I've read this great bit of lore by @y-rhywbeth2 on how the justice system "works" and how most Banites and Bhaalists managed to get away with a slap on the wrist or just avoid punishment at all by making Gortash and Orin the scapegoats - and that it's normal because you can't persecute evil god followers too hard, lest you get punished by their gods for messing with their flock. So, if some influential Bhaal or Bane worshippers get caught in action, the city higher-ups may arrange some damage control: make evidence "disappear", remove suspects from the prison, make some random the key suspect, let the case be handled by a specially designated magistrate. And it's a common practice.
It's a fascinating (and infuriating) piece of lore all by itself (also reveals what Astarion might have been doing during his magistrate years). And it also enables my shameless thoughts on how Hoar followers and Doombringers apply to such developments. Because, according to the lore, they don't. give. a fuck.
Most of Hoar's faithful spent their time wandering the Heartlands, aiding those who suffered grave injustices and praying for those in need of vengeance. The church's clergy actively sought victims of injustice out to take in their stories and investigate the crimes. When Hoarites evaluated the veracity of victims' accounts, they sought the criminals and dispensed the "essential justice." The fitting justice delivered by Hoar's clergy could be as small or as grand as the crime demanded. Tyrists and town watches often branded Hoar's clerics as vigilantes. This disapproval from the Church of Tyr pushed the reputation of the Church of Hoar to prominence among commoners as the patrons of the downtrodden.
So, what I read from this, is that if you're a Banite noblewoman who bought her way out of responsibility and made some poor sod hang from the gallows instead of you, you can try throwing your money at the guy in the silver mask all you want; he has a leaden plate with your name on it and the daughter of the man who died a scapegoat for your crime, his name tarnished forever, wants you to pay in a way that matters.
Banite noble: "Y-you, you wouldn't dare! Don't you know who I am? Don't you know what they'll do to you for this?! There will be consequences! You will pay for this, you hear me?!"
Yo, I didn't expect the game to mention my boy Hoar in any capacity
Imagine my surprise when it did:
Naturally, that tiny cameo means it's legit for me to shamelessly spam headcanons on Jerra's possible connection to Hoar.
Of course, I had to choose the most cringe edgelord/most edgy cringelord among the Forgotten Realms pantheon that is Hoar, the Doombringer, and the Poet of Justice. I’m not even joking here: Hoar is an angry petty bitch who sits in his edgy domain with booming thunders and heads on pikes while being salty about not getting a god of war portfolio in Unther. Like, this is meme is not a meme in Hoar's case, this how he probably talks:
Needless to say, Hoar's followers are just as cringe, brooding in their temples, remembering their grievances and planning their revenge. On top of that, he is the former exarch of Bane and the buddy of Beshaba (the goddess of misfortune and bad luck who ruins people's lives for the most insignificant of reasons).
So, Jerra is certainly not his faithful follower or loyal paladin. If she was, let's just say Astarion would not have gotten away with pulling a knife on her that easily. Also, him trying to bite her at night? Hoar would be pissed off at Jerra telling Astarion off and then letting him sink his fangs into her anyway. As a good devout, Jerra would be expected to bite the vampire's neck in return because Hoar's direct dogma is all about following Equally Matched Aggression standards to an extreme.
But in a world where everyone is influenced by deities and follows some (because the alternative is the Wall of the Faithless and you do NOT want to be condemned to the Wall) Jerra praying and leaving offerings to the Poet of Justice still makes sense, both in the context of her actions and even her acceptance of Astarion.
+ His tenets are actually pretty based. Violence begets violence, but kindness is repaid with kindness. Treat people like you want to be treated, don't commit evil acts for the sake of evil because this path leads to ruin and self-destruction. Meaningful gestures and actions matter more than words.
+ There are several different churches of Hoar scattered across Faerun, each squabbling over who understands Hoar best. So, there is a lot of in-fighting going on, which gives plausibility to the idea of more watered-down followers just minding their own business and keeping away from more intense brothers and sisters in Hoar.
+ Hoar is not that worried about looking righteous or valorous. It’s the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law, that must be upheld. So, it’s not about you looking good when you deliver the vengeance the person deserves. It’s about sending a message. Accordingly, poetic justice is encouraged. Yes, killing the duergar who enslaved a Deep Gnome and made him serve them drinks is good. But lacing the drinks he serves with deadly poison, so the slavers die vomiting their own blood and guts after smugly grabbing mugs from their captive's hands and laughing in his face? Wonderful. Priceless. Deserved.
