they are almost unknown outside their swamp so most common folk would just consider them shamanic savages.
Physical Description:
Doesn't physically manifest but any bog or bayou could be considered its “body” by believers.
Attributes on scale of 1-20
Strictness : 12
Jealousy : 2
Revelations : 4
Organization : 4
Wealth: 5 The land of the great swamp is effectively controlled by the clergy as is all its natural resources. However agriculture is difficult and mining impossible.
Popularity: 20 in the great swamp, 1 outside.
Holy city and places:
The great swamp, but any place heavy with decomposition such as sewers, peat bogs etc. can serve as holy places.
Potential Afterlife(s):
When a body dies its soul is fed to the devourer. This age ends when all souls have been eaten, at which point the devourer will burst releasing all the souls again in a new age (with a new devourer at its centre). Most ages last approximately 100,000 years and this is 138,000th age.
Notes: the people of the cycle have a low level of technology but a highly developed and connected society. Think somewhere between Australian aborigines and pre-Columbian mexica (aztecs). They inhabit a large foetid swamp to the south of civilized lands which has protected them from much outside influence.
Albinos are associated with the lotus and are often raised in the priesthood.
(Another god from a player, the deathproof Laklishilakpvanipvan AKA Alex)
