5th Edition,  D&D,  Monday Mythology,  RPG,  World Building

Kashua, Accursed of Blood

Kashua, Accursed of Blood

Other Titles: Bloody One, She the All Seeing, The Final Breath

Alignment: NE

Weapon: Sickle ( Dream Sever)

Major Domains: Blood, Dying, Divination

Minor Domains:  Famine, Bad Omens, Harvest

Totem Animal: Vulture

Holy Symbol: A single, bright red blood drop, often stylized, with the drop encasing a howling skull. Sometimes this is worn on a necklace or a bracelet, but it is worn as a circlet as well, with the blood drop settling between the eyes.

Favored Appearances: Kashua is often seen walking the earth, but it is not a pleasant tiding. Her favorite form of a wizened old man or woman tend to share the same features. Long, dying gray hair with cataract covered eyes, hunching over a walking stick of some sort. Both have lost most of their teeth and seem to be at the end of their lives. They always seem to be followed by vultures as if to telegraph their imminent demise. Both speak slowly and deliberately, never lying or attempting to deceive the listener. Her appearance in an area spooks the locals, who see in her both the coming of fall and the signs of the first frost in her footsteps both portents of the hard winter to follow.

Warform: A vulture of great size, as all warforms, hers is composed of solid rock, somehow afloat on the air none the less. Its Beak and Talons are sharp and made of obsidian while her feathers are carved in intricate patterns, often with shrieking faces being visible. She tends to lead armies on recon missions and attempts to outflank and out maneuver. with her ability to divine the future, she is always a great assett.

Personality:  The Accursed of Blood is a solitary individual. She keeps to herself and makes no lasting bonds with others. She is selfish and needy, as well, requiring attention from whoever seeks her out, and desiring to keep what she has attained for herself. Those who follow her and revere her offer up to her enormous amount of blood as sacrificial offers, and she receives it all, regardless of source. She has a small conflict with Ariannas, the Paltonarch of Banditry and violence due to the amount of unconsecrated blood she spills and wastes on a daily basis. Her association with the Accursed comes from the sly words of Ferosh, who brought to her awareness her vital connection to all the creatures in the world and that without her, without her massive power, their would be no life! She took this to heart and believes that the wrongs she is suffering now are the fault of the Paltonarchs not acknowledging the primacy of the younger gods, and the fault and blame of all the decisions made since then lies squarely on the four gods of the Elements.

Teachings: Kashua’s Teachings are fairly straight forward. She is the lifeblood of all living beings. As the Goddess of both Blood and Harvest, she has the ability to kill with a single displeasure. She is also the god of dying: not death, or the afterlife, simply the act of passage between one form of existence and the other. She believes that life is a choice and that if you so desire both suicide and death in combat or some such other means is a glorious, well deserved, end. To honor the goddess of blood is with living sacrifices, swift harvest and bloody deaths. What was once a well respected and admired following have now become ostracized on the outskirts of society.

Abode: Kashua lives in the Avra Geldura,  the old tongue phrase that roughly translates the beginning of blood. A dark maroon wooden structure deep within the mercury and Lead swamps in the heart of the Iron Marches, it is from here that she makes her stories and attacks deep into the contested lands.

Cultists: Those who follow Kashua are branded as lunatics and heretics among their societies.  Believing that bleeding out their sacrificial victims and letting them expire over the longest space of time will assist in harvests and prevent Famine, they are only sought out in the very worst of times to either alleviate plague or to bring a much needed boost to an ailing crop.  with their ability to divine the cause of the problems and the best possible outcome, they can spell out the best way to appease the goddess. Often demanding the the best and largest animal with the most blood for sacrifce, and have been known to bleed out animals for hours before letting them expire. Often, these fanatics are lone hermits in the deepest parts of the woods or high in the hills simply to perform their devotions to their chosen god in peace.

Clerical Attire/colors:  The colors of the goddess of blood are lighter tans and grays, with a rope of blood red or deep maroon around the waist. Their worship and sacrificial robes are very different, with each drop of  blood bringing character to the sacrificial robes. Priests often wield no weapons and carry no arms but a single sacrificial sickle that is used to open veins and arteries.

Followers: Most of her followers are loners and hermits, with a few doctors, teachers and farmers mixed in. Warriors and assassins also often worship her, so that when the day comes, their blood may work their way into her already massive power and grant them status in the afterlives.

Few Succeed.