+ Probably most important: Hoar doesn't mind the undead. At least, he doesn't seem to abhor them like Tyr or other gods of goodness, and his clergy has a rather interesting approach to the undead and necromancy. The dead deserve to be heard and avenged just like the living. Doombringers (the elite battle priests of Hoar) can raise the corpses of victims who died with the wish for vengeance on their lips as revenants - nothing is better than beating a murderer or a serial killer to death with the crowd of raging revenants who lost their lives because of them. Also, if a Doombringer is killed unfairly, they, too, rise as a revenant as a final "fuck you" to their murderer. But Hoar's tolerance for the undead doesn't stop there. The lore even mentions a vampire follower of Hoar (on the bad guys' side, but still). So, even if Jerra merely follows the diluted image of Hoar shaped by her mentor, she is used to speaking with the dead and didn't bat an eye at He Who Was when she first met him. Accordingly, it was relatively easier for her to think outside the box with Astarion and judge him through the prism of his deeds instead of his nature. Her philosophy is less about "there are inherently evil creatures that are KOS and inherently good creatures that deserve multiple second chances" and more about "there are many evil things in the world, lots of them are less obvious than the others"
In general, I don't think that Jerra draws her paladin powers from Hoar. Even though she ends up with several huge grudges against the Absolute, Raphael (when she promised to rip out his mocking tongue, it wasn't an empty threat), and the Emperor (oh she does NOT like the Emperor), she is still way too forgiving and patient to be a full-blown Hoarite. She pays her respects, certainly: her mentor followed the Poet of Justice, which was why they even met - all the time while the Flaming Fist and City Watch, the seemingly dedicated followers of Tyr and Helm, looked the other way. But her Oath was to herself, first and foremost.
However, if Hoar was more chill, I would have headcanonned that Jerra draws powers from his domain, which confused him greatly when it happened for the first time, but then he decided to allow it in a "Listen, if this mortal is so dedicated to her idea of vengeance, she raged her way into my domain, this is going to be good" way.
Not now suicidal ideations, I'm looking at my OC's outfit
I'm generally sad that I can't keep this armor for Jerra for the entire game (not without missing out the delicious Adamantine Scale Mail bonuses) because it fits her best thematically and through her color scheme. It's simple, yet cool in its simplicity, it doesn't suddenly go GOLD in Black and Furnace Red dye and this color scheme fits the one preferred by the Hoar's church members:
"The ceremonial attire of the priests of Hoar consisted of a black tunic over a long gray robe, with gloves of soft black leather. When on an official "hunt," they donned masks of surreal design that concealed their faces. Around their waists, they wore dark-red sashes with silver borders; priests often kept trophies or tokens of past victories attached to this."
I imagine that while Astarion would stand at this spot early each morning to see and bask in the sunrise surrounded by all that amazing scenery, Jerra would be visiting that spot each time there is as much as a hint of a storm cloud in the sky, just in case she gets to see a thunderstorm.
Concerning disgusting, absolutely self-indulgent, and anything-but-lore-friendly headcanons, I can't help but feel sad that Hoar is not actually what I imagine him to be (for fun), every once in a while: a more successful and morally ambiguous version of Disney's Hades behavior-wise. Same charisma, same wit, same temper tantrums, same I-have-a-job-gods-don't-give-a-shit-about, more willingness to engage in a little bit of trolling to piss other deities off and get his point across.
Like, the guy has Tyr and Shar competing over him - one wants him to be the Poet of Justice, and the other wants him to embrace the edgy and cringe to the fullest.
Imagine him passive-aggressively guilt-tripping Tyr whenever his followers do things Tyr's paladins can't and cock-teasing Shar just out of the sweet, sweet spite - while being very supportive of his mortal followers anytime they pull off some vigilante-level shit and manage to make it fun.
Don't get me wrong, I love this edgelord - as cringe, as he is, I still find him not as bad as other deities (they suck), and I know that if he was tweaked to have a bit more depth, he'd be insanely popular. But I'd rather give him that depth myself, by using the bits of lore and filling the gaps.
Hoar: Oh, so when Mystra almost destroys thousands of mortal souls across the Sword Coast by turning them into mind flayers, she doesn't even get a slap on the wrist. When Kelemvor and Helm fuck up and let the Dead Three run amok again, they let Jergal overwrite the rules of life and death. When Selune lets her daughter get tortured in Shadowfell for centuries, it's considered good parenting. But when I extend someone's lifespan for the greatest vengeance sequence of all time, suddenly I am the bad guy?
Helm/Kelemvor/Tyr/Mystra/Selune: You did what?
Hoar: Ooh, did I say it out loud? My bad.*double flips the gathering before fucking off to his realm*
