| Bhaal (Dead) | |
|---|---|
| Alias(es): | Lord of Murder |
| Power: | Unknown |
| Pantheon: | Faerûnian pantheon |
| Symbol: | A white, face-on human skull surrounded by a counter-clockwise orbit of many streaming teardrops |
| Alignment: | Lawful evil |
| Cleric alignment: | LN, LE, NE |
| Portfolio: | Death, especially violent or ritual death |
| Worshippers: | {{{worshippers}}} |
| Domains: | Death |
| Favoured weapon: | Shortsword |
| Allies: | Bane (now dead), Hoar, Loviatar, Myrkul (now dead), Talona, Mask |
| Enemies: | Chauntea, Helm, Lathander, Torm, Tyr, Ilmater, Lliira |
Bhaal (Bahl), one of the Dark Gods, was the god of death, particularly of slaying, assassination, and violent death. His was a powerful faith in Faerun at one time, and the Lord of Murder was venerated by numerous assassins, violent mercenaries, and other brutal and fiendish killers. While he lived, Loviatar and Talona served him (though the two were rivals to each other), and he in turn served Bane. Bhaal was violent, cruel, and hateful at all times, and lived only to hunt and murder. He could be alternately cold, calculating, and ruthless or filled with a savage bloodlust. The presence of living creatures instilled a deadly hunger in the Lord of Murder and an overpowering need to kill and destroy. His minions, such as Kazgoroth the Beast in the Moonshae Islands, wrought devastation and violent death wherever they roamed. Bhaal suffered a series of reverses prior to the Time of Troubles, the most vital being his banishment from the Moonshaes. Bhaal tried to destroy the Earthmother (Chauntea) and seize the Moonshae Islands as his personal domain. The Ravager, imbued with a greater fraction of Bhaal's essence than is normally contained in an avatar, was slain by Tristan, High King of the Ffolk, who wielded the Sword of Cymrych Hugh. As a result, Bhaal was severely weakened and exiled from the Realms for a time. Before Bhaal could rebuild much of his power, he was returned to Faerun in avatar form by the will of Ao during the Fall of the Gods. Bhaal, reduced to a killing force able only to possess humans, then went on a spree of murder and destruction the like of which had never before been seen. When Lord Bane sought the power needed to challenge Torm, he slew all of the assassins in the Realms who made up the bulk of the Lord of Murder's faithful, further reducing Bhaal's power. After the Lord of Strife's destruction, Bhaal forged an alliance with Myrkul. The two gods sought the Tablets of Fate so that they could return to the Outer Planes. Bhaal was murdered soon after by Cyric. What remained of Bhaal's essence was absorbed by the Winding Water, and that river has subsequently been poisonous from the Boareskyr Bridge downstream to the Trollclaw Ford. It is believed a fragment of Bhaalís personality remains in the jet black, foul-smelling waters of the Winding Water much like Myrkul's essence survives in the Crown of Horns and fragments of Bane's personality survive in his servitor Baneliches.
Bhaal rarely appeared in avatar form, but when he did in urban settings he typically assumed a form known as the Slayer. The Slayer looked like a human male corpse with a feral face, ivory-white skin, and deep lacerations that endlessly wept black ichor that vanished before it struck anything. Bhaal manifested in rural settings, such as the Moonshaes, as a giant of a man. The Ravager, as this form was known, was over 30 feet tall, with long, tough sinews, a flowing beard and mane of hair, eyes that glowed with the flames of Gehenna, a face twisted in a grimace of supernatural hatred, and two 7-foot-long curved horns protruding from his forehead. Bhaal manifested as a pair of flying crawling claws that could point, carry or wield things, or grow or fire bone daggers that emerged from their finger ends but did not diminish the hands themselves. Alternately, the Lord of Murder sometimes appeared as a laughing human skull that hurtled about trailing teardrops. In either manifestation, Bhaal could speak or cause darkness. He could also awaken in any lawful evil-aligned being an urge to slay. If he did so the being would rush to attack whatever target Bhaal directed it to, moaning and sobbing uncontrollably with its need to take life. The Lord of Murder often acted through a variety of violent, deadly monsters, including skeletal undead of all sorts, from death fangs to dread, and many species of tentacled monsters, from dark tentacles to philosophergrell. It is said that harrla of hate were created by Bhaal to stalk the Realms and that the hand of the Lord of Murder guided their choice of victims.
