Deities of Valt pt 5

For this installment of the Deities of Valt series, I chose to detail Silduggis.  As the monolithic evil within my campaign, I thought it was high time I illustrated why he is so feared and hated.  When creating him, I set out to make a being that was more evil than evil, someone that even the highest celestial and lowest demon could join forces to fight.  Although Natalia lives in a time when Silduggis and his allies are banished or in seclusion, he is still a pivotal force in the world.

Silduggis (sill-DEW-giss)

The Nothing Eyes, Father of Darkness, Bringer of Ruin, the Soulless, Architect of Fear

NE Greater deity of the Soulvoid

 

Pantheon: Silduggan

Portfolio: Destruction, nothingness, fear, evil

Domain: The Soulvoid

Allies: Tantori, Hesta, Isnirine

Foes: Every deity not an ally

Superior: None

Symbol: A pair of eyes, all black with no pupils or irises

Worshipper Alignment: LE, NE, CE

Favored Weapon: “End” (Longsword)

Cleric Domains: Evil, Death, Destruction, War, Hatred

Summary: Silduggis is the sum of all evil.  More hateful than the most rancorous drow and more insidious than all the devils of the outer planes combined, he is the oldest resident of the Valt cosmology by far.

                Silduggis is no mere deity, that much is certain.  He grants spells as if he were a divine power, but he is in no way defined or limited by the belief of his worshippers.  He is just as powerful without them, and existed for thousands of years before deigning to allow mortal worship of himself.

                His goal is a simple one: to expunge Valt of all creation.  All of his many schemes and machinations revolve around that single end.  If he had his way, no living creature would remain, no natural formation would exist, and no remnant of civilization would stand.  He would be alone, drifting in a void where no concept had any meaning save for those of his own mind.

                What Silduggis can do is also a matter of conjecture.  In some historical accounts, he can breach the walls of planar existence and travel to other universes, bringing whole armies with him.  Yet he himself seems to be unable to dwell in any other universe.  Something about Valt is uniquely tied to him, and he to it.

                His exact nature is debated hotly amongst some scholars.  Some say that he is a god of unfathomable power, who is still worshipped after millennia of his absence in whatever world he came from, who seeks to be forgotten and thus die.  Another theory claims that there is a class of being even higher than gods, and that Silduggis was once one of that number, cast down and imprisoned in Valt for some unimaginable crime against reality.  Still another theory states that Valt was once, eons ago, a vibrant and living place, and that Silduggis is the only being to survive whatever catastrophe befell it, through unknown means.

                Whatever he is, he cannot be swayed from his ultimate goal.  Valt was once his, and over the course of his long history, he has fought mortals and gods for it.  He saw it expunged of all life once, and it is only a matter of time before he does it again.

History/Relationships: The Bringer of Ruin was the only resident of Valt long before the forebears of the elves and orcs brought their war to this world.  He dwelt in darkness, and would do so again.  Since the arrival of mortals and their tumultuous baggage of light, thought, and life, he has waged an endless war against every living being in creation.

                From the beginning, his battles were waged with three tools.  The first tool is fear.  Silduggis feels no need to kill his foes, their absence is all that is required, and if it is accomplished via their retreat rather than their death, then so be it.  The second tool is division.  Silduggis subtly encouraged war and opposition in the mortal races, to weaken and destroy them.  The third tool is destruction.  If the first two tools do not work, the Nothing Eyes will not hesitate to attack with brute force.

                At first he did his work alone, but as time went on and the mortal races began to dominate the world, Silduggis sought out allies, the first and greatest of which were the Tutuen-Nietwe, or the Thousand Horrors.  An army, each collected from a different universe, each the most terrifying thing that Silduggis could find in that universe, they are a diverse group.  Working independently, they can sow more fear than any mortal army.

