The Elf God is a Hedonist God

An esoteric god is the god of the elves. They do not have a name for it. Their word for their deity is Tal'Moray, the Parent Glorious, for that is what this god is. If they never had a tongue of their own, this deity would simply be called God, Father, Mother, or Ancestor.

Beauty Watches

Tal'Moray did not shape elves out of clay nor did they birth them nor did they twist them out of spittle and thread. Instead, God was wounded and from that wound came the Blood of Life and where it landed there awoke elves, their minds full of knowledge and their blood full of divinity. God has no angels for elves occupy the space of man, angel, and nephilim all at once. But what an elf is will not be further discussed in this post.

God's words created poetry, for everything they say is in the form of stanza and all languages of beasts and nature descend from it. Thus Tal'Moray is That Whom Spoke First as well as The Old Poet and Friend of Beast & Oak. They have no single form save for that of a humanoid and they are not bound to it as elves are. Instead God can choose to become pregnant or to become the impregnator, can wrap themselves up in silk and take the form of any beast or child, and can dye their skin and hair any color that they wish.

From Tal'Moray's back springs a four pairs of butterfly wings, each closer and closer to his spine, made out of a purple-gold aurora that flickers as flame does and holds the eye as captive as stars at night. Father, Mother, and Ancestor is the God of Butterflies, of Rebirth, of Death-Without-Dying, of Auroras, of Hypnotism, and of Beauty, and of Silk, and of Caterpillars, and of Change, and of Vanity, and of Ugliness.

From Tal'Moray's eyes flow golden waterfalls. Where they drop, riches and wealth appears in the form of beauty and seasons. God is the Father of Spring, Mother of Summer, Lover of Fall, and Mourner of Winter. All fey courts are born from these tears, which come from the simultaneously boundless happiness and grief that grasps Tal'Moray's heart. Having seen all beauties blossom and die at once, how can one not feel bitter-sweet? Thus they are They Whose Heart Aches Most Passionately and They Whose Love Kisses Most Passionately all at once. The fey courts capture only shards of this emotion, leaving them single-note but extreme.

Playfulness and trickery at not inherit facets of God. It is evanescent, fading, The Lover of Fire, the Teacher of Waves, the Wind Brother, the Storm Sister. To witness God is to see the miracle of beauty and death and beauty-come-again. Elves lose their shape and become blessed with the ability to shift sex and feature. Fey understand emotion deeper and rise to become Lords and Ladies. Men go mad and spout nonsense poetry for the rest of their lives and dwarves turn to gold-veined stone on the spot.

Above all, the elf god is a hedonist god. It must feel pleasure and it must feel grief and all else is sacrificed for these things to be felt. You are expendable--a tool, an ingredient, a building block to give Tal'Moray the chance to feel something. In this way, It Is The Aristocrat, The Superior, and all else playthings for its amusement.

d10 Signs that Tal'Moray is Nearby

1. Flowers open, wither, die, and bloom again with golden petals.
2. The sun shines abnormally brightly, blinding any non-beast.
3. The season abruptly changes, not shifting back until God is no longer near by.
4. Animals suddenly gain incredible artistic intelligence and begin speaking poetry.
5. Trees appear unusually humanoid and beautiful, almost enticingly so.
6. Colors become abnormally vivid, to the point that it's as if you've taken psychedelics.
7. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of butterflies of virtually every variety swarm the area.
8. Caterpillars mass-produce cocoons and turn into gems inside of them.
9. Lovers find their bonds inflamed and those mourning or in grief are inconsolable.
10. Visible scar tissue turns into gold, gem, or glass.

How to Describe Glimpsing Tal'Moray

Your heart skips a beat and you feel so blindingly happy that it makes you cry, no, sob. Your tears feel like the kiss of rain, and each breath is brisk as winter mint. There, between the trees, limbs draped over the branches like a child on a jungle gym, sits Father, Monster, and Ancestor, all at once, golden, brilliant, crying, watching, killing.

Then you wipe away the tears and you are gone.

When you glimpse Tal'Moray you have a 4-in-6 chance of suffering fey madness. If you're some type of fey this is a 2-in-6 chance and if you're an elf, you have a 1-in-6 chance. 

Fey Madness

Your alignment becomes Chaotic Neutral. Whenever a creature asks for your aid, roll a d20. On a 10 + your Charisma modifier or lower, you agree to help that person, but sabotage everything in the process. 