The Church
Priests of the Lord of Murder were known as either Bhaalists or Bhaalyn (the latter term being most favored east of the Dragonreach, the former westward to the Sword Coast) and were always a disorganized web of strictly local hierarchies. Bhaalists/Bhaalyn tended to be clerics in the urban areas of the Realms, while in remote areas (such as the Moonshaes), they tended to be specialty priests known as deathstalkers. Bhaal was (fittingly) murdered during the Time of Troubles by Cyric, the mortal who would become his successor. In the main, his faith has been taken over by the Dark Sun, and Bhaal's temples have been almost totally converted to the worship of the Prince of Lies. The followers of Bhaal in urban areas have almost universally switched to worshiping Cyric to the extent of adopting the new deity’s vestments, ceremonies, religion-specific spells, and the abilities he grants his specialist clergy members. They refer to the power they venerate as Cyric. The former Bhaalyn of Thay refer to him as Cyric-Bhaal to differentiate him from the lesser aspects of Cyric worshiped by former Banites, whose deity was utterly destroyed and who they felt had erroneously declared Cyric to be their deity as well. Relationships between the Bhaal-Cyricists and the factions of the other believers of Cyric were heavily strained. Prior to the Fall of the Gods, relations between the city-bred and country versions of Bhaal’s priesthood were fair, but cool and distant. The differences between the two factions increased with the demise of the Lord of Murder during the Time of Troubles. The rural followers of Bhaal still retain their belief in Bhaal, pointing to the fact that they still receive their accustomed magical spells. The leader of an area or faction of Bhaal-worship was always known as the High Primate/High Primistress (this strange female form of the title thankfully seems unique to this faith), and the head of a temple or fortress was its Primate/Primistress. (Often fortresses of Bhaal were citadels that sheltered many assassins and sent forth agents to nearby towns or city marketplaces to solicit patrons to hire the occupants of the citadel to perform killings.) The assistants of a Primate or Primistress (known in many other faiths as “priors”) held the title First Murder, and the First Murder could call upon the Cowled Deaths (nine most senior clergy members who held offices in the religious household or community). Underneath these eminences were the common clergy members, collectively known as Deathdealers and bearing the shared title of Slaying Hand. Urban temples dedicated to the Lord of Murder were typically dark, spartan dungeons located beneath a city’s streets featuring an occasional mosaic or sculpture depicting a violent death. Most contained several chambers of tokens taken from the bodies of murder victims and large crypts filled with the corpses of past victims who could not be left where they fell. (The inhabitants of such crypts were often restless.) Rural holy sites were usually primitive shrines located on barren hilltops and dominated by blood-stained sacrificial altars. Typically a ring of stones carved to resemble teardrop-shaped skulls is inlaid in the ground around the altar.
Dogma
Bhaalists believed (in their sick and twisted way) that every murder committed strengthened holy Bhaal. As a result, they viewed murder as both a pastime and a duty. Bhaalists were required to deal death once in every tenday during the darkest period at the heart of the night. If imprisonment or other constraining circumstances made this impossible, they had to murder twice for each death missed. In accordance with the Lord of Murder’s teachings, Bhaalists strove to do that before they died, murder victims knew who was killing them and that their death was in the name of Bhaal. Novices of Bhaal were charged as follows: “Make all folk fear Bhaal. Let your killings be especially elegant, or grisly, or seem easy so that those observing them are awed or terrified. Tell folk that gold proffered to the church can make the Lord of Murder overlook them for today".
Day-to-Day Activities
While Bhaal also encouraged the pursuit of personal wealth and hobbies, in the main, Bhaalists spent their nights performing murders and their days preparing for murder (procuring or caring for weapons, journeying to the appropriate site, praying to Bhaal for success, sleeping under guard so as to be fully awake for the hours of darkness, eating, training, praying for spells, and the like). Many served as assassins, bounty hunters, and mercenaries or in organized brotherhoods of men and women in such professions. Priests of Bhaal enjoyed killing for its own sake but tried not to murder indiscriminately. Much time and thought went into the planning of not just the dark deeds, but the implications of killing this or that individual. The church tried to eliminate all rivals and those who stood against it, to be sure, but also strove to enrich itself by frightening common folk into placing offerings of coinage and valuables before Bhaalists and by taking care to let economically and socially important individuals live unharmed. High Primates spent much of their time planning the proper strategies of manipulating nearby rulers, inhabitants, and organizations into the deeds and behavior that the Bhaalyn desired.