                His second group of allies were the deities he recruited to aid him.  Hesta/Isnirine came to him, a deity dispossessed from her world.  She and the Father of Darkness forged an alliance.  If she aided him in his goal, when the Tutuen-Nietwe were all that remained on Valt, she would take command of the Horrors and return to her world, to retake that which was once hers.  Silduggis also appeared to the mortal cleric Tantori, once the most virtuous and pure mortal in the world, and in one moment plunged him into darkness.  Tantori now serves him as a deity, and the three of them embody Silduggis’s arsenal perfectly.  Isnirine represents destruction; Tantori subversion; and Hesta fear.

                Although each of the historical periods known as Darks have ended with the Tutuen-Nietwe being imprisoned within the Soulvoid, at the conclusion of the last Dark, Silduggis remains loose within the world.

Manifestations: Popular lore holds that Silduggis does not manifest, he possesses.  Any mortal, be it man or animal, can be a vessel for him.  Folklore holds that signs of Silduggan possession include the following: refusal to speak under any circumstances, the ability to command, summon or be immune to the powers of the Tutuen-Nietwe, and the eyes changing color to completely black.

                Rabbits, screech owls, and eclipses are signs of Silduggis’s influence, and are commonly associated with him even in civilized lands.  In more barbaric cultures, other elements may be viewed as tainted by the Soulless.

                Scholars say that Silduggis possesses a person in order to learn about the creatures who infest the mortal planes, who are so far beneath him that it takes concentrated study on his part to understand their motivations and drives.  After the possession ends, the person is irrevocably evil, and will carry out any instructions left by the Nothing Eyes.  As such, any suspected victims of possession are swiftly executed.

                When Silduggis is depicted in mortal form, it is often as a man with wavy black hair and a thick black beard.  Usually he is depicted as wearing black, stylish clothing, or being clothed in darkness.  Always his eyes are shown as blank pits.

THE CHURCH

                The church of Silduggis has no structure or order.  Although priests may establish cells or cults, there is no greater organization that they follow.

Priests: Destroyers, Dividers, or Terrors, depending on the tool of Silduggis they prefer most.

Alignment: LE, NE, CE

Classes: Cleric, Blackguard, Assassin

Dogma:  Drive them away.  Every living creature, every permanent construction, must be driven away or destroyed utterly.  The method matters not.  Only the result.  The outer planes are of no consequence.  Once the world is void of all, the Father of Darkness will sever their connections and cast them adrift in planar space.  There is no master save for the Soulless, and he will give you no loyalty.  You are as abominable to him as any of the creatures you oppose.

Day-to-Day activities: Priests of Silduggis go about their business, opposing mortals and all their works in a variety of ways.  Each is left to his own devices to pursue the destruction or banishment of all life on Valt in whatever method he deems appropriate.  One priest might blight food crops, while another seeks to cause a war between two rival nations.  Any priest will seize upon an opportunity to release the seal on the Soulvoid if they can do so, and during the historical periods known as Lights, this is their top priority.

Worship Locations: None.  The idea of having a permanent building to the Nothing Eyes, or even an emotional connection to a single location, is anathema to the church.

Affiliated Orders: The Inevitable Brethren is a group of monks who have dedicated themselves to the destruction of the world, and they worship the Silduggan pantheon equally.  The Edge of Nowhere is a group of blackguards and evil cavaliers who have dedicated themselves to the bloodshed and death that service to Silduggis will bring, reasoning that they will be dead long before his plans come to fruition.

Apostasy: None.

Vestments: None.  The Silduggan clergy do not wear distinctive garb, or have any unity with regards to their holy symbols.  Frequently they will wear black on the rare occasion when they wish to reveal what they really are.

Holy Days/Ceremonies: None.

Oath: Betrothed to the Void.  If a priest with this oath dies, she can never be resurrected or contacted by any means.  In exchange, she can use the Silent Spell feat or the Still spell feat even if she does not have them.  This ability can be used 1/day per point of Charisma bonus, and two uses can be combined to use both feats.  When used in this fashion, the level of the spell does not increase.