Days of bread and wine, are only by design/
Every petal worked, every spirit corked, every silver shined/
Every furnace lit, every lamb and spit, every silver shined/
-Only by Design, From Devil's Carnival: Alleluia!
It is hard work averting famine, a toil through seasons of gruelling weather to ensure the next harvest fares a little better than the last. To turn a scattering of seeds from errant prairie grasses into life sustaining bread is a generations long labour, but it is holy and there is no god that holds it more holy than Litirenn, Steward of Tilled Earth.
Born from a union between a god of growing things and a god of craft, Litirenn's sphere of influence has expanded over time from simple cultivation to any who wish to understand and then improve on nature's designs: Herbalists, natural philosophers, alchemists, biomancers, and those that would remake themselves seeking an inner truth.
Few temples are kept for him, but one can often find the Steward's marks worked in over the doorways of granaries, mills, and wine cellars, or sketched in the margins of a hand bound folio of research notes.
Adventure Hooks:
The grain harvest is coming in, which means the local brigands will be circling like buzzards and the village needs the party to act as bodyguards to ensure their livelihood seven samurai style. The brigands in question however are not outlaws but soldiers of the local warlord, who is currently in dispute with the village over how much grain they owe him for protection.
The village witch is in quite a fix after cultivating a new verity of foreign flower looking to make inadvertently attracting all sorts of weird magical insects to his cottage. The infestation has deprived him of his house, the town of herbal remedies, and the party of cheap healing potions. Something must be done about it.
Seeking to catalogue, preserve, and most of all taste every variety of apple ever grown on the material plane, an eccentric gnomish orchardist has broken into the elfqueen's private gardens and stolen a fruit from a silver tree placed there by the Archheart themselves. The queen's agents would like this handled delicately, not only because the gnome managed her infiltration by seducing the queen (who's quite broken up about it) but also disruption of the tree may juuuuuust have triggered a calamitous prophecy.
Signs: Plants fruiting out of season with abundant growth and fantastical properties, visions of how things came to be made. The appearance of frogs, butterflies, and other creatures that go through a metamorphosis.
Symbols: A vine laden trellis, though alchemical aspects often use the symbol of a snake coiled among grapes.
Titles: Steward of Tilled Earth, He who Guides the Vine, The Cultivator,
Hey sorry to bother you but do you have any ideas on a reimagined Tiamat/Tiamat worship? I've come an inspirational roadblock trying to figure out why anybody would worship a greedy power hungry (and pretty one note) evil dragon lady? Why does Bahamut get all the love?
Monsters Reimagined: Tiamat, Goddess of Primordial Waters.
Alright folks, strap in. This is overhaul has been a long time coming and is one that've I've been thinking about since long before I started this series, or even this blog.
Like most of the evil gods in d&d, worshiping Tiamat is silly. She's a one note god that cares nothing for her followers and has zero actual ideology. She exists solely so that there can be a god of evil dragons, but I'll get into that below the cut. TLDR: Rather than the clunky default version, you should use a riff on the ancient babylonian deity she's based on/steals the name from. The original Tiamat is a water/ocean goddess that's said to also represent the primal chaos from which all things spring. With her consort she gives birth to the first gods, then transforms into a great monster to battle her children when they try to pre kill her lover. From her body the earth itself is created, and are great monsters born. I think this is an amazing foundational myth that you can use for any campaign world, and gives plenty of reason for people within that world to worship Tiamat into the present day.
What's wrong: Right of the bat I'm going to say I never liked how d&d does dragons. Color coding them for our convenience decreases a lot of wonder when it comes to facing off against a such an iconic foe, and the way that their personalities have become codified over time further limits our ability to tell stories about them. I'm going to save my actual gripes about this canonization for a monsters reimagined focusing on dragons, but for the time being, I'm going to say that Tiamat's design looks a little silly and needs an overhaul on optics alone.
Next comes the divinity part: Tiamat isn't just THE mega evil dragon, she's THE GOD of evil dragons, which is silly for a bunch of reasons.
Why would dragons need a god? Dragons are ego given form, and the only worship they engage in is worship of the self.
From a cultural perspective, Gods are also creations of societies, reflecting the elements that society deals with or the ideologies that govern it. Dragons don't have a society or a culture, they're loners and alpha predators that can talk who may on occasion insert themselves into the culture of other civilizations either as a covert agent or by installing themselves at the top.
No mortal would worship Tiamat as she explicitly DOES NOT CARE for her followers, and only shows up if there's something in it for her. Even though she's listed as a goddess of greed, it's not like she embodies some kind of ideology that will enrich her dedicated followers: If you get too rich and worship Tiamat, she's going to show up and TAKE YOUR STUFF FROM YOU.