Holy Days/Important Ceremonies
The main ritual to Bhaal is, of course, an act of slaying, during which the priest intoned: “Bhaal awaits thee, Bhaal embraces thee, none escape Bhaal” (if necessary, repeatedly). After each murder, a priest of Bhaal drew Bhaal’s symbol beside the corpse in the blood of the victim and smeared the blood on his or her own hands, from where it promptly vanished if the ceremony was done fitly. Priests also prayed to Bhaal upon retiring for slumber (in a temple, this was done en masse, in a formal ceremony known as Day’s Farewell) and whenever they set out to slay. Moreover, every increase in priestly rank was marked by a solemn private ritual in which the ascending priest went out from the temple to return only after slaying another with nothing save his or her bare hands. The events of the killing were related privately to a senior priest, and if the signs were deemed favorable, the new rank was conveyed in a church ritual held in full ceremonial regalia by all temple clergy members during which a living sacrifice to Bhaal was made. Senior priests were said have an uncanny ability to ferret out lies about this private ritual and be harsh in their punishment of those bearing false report. Lay worshipers of Bhaal (but not priests) were to pray to Bhaal for the limited safety of “his overlook” when setting forth on journeys or into known danger. They were also to pray when giving gold to Bhaalists (to ensure that the Lord of Murder accepted their gift) and whenever a violent death occurred nearby or to someone related to them. The only calendar ritual of the church of Bhaal occurred on the Feast of the Moon, when the dead of the faith were remembered and Bhaalists celebrated especially important or impressive slayings by retelling stories of these deeds. One of the most “splendid” tales of gore told often is of one of the exploits of the famous priest-mage Uthaedeol the Blood-drenched. It is of his killing of the warned and guarded King Samyte of Tethyr. Uthaedeol teleported to appear in midair in front of a pegasus-riding palace guard, slew the man, and rode his steed forcibly down to its death, smashing through a skylight into the throne room. Uthaedeol leapt clear of the pegasus as the king’s archers peppered it with shafts, and rode a prepared flight magic down to plunge into one eye of the king’s guardian black dragon. He slew the great drake with his own still-secret destroying fist spell (known to be a small, localized disintegrate effect) and rode its involuntary dying breath across the throne room, gliding along the stream of acid it breathed protected by his enchanted armor. As the armor blackened, crumbled, and fell away, Uthaedeol cast a spell that flung all arrows in the room, even those not yet fired, into swarming flight. He then sprang to meet the king in single combat with his lone dagger against Samyte’s broad sword. It is recorded that Uthaedeol slew every guard who came against him as he slashed the unfortunate monarch’s skin in hundreds of places; he then cast a spell that forced the king into a veritable dance of death so that he fell lifeless from exsanguination. The priest-mage then cast two entrapping spells and teleported away. The first trap was a meteor swarm activated whenever any spell was next cast in the throne room. It slew four court wizards of note. The second was a blade barrier set to erupt into being when someone who was blood kin to the king next entered the room. It slew the king’s two eldest sons.
Major Centers of Worship
The Tower of Swift Death just outside Tyraturos in Thay, where Primate Oumrant Tsulkide leads a fortress full of trained killers with the blessing (and financial support) of the Red Wizards. Cyric supplies the priests’ spells in Bhaal’s name. The Red Wizards often employ those trained in the Toner on missions for the great glory of Thay (and, oh yes, of Bhaal—er, Cyric).
Affiliated Orders
Bhaal’s clergy members sponsored countless brotherhoods of assassins and thieves throughout the Realms. Prominent among them were the Shadow Thieves of Amn and the Citadel of Assassins in the Galena Mountains (both of which still exist, though Bhaal does not). Although the true assassins of the Realms have all been destroyed and Bhaal murdered, guilds established in his name continue his legacy of murder and death as an avocation if not a vocation. These orders still pay ritual homage to the Lord of Murder as well as his successor, Cyric, and are comprised of evil fighters, wizards, priests, and rogues who work as assassins. All specialty priests of Bhaal belonged to a society known as the Brethren of the Keen Strike.
Priestly Vestments
Regardless of rank or gender, all Bhaalyn wore full ceremonial robes and cowls of deep purple or of black with violet streaks of random size, shape, and placement. The interior linings of the cowl and garments were always deep black, and a black veil was worn over the face to make the cowl seem empty to an observer. High-ranking priests sometimes added a scarlet sash to this costume for easy recognition when ill-lit rituals were taking place. Curve-bladed ceremonial daggers were worn at the belt, but only High Primates, Primates, or members of the Brethren of the Keen Strike employed them in combat or slayings; all other Bhaalists used them only in rituals.
When adventures were undertaken or guard duty performed, Bhaalyn wore full armor of the best type they could obtain or were allowed to wear. Black capes and black leggings usually accompanied the serviceable armor.
Speciality Priest
NAME: Deathstalker (not implemented in game)
ALIGNMENT: LE
WEAPONS: All bludgeoning and piercing weapons
ARMOR: All armor types up to and including chain mail; no shields
MAGICAL ITEMS: Same as clerics
- There is a 0.5% chance per level (round up) that any physical blow inflicted with a ceremonial dagger by a deathstalker on a man-sized or smaller creature is devastatingly potent in aim and effect (fatal or nearly fatal). The victim is immediately reduced to 0 hit points or the total indicated by the normal damage of the blow including all applicable bonuses and penalties, whichever is lower.
- At 7th level, deathstalkers may cast finger of death.
- At 10th level, deathstalkers may engage in plane skipping. Plane skipping involves the deathstalker traveling to Bhaal’s area of Gehenna, moving through the plane, and then traveling back into the Prime Material Plane at his or her destination. In general, each 10 feet moved through Gehenna equals one mile of distance on the Prime Material Plane. Direction does not matter in Gehenna, since the will of Bhaal and the intention of the traveler determine where she or he comes out. This form of travel is 100% reliable under normal circumstances, but it cannot pierce magical shields, areas sanctified to the forces of good, anti-magical areas, or areas that cannot be reached from the Outer Planes. Plane-skipping deathstalkers are not protected while in Gehenna, since Bhaal considers those capable of traveling to his homeland capable of protecting themselves. Deathstalkers may take another others with them.
- At 11th level, deathstalkers may summon an aerial servant. This servant will fight for the deathstalker and can act as a magical assassin. Only one aerial servant may be summoned per month, and only one may be controlled at a time.