“Pray to your Gods of Shore and Tide, child of the land. These waters are not for you and they will not hold you when your little boat sinks beneath the waves.“
-Eelgrin the merrowguide
To hear the sailors tell it Lysthazo, goddess of merfolk and those places of the ocean unsullied by the land, defies what most would come to expect of a deity by scorning those who invoke her in prayer. She is a goddess of take, not give, and the best one can hope for is to offer silent deference and hope that the seas are calm tomorrow. Still, that does not mean Lysthazo does not have a following among whalers and those others who spend too long far from friendly ports, who settle into a love-hate relationship with the “Bitch of the Brine” as she delivers them luck with one hand and endless tribulation with the other.
Adventure Hooks:
Rumors in the harbor tell of a ship that beached itself some days up the coast, it’s crew so desperate to make land that they didn’t even try to aim for port. While exploring the hulk or questioning one of the crew, the party discovers hints that these sailors went ashore to a jungle island looking for treasure. They instead found the shrine of some terrible sea goddess which they desicrated in their search for plunder, earning the goddess’s wrath in the form of some great leviathan that’s been hunting them ever since. As it turns out, this leviathan is still on its way, and will likely raise the nearby settlement in its search for the cursed crew.
A spree of on-land drownings among the city’s importers and rare animal dealers leads the party to a mermaid cleric. Far from the sea thanks to a cleverly constructed driftwood wheelchair she has come seeking her niece who was abducted from their home and sold up river to decorate some heartless noble’s menagerie. The heroes are faced with a difficult decision: abetting a murderer in her rightious quest or siding with a kidnapper for a bounty.
Sorting through a great treasure haul, the party end up discovering a rune-carved conch shell that echos audibly with crashing waves. In attmepting to tinker with it and discover its purpose the party unleashes an unending tide of briny water that floods them out of wherever they happen to be staying and carries with it a mischievous elemental in the form of an octopus that steals the conch and scuttles off somewhere to hide. Now faced with the prospect of unchecked flooding from a source they can’t plug, the party must search the town for the shell while it’s many armed owner causes problems on purpose.
Those born beneath the waters have a very different relationship with the goddess, calling her the “artist in currents” and conceiving of her as the one who gives order to the oceans many cycles as she seeds life in those sheltered places where it can thrive. Coral shoals are her gardens, schools of fish the dabbings of her paintbrush, echoing whalesong the tune she hums while she works. Even then the merfolk, tritons, and Kou-toa who revere her do not think of her as a strictly benevolent goddess, as Lysthazo’s artistic bent is understood as one that prioritizes new work over old and though she attended to their peoples closely during the dawn age it is known she has set her interest on bigger things at present.
Lysthazo’s most infamous aspect is as the “Mother of Kaiju”, an inapt title as she does not birth the beasts herself, but instead spurs their creation in a series of deepsea trenches scattered throughout the multiverse. In these pressured depths she stokes engines of rapid mutation and accelerated darwanism, wrenching promising examples from their place in the foodchain to hurl out into the ocean at large and observe how they perform. There is vaugery in whether these monsterous emergences are truely the acts of the goddess herself or merely her most sunken and devoted followers spilling out into the wider seas.
Titles: She who is vast and vasterstill, Mother of Kaiju, The devil of the depths, “bitch of the brine” “dancer in currents”
Signs: collected water appearing unaturlaly deep such as in wells, streams, or drinking glasses. The spontaneous growth of coral or tidepool ecologies, aquatic animals developing bioluminescence or other strange
Symbols: A wide vessel overflowing with water, entangled or chimeric sea creatures,
Followers: Those who live far from land, merfolk, trion, kou-toa, and may other creatures of the deep. Biomancers of an aquatic bent, Kaiju groupies.
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: A funeral in a small coastal village is interrupted when a long drowned corpse strides out of the tide to lay claim to the soul of a retired sailor named “Mad” Maddock Yuls. The corpse claims that since Yuls lived his every hour of life beholden to the sea, whether on ship or ashore, the unknowable deeps it acts as mouthpiece for have a greater dominion over the old salt’s afterlife than any gods or congregation his family might have ties to.
As friends, family, and well wishers of the dead, the party must martial themselves as an honor guard for the departed mariner while the rest of the mourners evacuate. It will take the village priest a day and a night to complete the long ritual to commend Mad Maddock’s soul into the care of his chosen god, during which the sea will do it’s best to drag his bones ( along with the chapel itself) into the deep
Challenges and Complications:
Seamonsters, merfolk cultists, the drowned dead. it seems there is nothing the angered sea can’t dredge up and hurl against the party’s tiny impromptu fortress, to say nothing of the worsening storm. The arena the party must defend also changes, as the tide rises, falls, and rises again through the night, the winds slowly reach hurricane force.