Lets fix it: We don't talk enough about bronze age cultures in d&d settings. Sure, there'll be remnants of the not!roman empire laying around, and there'll be ancient elvan enclaves or antlantis inspired lost civilizations.. but generally these things are so far off in the distant past that they're disconnected from the campaign's actual chronology. Much like LOTR or GoT, the faux-medieval period is presumed to have gone on forever, sometimes for tens of millennia, with no progress ever being made save for the occasional apocalypse to stagger back from.
In my own writing, I've been playing around with something I call " The Dawn Age" this is a semi-mythic era that served as a sort of trial and error period for the gods, as they made things, gave shape to the world, and figured out how they'd run things from thereon out. Like any alpha test, things go very wrong, very many times, and the gods and other nacient creatures of that time need a few attempt to figure out what works.
Tiamat and the bones of her original Babylonian mythology fit into this idea perfectly: one of the original creator deities that shaped the world out of the astral sea. Collaborating and conflicting with other powerful demiurges as they defined what would and wouldn't be for the plane our heroes would one day trek across. Tiamat eventually came into conflict with a group of semi-divine entities that had arisen from her creation, who wished to stop her chaotic reshaping of reality and institute a more settled and orderly process ( for a myriad of reasons, ranging form self preservation or the appreciation of what might be wiped away in her next revision). These entities would defeat Tiamat and use the power they stole from her to shape reality as they liked it, putting a gradual end to the dawn age and letting reality solidify and progress into the current chronology.
To bring it all Together:
In a way, Tiamat is the world itself, or at least the underlying primal forces that keep it in a cohesive shape. She is worshiped by those cultures with ancient knowledge for her miracle of creation and lifegiving, and remembered by others as a destroyer who would have gladly kept the world in a state of primordial chaos, destroying whole civilizations for the sake of an inspired whim.
Tiamat's primordial chaos and the way her essence was used to shape the world also explains why it keeps spitting out monsters, strange creatures arising from the wilderness with no explanation in ever more astonishing variations. In a way, she is still creating: seeping in through the cracks that formed since her defeat.
Titles: Spring of Origin, Primordia, Mother Hydra. She who wets the clay. The maker unmade
Signs: plantlife growing in the shape of animals, verdant springs, scale patterns on rocks, Her destructive aspects are heralded by tarpits, snakelike creatures with multiple heads, or water acting unnaturally.
Symbols: Entwining serpents, hydras, spiraling pictograms. A Tree with snake-tails for roots. Her destructive aspect is represented by interlocking maws full of fangs, usually in a jagged star pattern.
Followers: Perhaps one of the first "nature" deities, Tiamat's influence is less an ideology than it is a push towards creation and flow, and works guided by her end up becoming verdant and fruitful. Mystics may seek Tiamat’s influence to invoke a flow of ideas or the “will” of creation, while healers may channel her primal vigor to encourage new growth and stave off old rot. Those seeking to embody Tiamat’s more destructive aspects often resent the world the way it is, and wish in some way to restart the process of creation and perhaps even usher in a new dawn age. These groups or individuals are often outcasts from civilization, and seek a radical return to nature or opposition to forces that would “tame” the wilds.
Spaces that that flow and erode are sacred to Tiamat, such as riverbends, swamps, coastlines, deltas, springs, as well as less obvious places such as caves or lavaflows. Creatures and cultures that dwell around or within these areas may feel the mother hydra's influence
Adventure Hooks:
A temple to a more modern deity is famous as a site of pilgrimage for its healing spring, but suffers a dramatic turn of events when their main attraction starts producing poisonous tar instead. Requested by a friendly acolyte of the temple, or Employed by one seeking healing and looking to force the issue, the party must delve down into a nearby cave system to discover the origin of this blight. . There they find an ancient altar to Tiamat that was the source of the spring’s healing abilities, which was desecrated by unknown hands. Before the party was able to investigate, strange creatures begin to emerge from the tar, seeking victims. After teh beasts are dispatched, the party can piece together clues that it was a particularly zealous acolyte in the temple, who scorned the existence of a “heathen” shrine on their patrons holy ground.
There is a strong connection between Tiamat and the Yuan-Ti ( who some believe directly obtained their flesh reshaping magic by studying Tiamats primordial influence). Likewise, there is a strong connection her and Pharika, a serpentine goddess who is said to have shaped the world and its monsters with secret knowledge entwined within them. A priestess of this newer goddess of affliction and cure seeks the party’s help in exploring old sites sacred to Mother Hydra, but may run into some fundamentalist snake cultists guarding the ruins.