Blessings of Tal'Moray

1. You can the ability to adapt to your environment. You roll and add an additional d10 to any saving throw or skill check that deals with the environment.
2. You become incredibly beautiful, no matter your flaws. Your Charisma modifier doubles.
3. You gain the ability to change your sex after 8 hours of meditation. Your entire appearance changes as a result. If you become pregnant as a female, you cannot swap again until you give birth.
4. Your empathy becomes boundless. You always know the source of a creature's mental pain or happiness, and add a d10 roll to see through lies.
5. Butterflies and caterpillars protect you. If poisoned, you have a 2-in-6 chance of a butterfly sprinkling you with dust that serves as an antidote after 8 hours. If your equipment is damaged, caterpillars use silk to repair it over a course of 8 daylit hours.
6. You learn the voice of beast and nature. There is a 1-in-6 chance of beasts or natural elements having a conversation with you when spoken too.
7. When you die, you'll be reborn inside of a massive silk cocoon. Your new form will be of a different race entirely.
8. You can always predict the weather up to 10 days in advance and have a 1-in-6 chance of persuading it to change.
9. When kissing someone else, there is a 1-in-6 chance they fall in love with you. If you ever hurt them in any way, they become your greatest enemy, and actively plot your death.
10. Your eyes begin to hypnotically change colors every few seconds. You can see what others find beautiful, pleasing, or enjoyable.

Hymns and Oaths

This is how I think of paladins.

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There can never be more than 12 of them. They sing hymns to themselves and when they gather that is called a Choir. Their hymns are the basis for many cultural songs.

Eowyn is the perfect example of a paladin.

They do not always swear themselves to gods but they must make oaths all the same. The oath is their power. The oath is made when the would-be paladin is truly broken, but unlike the Warlock who swears away their soul out of desperation, the Paladin makes a pact out of love. They Paladin does not need power and they do not ask for it. They do not ask for anything. They simply commit themselves to whatever they swear to.

And as for what they swear themselves to, there are many possibilities. Gods, yes, but monarchs and rulers too; philosophies, ideals, emotions; family members, their lost loves, the graves of their sons and the mementos of their wives. Many of these vows are more powerful than the orders of gods. To tie a Paladin to something as fickle and inhuman as a diety is to underestimate just how devoted the Paladin is. And from their devotion comes power.

It is common to believe that Clerics weave miracles. They do not. The Paladin is the one that makes the impossible possible. Joan de Arc cured cancer and made lost wars won. Eowyn destroyed the indestructible Witch-King. King Arthur pulled the sword from the stone and built a kingdom. Miracles, man. Miracles.

To distill this all into one paragraph:

Bloody to the shoulder and still running through the ranks for her son, fatigue and wounds both fade from her mind. A sunburst followed by holy hymns--stepping out of the crater is that which survived the dragon's death fall. A war of 1 against 100 and victory appears on the horizon; the Horizon is all this and more. The Paladin is kneeling before their lord or their idol or their philosophy or even the tombstones of their families and swearing to them, making an oath, that they will perform a miracle to change the world in their honor. With sword and shield and blessed honor, they fight.

Crifoth Campaign: The last 7 Days

I'm going to be running a Crifoth campaign starting a little over a week from now, complete with the two creators in it. The idea is that, in this post-apocalyptic hell world ruled by devils, they are the last four humans alive. They wake up to this knowledge and being told that they have 7 days left to live--therefore rendering humanity extinct. The campaign will last 7 sessions, with each session being a day.

Dope poster made by Jake for me

Since the book isn't done and only the playtest is out, I have a whoooooole lot of material I can interject. Basically about to take the setting and make it extremely Marquis. What does that mean? Basically pump up the mysticism, divination, and weird symbology shit to 11, then put that all into a "Theatre of Blood," ala Blood Meridian. I'll be running it on the MTD Twitch channel.

I'm thinking in order to make it Marquis, I want to have a random table, and I want that table to be extreme. So, here's draft 1 of it. I'll refine it and tool it over the next week, replacing some entries or sharpening them. The table is broken into themed chunks.

1-5=Deadly Apocalyptic Magic Environs.
6-10=Encounters with races
11-15=Spiritual shit
16-19=Demonic shit. These will all be "You encounter X" where X is a named Archdevil.
20=Roll twice and both happen events happen at once.

The Ravaged Wasteland of Crifoth: Haunting Visions & Hellish Torments Table

Roll 1d4 times on the table below. Incorporate each into the session. If something is rerolled, make an edit to it so that it is more extreme, more nebulous, or more psychotic.

