Teaching new tricks to old gods

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Here, have another god.


TALOS (greater god), the Destroyer, Stormlord, Lord of Fury, Cloudrider, Eye of the Storm, Son of the Bitch
Domains: anger, storms, destruction, strength, children, slavery

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Umberlee is generally considered to be the least suitable being for motherhood and nobody would agree more readily than Talos the Destroyer. Despite his continued attempts, Stormlord has never managed to sever the umbilical cord that still ties him to the Bitch Queen, even losing one of his eyes permanently in a particularly ill advised attempt. And since he’s obviously still a little baby who can’t even break free, mommy is keeping an eye on him and can manifest at any moment to metaphorically make him eat his veggies. Umberlee is pretty disappointed in his son’s inability to grow up and become the manliest man among the manly men like she wanted, but she’s hopeful. It’s gonna happen any day now, he’s just a late bloomer and shouldn’t listen to those mean bullies. Talos, for his part, knows he’s already grown up into a massively powerful, fearsome and vengeful greater god of destruction and could probably kick any renowned war god right in the ass, but all his gaining of power and influence only served to strengthen the cord, which is an incarnation of the Bitch Queen’s smothering love for him (also she’d probably manifest during battle and destroy his enemy for him, which would be far worse than any beating he could take).

Everyone else except Pelor finds this amusing but he can’t bring himself to disabuse his poor mad daughter from her delusions, even to save his grandson. So Talos has to live bound in slavery, sinking the occasional ship or creating typoons and tsunamis here and there when ordered, made worse by the fact that his slavedriver doesn’t even realize his enslavement. In frustration, Talos has turned to extreme measures, ordering his worshippers to become murderous and stepped up on creating disasters, causing thousands of mortals to die. This has created a lot of enmity but nobody has dared to attack yet for fear of Umberlee. Talos thinks if he can kill enough mortals, he can lay claim to domain of death, hopefully goading Nerull into killing him as he’s killed every other deity who tried to get a foothold on death. Talos figures if dying worked out for his twin cousins, it might work out for him too and even if he stays dead, it’s better than this. Umberlee just thinks he’s being a cutie and imitating mommy, so she’s been increasing her own efforts at disasters and destruction all over Material to be a better role model. Thus, seas continue to kill mortals at extremely inflated rates on most worlds.

Clerics of Talos are an angry bunch, befitting the Lord of Fury. All of his clergy are expected to be good warriors and also experts at navigation and astronomy to interpret his will. Promotion in the clergy comes from both fighting prowess and ability to interpret signs and portents in the waves and clouds, nobody can advance far without being good at both. All of Talos’ worshippers are passionate and aggressive people, the mild and the meek are looked down upon. They’re also commanded to be promiscious and increase their numbers for glory of the Stormlord, Talos teaches that children are the greatest treasure that can be gathered in his service, for it’s the children of the faithful who’ll conquer the world in the name of Talos in the future. It’s very hard to find a female Talassan who isn’t pregnant or nursing newborns or a male one who isn’t training a few of his kids in ways of Talos (possibly compensating for the fact that Talos has never got to meet any ladies due to his mother always breathing down his neck). This causes women to rarely rise to prominent positions in Talos clergy, as pregnancy or multiple births take their toll on their ability to beat men in duels, which isn’t something he’d want anyway. Another thing Talos clergy is big on is slavery; it’s right and proper for the weak to serve the strong and the tedious requirements of day to day life are a waste of the strength of Talos’ worshippers, so Talassans are well known for being slavers and pirates. However might makes right, so every Talassan is required to allow their slaves to fight for freedom and any slave who can defeat the master in a duel must be freed. Owning numerous slaves is therefore a sign of pride both as a symbol of wealth and a declaration of personal strength. Breeding with slaves is generally frowned upon, since slaves are weak, they’d only dilute the strength of Talassans. Enslaved children however, have potential. If they show signs of strength and are young enough to be molded easily, a child slave might be adopted by a Talos worshipping couple to be raised as a proper Talassan. None of this makes followers of Talos much liked by anybody else.

All in all, Talos is a bad dude who’s trying to vigorously live through his worshippers and nobody likes him. Especially Olidammara, who opposes Talos’ followers for both being a menace to society and as payback for loss of his original domain of air, which Umberlee tore off him and devoured to mutate into storm and give birth Talos (as long time resident of Water, she thinks the humanoid way of reproduction is lame and unimaginative). Thanks to Olidammara’s influence over most civilized lands on Material, simply being a Talassan is frequently a capital offense, which further drives them into piracy and banditry. Talos also orders his worshippers to ruin the day of any Umberlee worshippers they come across, any Umberlant is to be killed and their holy places destroyed. Umberlee doesn’t mind this, it’s a good way to purge her own followers of weakness and the bulk of them are deep sea monsters far out of reach of Stormlord anyway.

Praying to Talos only works if you’re an official worshipper but he gives blessings and inspirations freely to his devout followers when they’re in pursuit of his goals of destruction and fury and slavery.

So not all that different a Talos from mortal perspective, but I think the divine bits are neat. It allows the slavery and children stuff and also I couldn't have the cord if Talos was the boss like usual. He's pretty distinct from Bane and Tempus too, which is always a plus.

e:

Mostly, I was asking 'cause of the phrase "burning eye" and my associations for that are Sauron and Nyarlathotep

Hey, I missed this. "Fiery eyes of Pelor" are the holes he drilled from his palace in Fire into Material to look through, which came to be known as suns or stars. Silvanus, Olly and Umberlee have others covered (except Olly wasn't really using air so Umberlee bit it off as has just been unveiled here).