Depending on which canons you follow, Moradin Allhammer, god of craft and dwarvenkind, was part of the coalition of beings that rose against Tiamat and her primordial tumult, with his epithet originating in the ability he gained from defeating the Spring of Origin, and the labors he undertook to give shape to reality afterwords. Some religious hardliners have decided to finish what their patron started, and have begun a witchhunt against a local enclave of Tiamat worshipers, claiming them to be an origin of a spreading plague.
Dragons often nest in long abandoned temples to Tiamat because these sacred spaces are natural laylines, which attract wyrms the way that hot stones attract other reptiles. When an earthquake causes a shift in layline energy, a local dragon begins seeking the expertise of mystics and other scholars to “get the power back on”. Starting out disguised as a socially malajusted noble ( the nobility is a disguise, they have no idea how to talk to people), this dragon is not above returning to its original form and kidnapping a bunch of geomancers and terrified academics to see its mission through.
Setup: Say what you will about the gods and their vagaries: when they’re upset with you, they’ll let you know.
This is the lesson Duchess Irga Sahvrinna learned when at the most recent festival she was called upon by her station to make an offering to the gods that had blessed her lands and given gifts to her subjects. As prideful and petty as any in her station the Duchess deigned not to honor those gods of the old faith, who preside over the wilds and the beasts that dwell within them, as her most recent hunting expeditions had turned up a bust.
Equally prideful and petty, the gods of the old faith decided to respond disproportionately to this snub by sending a swine of truly disastrous size to vex the Duchess and her lands. The boar attacks wagons carrying the Duchess’s goods, turns her fields into mudwallows, and marauds about the countryside wrecking buildings, bridges, and other bits of infrastructure commissioned by her family. This justice would be less of a problem for the commonfolk if the Sahvrinna family wasn’t one of the foremost traders, landholders, and civically attentive rulers in the realm, as the boar’s rampage has increasingly calamitous knock on effects.
Adventure hooks:
Everyone wants the boar gone, but the Duchess herself is putting up the incentive to make it happen. She’s sent word out far and wide that she’s looking for skilled hunters who won’t balk at a little divine wrath if it means making a speedy kill. Rumor has it that along with a princely reward for whoever brings her the beast’s head ( the skull’s weight in gold can’t be right, can it?) she’s planning on bestowing the victorious hunter with lands and maybe even a title.
A player of a more naturalistic bent may attempt to seek out the old gods or their representatives in the hopes of pacifying the boar. They’ll find the hermits who speak for that ancient religion in some forgotten corner of the Duchess’s domain, finding great amusement in the beast’s antics and the vexation it causes the Impious ruler.
Challenges & Complications:
The boar is no ordinary animal, as no weapon forged by mortal hide. While a soothsayer or mocking mystic may relay this information to the party, they will not relay the obvious exception: Weapons forged by IMmortal hands have a full effect on the beast, as will weapons that are not forged, but are instead carved or whittled out of wood and bone. It’s up to the party to either find a weapon crafted by immortals, or figure out that the gods like bad wordplay before their quarry ruins even more of the duchess's realm.
Players who seek to entreat the priests of the old gods, but who fail to persuade them will have a task placed before them: either persuade the Duchess to live as a servant of the old faith for a year, or slip a boar’s tooth necklace round her neck to banish the boar from her lands. Both options will prove difficult, but a party who puts the good of the land above the wishes of one privlaged woman will find the duchess transformed irrevocably into a ( regular sized) boar, potential quarry for all the hunters drawn to her land.
Setup: Its always nice to see a friendly face, even while exploring realms of madness unfit for mortal eyes. Once a monk who set off into the astral plane to study the wonders of the cosmos, Barthalimus became lost in time and space and hurdled between realms for centuries before being caught by an entity that bound his broken mind to its purpose.
Known as Shubbnugrath, this outer god of fetid fertility seeks to spread life where there is none, and often sends “Barney” and the humble stone cabin he occupies to the farthest planes of existence to begin the work of planting a “garden” and getting a jumpstart on genesis. Mad as a march hare with mercury poisoning and long immunized against the horrors of unfriendly realities, Barthalimus is happy to go wherever his patron sends him, carefully nurturing his mutagenic crop with the pride and cheer more befitting of a farmer than the herald of an alien god.