1. River-long oil slick cuts through the blood sands. Looking into its rainbow-blackness gives one a vision of someone else's brutal death and immediate cannibalism. The next 1d6 wounds suffered by the seer deal 1 point of damage, and the one immediately after that drops one to 1 hit point.
2. A deathstorm musters on the horizon. Filled with undead (Storm Sharks is my fill in name for them). See a sandstorm where the sand is all pitch black, with flashes of red lightning inside of it. Every turn inside of the deathstorm without shelter requires a DC 19 Con save or you suffer 2d20 damage in the form of a previous wound. At 0 HP, automatically die.
3. An abandoned human factory filled with 660 cannibalized corpses and 6 Hunters aimlessly haunting the place. DC 19 Stealth check must be made when exploring or Hunters will latch onto humans and lead fiends to them within 48 hours.
4. Literal mountain of corpses 5 miles high visible in the distance. Poisons air and sand around it for 100 miles. If something drops to below half hit points while close to the mountain, every 10 minutes they must make a DC 19 Dexterity Save or be grappled by undead hands bursting from ground. If grapple isn't broken by end of next turn, hands teleport the grapple into the massive mountain of corpses, where they are crushed to death after 1d6 turns if they don't succeed on 2 additional DC 19 Strength checks.
5. It begins to rain tainted water over a 50 mile area, making the blood run out of the sand. Everything is difficult terrain and blood-drenched quicksand. If still in rain-zone after 1 hour, DC 19 Strength save is required, with failure resulting in being grappled by the sand and slowly sinking. Then every 6 seconds (turn) afterwards, another save must be made. If 3 saves failed, the grapple is considered restrained and is drowning in the blood sand at the end of next turn.
6. 66 Incarnum are waging war against 600 petty demons. Random elemental magics are breaking and reshaping the surrounding world. Every 10 minutes spent within 10 miles of the battlefield, one of the following things occurs: 1. Tall, black cliffs rise from the ground and waterfalls of bloodsand pour over them 2. Tornadoes appear from nowhere, filled with chunks of demon 3. The temperature spikes to 100* C for 1 minute before dropping back down 4. A flash flood of black ichor quickly sweeps the sands before disappearing 1 minute later.
7. 666 Ssuri are painting themselves in blood-mud and preparing to launch a raid on a nearby Devil City. Roll a d6 for their reaction to the party 1. Food 2. Mates 3. Weapons 4. Ill Omens 5. Good Fortune 6. Sacrifices
8. 660 dead blood knights and 6 living ones surround the corpse of an Archdevil. They are consuming its heart and swelling in power. Roll a d6 for their reaction to the party. 1. Silent astonishment; continue eating 2. Defensive of their meal; still eating 3. Hungry for more; will ambush party when they leave 4. Sane and explaining what happened; still eating 5. Weeping for their lost ones and spoiling for a fight; still eating 6. Finished eating; preparing to devour each other. 12 hours later an Archdevil will attack the party if tieflings not killed.
9. Orc War Party scream rage-prayers and dance around black fires. Roll a d6 for their reaction to the party. 1. Welcoming if they join in their rituals 2. Testing; will challenge them to 1 on 1 combats 3. Afraid; sees them as gods and watch but won't interact 4. Afraid; sees them as ill omens and will hunt party until campaign ends 5. Sees them as valuable war assets 6. Takes them to Spiritual Leader, has their fates read, and then kicks them out of camp
10. Traveling band of 6 ash elves. Will ignore the party but follow them silently. Every day, 1-in-6 chance that another band of 6 ash elves appear and trail the party. If party is about to die, roll a reaction die to see what happens. 1. Ash elves intervene, killing whatever is killing the party. 2. Ash elves kill the party and then the aggressor, consuming both and using their blood to regain magic. 3. Ash elves cry blood tears and resurrect the party after danger has left. Ash elves will be mysteriously gone 4. Ash elves flood the area with oil, granting everyone in the party the benefits of the river-long oil slick 5. Ash elves commit ritual suicide en masse and restore the parties blood and grit points to maximum, as well as any cooldowns. 6. Ash elves begin to sing. 66 Incarnum appear and begin to kill everything in sight.
11. Four spectral riders can always be seen on a blood-dune in the distance for the next 48 hours (or until the 7 days ends). Every day, a different party member gains the ability to cast one of the following spells once. Roll d4 for spell 1. Dream (only on Archdevils) 2. Meteor Swarm 3. Illusory Dragon 4. Psychic Scream. Spell DC for all spells is 24.
12. Half of the sun disappears. The world is bathed in perpetual twilight for 24 hours as planet ceases to turn. PCs regenerate half their blood points immediately after combat.
13. Gods are watching, for however brief a time. The night sky is clearly arranged into unique and hyper-defined constellations. Fiends had disadvantage on all attack rolls for 12 hours 
14. The petrified bodies of human monks in meditation are humming "Ohm" in unison. All exhaustion is removed within 10 miles of these dead monks. The exhaustion returns back at 1 point per hour once area is left.
15. All water is replaced by oil. When drank, see through the eyes of any Archdevils that know of your existence.
16. You encounter Jupiter.
17. You encounter the Demon of Song.
18. You encounter the Oil Slick Death Angel.
19. You encounter Malice.
20. Roll two options and combine them.