(Quote from
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk)
Some gods I made up for characters or my own settings.
DERKETA
Derketa is a goddess of death, secrets, and the harvest.
Some say she has no servants other than her clerics, but some say all serve her, and only those who realize it can die happy.
When you die, she takes you in her embrace and you and she whisper secrets back and forth, eternally.
Undead are those who have cheated the Goddess; lovers who have spurned her and must be sent back to her forgiving arms.
The living should not turn away from danger - Derketa does not make mistakes. If it is not your time and you have her favor, you will come through danger victorious. If she feels you have lessons still to learn, secrets still to gather for her, you will survive, chagrined. Certain death should only be met when one feels one has gathered all there is to offer from life, but situations where there is some slim chance of survival are not shunned.
Some claim to have glimpsed her when near death; she appears as a purple-robed figure in a bright field of crops. When she turns to you, her face is skull-like, but it is not fearsome; you have been waiting for her all your life. Her embrace is neither warm nor cold, but her breath is pleasant, like the smell of a warm fire on cold winter air.
Clerics: Her followers see no conflict with healing. Her Clerics consider themselves her direct agents, and it is for them to decide if it is someone's time. They take responsibility for being death or keeping someone from it. Her followers are encouraged to live life heartily and experience all it has to offer, to collect experiences, luscious sensations, secrets and obscure knowledge so that one might have many interesting things to whisper back to her in "the long embrace".
They enjoy bawdy songs and befriending unlikely creatures.
Alignment: Any non-Lawful. Her clerics operate under an intuitive interpretation of her whims, not a rigid system of rules. They tend to not be evil, as they try to function within a community, not take advantage of it.
Symbol: A skull with two sheaves of wheat crossed under it and stylized breath coming out of it's mouth.
NICHT
Nicht is the void between life and life, the void between the worlds.
The void takes a god with no more worshippers, the void takes a man when his body fails.
When you have better enemies than friends, when your guardsman takes coin to turn down the wrong hallway, when the curtain stirs, when the knife slides in through your back and you cannot breathe, Nicht is there, and you become part of Nicht.
The void has intelligence; The Nothing has plans - and followers. This dread intelligence is alien to man, however; to stay on its path yet remain usefully sane, Nicht's followers engage in a regimented form of daily meditation.
Their ways are secret. They consider uniting a target with Nicht to be delivering a blessing, a gift. Gifts cost money, however; Nicht's followers are both merchant and messenger.
Clerics: all are multiclass Cleric/Assassins, and must meet the ability score requirements for such in the 1E AD&D PHB. They may be of any race, but those who are not Orcs, Half Orcs, or Beast Men often hide their worship when in society. To advance in level as a Cleric they must heal someone from the brink of death. To advance as an assassin, they must successfully use the Assassinate ability once or fail at it three times.
Alignment: Nicht is Chaotic Neutral, its followers can be any Neutral. Nicht is not balance; balance is something.
Symbol: a blank grey square with sharp edges.
BASABAT
A god of sensual pleasures and rest from effort, this deity is worshipped by hedonists and the lazy. The two types of worshippers can become frustrated with one another, but their divisions are short lived. Basabat is known to manifest often, and choose sex of its avatar based upon whom it plans to seduce at any particular moment. Its most distinctive appearance is that of a humanoid with catlike features, the degree of which can vary.
Clerics: Seek pleasures for their own sake. Amass a fortune, then blow it on a weekend of excess with your companions. Seek the path of least effort, but do not shy from effort when the reward is a greater span of pleasure. Mercilessly annihilate those who disrupt or seek to destroy your pleasure.
Cats favor these Clerics and may help them in small ways. The Cleric can forgo having a first level spell to incur the favor of cats in a direct way three times a day. (trip enemies, see through eyes for 1 rd/lvl, provide a distraction, loose a rope, knock over a kettle, etc) IE Use a spell slot for this 3/day instead of a spell.
Alignment: Basabat is True Neutral, but unpredictably Good or Evil in that it will sometimes strive for the pleasure of others and sometimes mercilessly pursue its own pleasure. Clerics may be any neutral. Effort must be balanced with pleasure.
Symbol: a peacock feather, or the feather of a bird hanging from a cat's mouth.
