Gyula
Goddess of Plagues and the Undead
Lesser Goddess

Epithets:	Barrowqueen, Lady of the Yellow Gauntlets, Feaster of Carrion, the Ravager, Brewer of Plagues
Alignment:	Neutral evil
Symbol:	Yellow cauldron
Color:	Pus yellow
Primary followers:	Assassins, homicidal maniacs, and most free-willed undead
Special mark:	Yellow gauntlets worn by clerics and Knights

     Gyula, one of the first of the True Gods to come to Minarra from Beyond, is a power who delights in her gruesome appearance and foul temperament. Her true form is that of a gaunt, youthful human corpse over six feet in height. The goddess’s skin and eyes are yellowed with jaundice, her razor-sharp nails are a filthy brown, and her wild black hair is tangled and encrusted with grime. Her fine clothes are tattered and rotten, as if they had been left moldering on a dead body for several months. Only her gloves, fashioned from the leather of the stench kine, the cattle of the Five Pits, appear to be in serviceable condition—but their corruption lies within the leather.

     This goddess tends the great yellow cauldron Pustigaal…once an enchanted, mortal-forged source of healing during the Age of Mists, it is now a corrupt instrument of suffering and death. Within this cauldron, the goddess experiments with all manner of plagues, epidemics, and poisons with which to torment the mortal world.

     Gyula is also the ruler of most forms of free-willed undead—save for liches and death knights, the creation of which are now the jealously guarded prerogative of Lazev. Gyula and Ka’arpav the Corrupter each have a small retinue of such undead, but these ancient creatures are relics from the Age of Mists. They are rarely seen by mortals, and act as the heralds and executioners of these dark gods.

    The Barrowqueen often combines her spheres of influence in order to spread her will across Minarra. Corpses of beings killed by her servants—whether by poison, weapon, or disease is immaterial—are raised as undead and sent into the communities of the living to spread suffering and blight. All manner of vermin are her allies as well, for famines caused by rampaging rodents and locusts bring their own sweet kind of death.

     Avatars: The goddess comes to Minarra but very rarely, and never in any form other than her own. It is said that only her mortal servants and her undead hosts can bear the sight of the goddess; most other mortals flee in terror. Her touch is death, from the poisons and diseases that continually leach from the leather of her gauntlets. Victims of the gauntlets take hours or even days to die, and the goddess feeds on the agony as if it were the sweetest wine. If she wishes to claim the life of a mortal quickly (a rare thing indeed), she simply takes it with a dagger of adamant, forged expressly for the purpose.

     Mortal servants: Mortal (that is, living) servants of the Ravager are rare. Clerics and Knights of the Order are very often freelance assassins, and superbly skilled ones at that. They clearly dominate what few assassins’ guilds exist in Minarra, and they are cautious yet enthusiastic in their recruitment methods.

     For much of the year, there are no distinct vestments or uniforms that adorn Gyula’s servants. Aside from the holy symbol of her priests and the elésah of her Knights, the surest way to identify the Barrowqueen’s servants are the yellow gloves they must wear in public at all times. Ceremonial robes of blood red are worn only during formal services, which are irregular and infrequent; the goddess would rather have her people "on the job."

     Having such an intimate relationship with decay and disease will, sooner or later, begin to devour the minds and souls of the faithful as well as their victims. As the years pass, many servants of the Barrowqueen become fixated and even obsessed with death; homicidal mania is, in fact, a common occupational hazard. But this madness is often fatal, since the resulting loss of life spurs the forces of Light to stop the offending priest, no matter the cost. Lingering, wasting diseases also claim a fair number of the faithful.

     Upon becoming a Grace of the Order, Gyula evaluates the methods and body counts of the newly promoted priest. Those that have shown sufficient initiative are provided with a small replica of Pustigaal for their own experimentation and research. The device may be used once per month.

     Followers of the goddess often have an unusual rapport with all manner of vermin, particularly rats. It is not uncommon for ranking members of the Order to have a dozen or so of these creatures as personal servants and spies.

     Worship is held in specially consecrated sewers (if in an urban area) or in any secluded swamp or other fetid area above or below ground. Worship takes the form of human and demi-human sacrifices, ceremonially slain by poison and/or disease. Once dead, the victims are then fed to the congregation’s "sacred devourer": an otyugh, carrion crawler, or other consumer of offal.

     Philosophy/Tenets of Faith: Unlike most of the True Gods, Gyula has little use for philosophy, theology, or any other spiritual pursuit. Those who serve her are enslaved and devoured by their own base impulses; it is the "purity" of that baseness, unsullied by reflection or abstraction, which delights the goddess most. Perhaps her only real teaching is the hatred for the followers of Illovia, the life-affirming goddess of healing; the open warfare between the two Orders has been unremitting for millennia.

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