Goddess of Plague and Ill-Health
Appearance and Nature: Scholars also agree on the appearance of this Goddess as well; to them, their speculations just make sense. This Goddess is likely to appear as either a diseased woman with open sores, etc. or as a disease carrying rat. This Goddess is much more interested in the human world than her Nature out of Balance counterpart who sees people as tools or simply part of the environment she wishes to pervert and warp. To this Goddess, her primary focus is people. However, like her counterpart, she wants continuous suffering rather than extinction which would deprive her of her ‘toys’…. Thus, her plagues tend to weaken and cause suffering rather than kill (however, the goal of the plague could be to kill the children to cause the suffering of the parents or to kill a substantial number of people in order to weaken a society that opposes her aims…..). Likewise, this Goddess encourages ill health. It can be on the level of poor sanitation that wears away at people’s health or to encouraging activities that damage health but seem pleasurable (drug use, alcoholism, use of other substances that cause health problems….). In short, if it causes suffering for people, this Goddess or her servants are likely behind it….
Symbol: (as shown) - a rat
Followers: There are, of course, those people who help this Goddess unknowingly. These are the people who unintentionally cause the conditions that plague and sickness thrive in – even though their intent was not to cause plague, it was their intent to save money….that lead to those poor conditions. There are also those people who intentionally cause the conditions that lead to poor health and sickness – whether it is to weaken an enemy, ‘keep the poor in their place’, or just out of sheer spitefulness. It is this latter group that provides recruits for her priesthood.
Priests: The priests of this Goddess are quite subtle. They often masquerade as healers or activists who wish to ‘root out corruption’ or as advisors to city leaders. In this role, they can often discredit those people who can truly heal or improve conditions. When they do heal someone, it is usually just enough to prevent his/her death; but there are always ‘lingering effects’ that are due to that ‘witch that lives down the street’ or government leaders adding chemicals to the water…..whatever conspiracy theory has the most chance of slowly wearing down the community. Thus, it is no surprise that these priests can both heal and harm. However, the healing is always incomplete. Harmful spells range from causing sickness and infirmity to being able to command and summon swarms of vermin. It is rumoured that higher level priests can transform themselves and trusted followers into: rats, giant rats, and rat/human hybrids. Again, all of these theories are supposition and even the scholars fear that some of this information is misdirection from this cult despite the scholars’ best efforts….
Opposing Gods: Lord of Health and Lady of Healing.
Symbol: (as shown) - a rat
Followers: There are, of course, those people who help this Goddess unknowingly. These are the people who unintentionally cause the conditions that plague and sickness thrive in – even though their intent was not to cause plague, it was their intent to save money….that lead to those poor conditions. There are also those people who intentionally cause the conditions that lead to poor health and sickness – whether it is to weaken an enemy, ‘keep the poor in their place’, or just out of sheer spitefulness. It is this latter group that provides recruits for her priesthood.
Priests: The priests of this Goddess are quite subtle. They often masquerade as healers or activists who wish to ‘root out corruption’ or as advisors to city leaders. In this role, they can often discredit those people who can truly heal or improve conditions. When they do heal someone, it is usually just enough to prevent his/her death; but there are always ‘lingering effects’ that are due to that ‘witch that lives down the street’ or government leaders adding chemicals to the water…..whatever conspiracy theory has the most chance of slowly wearing down the community. Thus, it is no surprise that these priests can both heal and harm. However, the healing is always incomplete. Harmful spells range from causing sickness and infirmity to being able to command and summon swarms of vermin. It is rumoured that higher level priests can transform themselves and trusted followers into: rats, giant rats, and rat/human hybrids. Again, all of these theories are supposition and even the scholars fear that some of this information is misdirection from this cult despite the scholars’ best efforts….
Opposing Gods: Lord of Health and Lady of Healing.