The attacks come in waves, sometimes hours in between, and with a lull in the fighting the party must determine whether to split their forces and escort the gathered bereaved to safety, or use this time to investigate Maddock’s life and try to determine where the bond between.
In the final hour before dawn, when the ritual of consecration concludes, the deep will launch its last assault, pulling a wrecked ship from it’s resting place beneath it’s waves and sending it to ram the chapel on the crest of a final wave. The battlefield will once again shift to the deck of this hulk, swarming with ghostly pirates. If one of the heroes fall in this battle, the sea ( at this point speaking through the phantom captain) will proclaim “ I am owed a soul!” and drag its victim overboard, the rest of its minions rallying to protect it’s new claim. Days later the lost partymember will wash ashore, retching up lungs full of seawater and seemingly alive, but with an alien brand upon their palm, and a new master directing them.
Exploring along the seacliffs, the party discovers a tiny, lopsided tower on a promontory overlooking the water. After Investigating they are introduced to a mad old hermit who’s dedicated his life to the goddess of the moon, winds and sea, maintaining the tower as an impromptu observatory, lighthouse, and temple to his patron.
After some pleasantries and an offer of smoked fish and a little brinegrass tea, the hermit invites the players to take part in a ritual to evoke the goddess’s blessing.
The ritual is simple enough: At the appointed time, they must run down the steps from the tower and enter a nearby tidal cave, a network of tunnels worn through the seacliff by centuries of crashing waves. At this point the tidewaters will be at their lowest, and like the clever creatures that make their living by the ebb and flow of the sea, they must snatch up what they can within the cave before the waves return and reclaim all of their bounty. They will have six hours to explore and extract the wonders of the cave, returning up the stairs and present their offering to the hermit when they are done, who in turn will bathe the object(s) in moonlight to determine if their trail was indeed worthy of a divine blessing.
Challenges & Complications:
Attempting to enter the cave at another time or without the pre-trial ritual enacted by the hermit will lead to the party discovering only a small fissure int he rock, barely enough for two of them to stand in elbow to elbow. Both the space and the treasures within are liminal, and exist at the grace of the goddess.
Should the party fail, they will need to wait for a full turning of the moon before they can try again. The Hermit is happy to host them, and may offer cryptic advice for their subsequent attempts.
The caves are full of distractions intended to slow the party in their attempt to find a worthy offering. An early Chamber may have opalescent shells the party will have to laboriously dig out of the sand, while another might contain a tide pool full of numbing urchins. Locked chests full of stones, false maps, phantom sirens to lead the unguarded astray, the cave’s traps grow ever more devious as the party delves within.
Rewards:
The party is free to keep any of the “mundane” treasures found within the sea cave, often manifesting as valuable flotsam, or oceanic magical items. Unlike many other potential offerings, these do not regenerate on subsequent attempts.
It appears the goddess has a sense of humor, or is perhaps a bit loony, as her most potent gifts are often disguised among her obstructions: One chest of stones among many, different only in that it bares her symbol, will turn to silver ore in the moonlight. Waterlogged maps of the caves intended to lead them astray may become maps to undiscovered islands, or to other treasures buried along the coast. Those who listen and perform the ghostly notes of the siren’s song for the hermit may find him singing along, a haunting ballad or a bawdy jig that contain a hint of prophecy: a great reward for those with the wisdom to listen.
At The very back of the Sea cave, in the most dangerous and well guarded chamber there is a scratched and pitted bottle, within which is a wrecked ship rendered in miniature. The Hermit weeps when he sees it, and will tell the party the story of how he was saved from such a wreck by his goddess, and offered his life to her in thanks. He will offer the bottle, but no reward will come immediately, and he will ask the party to return in the cycle of the moon.
When they do, the hermit will greet them as his saviors, and guide them down the stairs to the moonlit beach himself. There he will reveal the bottle, and the tiny model ship within restored by his careful craftsmanship and sailing on a sea of silvery mist. He will remove the stopper, and as the mist flows out of the container it will coalesce into a proud ship with a hull of silvery wood and sails of moonlight. His goddess has found them all worthy, and has gifted them this vessel to do with what they wish.
For his faith, the Hermit has been transformed into a celestial, and is to serve the party as their humble captain. Forever a paired with the ghostly ship and blessed with knowledge enough to sail them across all the seas and to any shore touched by her lunar light . Both he and the vessel can be recalled to the bottle for easy transport, but summoning either requires moonlight ( for the Hermit) or moonlight and a large enough body of water (for the ship).
