Gouhr
 God of the Underworld
Intermediate God

Epithets: The One Eye, Lord of the Underworld, Speaker of the Unholy Congress  
Alignment: Neutral evil
Symbols: A single reptilian eye; morning star
Colors: Brown and black
Primary followers: Evil races of the underworld: drow, duergar, derro, etc.

     Gouhr, unlike his dignified and dapper Overlord, is a god whose ugliness of spirit is suitably enveloped in his grotesque form. Fifteen feet tall, vaguely humanoid, and massively muscled, the reptilian body of the god is squat and slightly twisted, as if pressed beneath the weight of the world above. His skin of gray-green scales is mottled and creased. The highlights of the god’s countenance are a mouth riddled with thin, razor sharp teeth, and a single reptilian eye of golden hue.

    Gouhr dresses in little save a loincloth of red dragon hide and a luxurious fur cloak. The latter is a curiously attractive affair, until one realizes that is fashioned from the hides of pegasi, unicorns, ki-rin, and other such noble subjects of Ehlaar.

     Though the god of the underworld is undeniably pompous, arrogant, and prone to violence, he has not made a serious challenge for the Ebon Scepter since before the close of the Astarith. Sages speculate that even though Gouhr might have the desire, he may not have the will; only a concerted effort of all the House of Darkness could guarantee the overthrow of Lazev, and the allegiance of the other Powers of the House never seems to be forthcoming. But not to worry; Gouhr’s dominion of the underworld has never been questioned by mortal or god.

    The constant companion and favorite plaything of the One Eye is the morning star called Vulgahriz. This terrible weapon is carved from a single chunk of a dusty yellow topaz indigenous to the Five Pits. The weapon is studded with two rows of spikes on opposite sides of its head: one row is of mithril, the other of adamant. It is said that any being struck with the mithril spikes are reduced to a hollow glassine statue of surprising beauty and incredible fragility; Gouhr takes a positive delight in smashing these statues when he gets around to it. Those stuck by the spikes of adamant suffer the hideous loss of a limb as it shrivels to dust. When dealing with his enemies in the Pits, Gouhr engages in combat with rare gusto; he will swing his precious Vulgahriz with wild abandon, caring not a whit whether a stray shot smashes an allied skull or not.

     Avatars: Gouhr generally disdains to appear before mortals in any form save his own—and this he does on a regular schedule. Gouhr, unlike any other True God of Minarra, has a worldly office that he fills personally. That office is known to mortals as the Speaker of the Unholy Congress.

     Once every hundred years, from across the four continents, Gouhr summons the highest-ranking priests of each subject race to the Caverns of Gloom, deep beneath the plain where the True Gods sealed the Covenant and first issued the Astarith to the New Races of Minarra. One chamber of the Cavern, guarded for the duration of the Congress by a legion of yugoloth, has been crafted by the drow and duergar into a huge assembly hall of the blackest basalt. Once gathered, the four Cruelties of the Order herald the arrival of their divine master, who then calls the Congress into session.

     The Congress lasts for only three days, for the True Gods will not permit the avatar of any of their number to remain in Minarra for one moment longer. Therefore, in order to make the most of the allotted time, Gouhr enables the delegates to function without sleep.

     During the Congress, or so it is rumored, plans are hatched for expanding the domains of the god and interracial disputes are settled with brutal and bloody finality. And, of course, lavish praise and sacrifices are bestowed upon the Speaker in gratitude for the dank and dismal homes that only he could provide for his faithful. The whole affair is said to be raucous, violent, and steeped in subterfuge and deceit as each subject race vies for favors from the god at the expense of their neighbors.

     Mortal Servants: As already inferred, the clerics and Knights of the Order are sharply divided across racial lines. Save for the (sometimes challenged, ignored, or bypassed) authority of the Cruelty, the remainder of the god’s servants answer to Gouhr first, their superiors among their own kind second. Each faction does their utmost to see that their people have the most and best of scarce resources and living space. The more ruthless and imaginative the methods, the better the god likes it…but his favoritism rarely lasts for long, a fact which keeps his servants ever busy.

     The vestments of the average Adept of the Order are simple robes dyed a deep brown, with a black wrap about the waist. A Grace of the Order is also cloaked in black, and both cloak and waistband are trimmed in yellow. The Cruelty’s appearance is made unique by his waistband of solid yellow. Clerics and Knights of all ranks are also required to don a helm or skullcap of black iron in all public places and during all rites. Further, all members of the Order are trained from youth to wield the morning star, and have the weapon proficiency at 1st level.

     Gouhr has few worshipers among the New Races. Those few there are serve the Speaker as spies, informants, and middlemen for what little trade transpires between Gouhr’s realm and the surface world. Such beings are expected to report the activities of any that would enter the underworld without leave—especially the average group of adventurers. These rare individuals can usually speak the Common tongue of the subterranean world, and are sometimes gifted with either infravision at a 60’ range, or infravision at double the normal range if the being possesses it naturally.

     Philosophy/Tenets of Faith: As befitting his neutral though evil nature, Gouhr’s teachings embody the clashing philosophies of Law and Chaos in a peculiarly bloody fashion. Organization, laws, and customs should exist only within the confines of one’s own race, for it is through the race that the individual vies for wealth, power, food, and even air within the confined limits of the god’s dreary realm. Only cruel and callous cultures can forge a race strong enough and devious enough to compete for scarce resources, and this competition can only be waged by bloody disorders and the brutal use of a host of weapons—weapons of the mind, of the magic, of the gods.

     For the individual, this translates to the belief that anything that increases one’s power is acceptable if it helps preserve the skin of you and yours. Eliminating weak or incompetent superiors, hoarding wealth, and waging war against those of different blood are all worthy means, since survival of the self and the race is the goal. And if you can aggrandize yourself in the process, so much the better…