Adventure hooks:
whether by teleportation accident or irresponsible use of a portal, the party finds themselves in a hostile dimension, battling mutant creatures and crossing toxic landscapes in the hopes of finding some kind of shelter. Just as they’re cornered by some horror they cannot hope to overcome, a withered old monk appears and rends the thing apart in a burst of fleshy rootlike tendrils that he calls from the ground. Strange, but not obviously hostile, Barney will offer the party directions to a potential way station, but warn them that it will be a long trip without somewhere to rest. Fortunately, he happens to have spare space in his cabin, should they be willing to trust a madman at his word.
Something new and terrible has been spreading through the valley, and almost overnight a dank jungle of twisted, cancerous trees have sprouted in the fields, swallowing whole farmsteads and the people with them. Those who travel into this extradimensional thicket are found days later in some state between drunk and feral, thier bodies playing host to unknown sicknesses and strange parasites. People are affraid, and are considering burnting and salting the lands surrounding this forest to keep it at bay, but the noble who owns the land wants to hire the players to investigate first. When they do, they’ll find Barthalimus at the head of his own little commune, inducting the lost villagers into the mysteries of his patron.
The Party hears of an old pothole-cave deep in the hinterlands, once used for pagan rite. Rumors about such ruins collect as they gather dust
The icon of an old, primordial god stands watch over the site, glouring and stern in its gaze even centuries after its name has been forgotten. In some stories, the icon is said to speak, perhaps even come to life, though these stories are often in conflict as to whether it dispenses helpful riddles or devours would be intruders alive.
There’s said to be a doorway under the statue’s feet. Conflicting reports say it may lead to the burial chamber of some forgotten thane, a temple vault full of treasure, or perhaps the underworld itself.
Even if the door does not prove fruitful ( for many over the ages have tried to enter and the few that claimed to succeed could hardly be believed), there is still a sprawling cave system connected to the pothole, the lair of some rare and exotic species of monster. A site surely of interest to a party looking for rare components, and possessing some sturdy sets of boots.
Backgorund
If the party does their research, they’ll find that the pothole is infact a holy site dedicated to the ancient deity Orcus (Yes I know there’s a demonlord by that name, but the mythological/my version is cooler), a cthonic god of primal strength in who’s name the ancients made their oaths. knowing that Orcus was keeper of the underworld, those that violated their oaths would incur his wrath, and would be forever barred from their final rest. Worship of orcus faded at some point in the pre-recorded past, as folktales suggest the oath-god somehow died, and was no longer able to fulfill his duties as caretaker or bargain keeper.
Setup
Exploring the cavern reveals it to be your average cave-dungeon. Echoing vaults, flooded and concealed chambers, a panoply of lurking monsters and lingering undead for the party to clash against in lantern light.
The real fun begins when the party discovers a ritual site, well maintained and only vacated i the past few years. Apparently those with an interest in witchcraft had resurrected an old ritual that properly completed, would allow them to invoke an echo of Orcus and receive a boon. The party is free to leave without engaging in the ritual, but where would be the adventure in that?
Challenges and Complications.
The ritual is simple, though daring. The party must forgo all magic ( items included), and proceed through the cavern by the light of a ritually prepared lantern of green fire. The light of this lantern will reveal hidden signs that will guide and instruct the party, along with secret chambers and passages that were not previously there. Should the party use magic, or the lantern go out, the ritual is failed, and the party will have to try again, often facing different challenges as the cavern shifts.
Some challenges include:
Sending one party to search for an object in a dark pool, while the rest fend off waves of skeletons.
Ferry the light across a windy chasm with a rushing stream at the bottom.
Finally, defeat a cave beast such as a direbear or troll, anoint the party with its blood, and then offer its heart to Orcus as proof of your victory.
Rewards and Outcomes
In addition to the plunder gained from delving the cave itself, The Old God’s Cauldron has many rewards for a group willing to take a chance on primeval magic.
Those that began the ritual anew apparently discovered that transforming into an animal before the ritual began didn’t count against the “no magic” rule, and had developed a formula for potions that could turn them into bats or wolves. The research notes suggest that a bear would also be possible.
Speaking in an echoing voice, as if speaking from deep undergorund or far in the past, the icon of Orcus will inquire about what boon he might bestow. Arms sacrificed to him by ancient warriors, blessed by their time in his keeping, the lore of the dead and the divine, coins and gems representing the mineral wealth of the earth, or even passage into the underworld, such as he can manage.
Further complications arise if any of the party happens to be an oathbreaker; having deceived or bore false witness against a friend, a kinsman, or a liege. In such a case, the statue of Orcus will animate, and the party will have to fight one last duel ( magic is allowed this time) to prove their ally’s honor.
