Campaign Design - The Lords of Hell: Bål

Bål

Lord of the Baleful Eye; Evil Prince of Earth, The Iron Lord; The Devourer; The Terror Below; Demon Lord of Gluttony, Decay, Ratmen, and the Dark Places Under the Earth

Alignment: Neutral Evil.
Cleric Domains: Catastrophe, Cavern, Earth, Gluttony, Iron, Subterranean.
Unholy Warrior Domains: Earth, Gluttony, Horror.

Summon Monster: Bål's clerics and favored souls can summon magma and terran creatures using summon monster spells.

Symbol: A lidless eye.
Favored Weapon: "The carving knife" (falchion).
Related Classes: Unholy Warrior.
Related Prestige Classes: Champion of the Dark Seven, Servant of Bål.

Bål is a mountain of fat, a huge and corpulent gnawing beast with a blinded right eye. All he touches rots, withers, crumbles, or rusts away, and is then put into the gaping maw of the ravenous creature. He is the lord of the slytheen, as the ratmen are in awe of his perpetual hunger. The gaze of his poisonous left eye is deadly enough to kill any living thing he looks at, and the lid of the eye is so heavy that it required four of the strongest ratman warriors to lift it for him. Bål is eternally ravenous, and consumes everything he comes across, but no matter how much he eats, he is never satiated.

Before the War for Heaven, Bål had two eyes, and his gaze slew his enemies by the score until Yng shot out his right eye with an arrow, causing Bål to stumble which allowed Þunor to cast him down from Heaven. Now Bål hates both Yng and Þunor, and his followers and Yng’s followers are mortal enemies. When he was cast down, Bål's might was so great that he had to be crushed beneath a mighty mountain to prevent him from escaping. The mountain is slowly being destroyed from within by Bål's malevolent touch, and when he struggles to free himself, he is said to cause earthquakes.

Bål's priests pay honor to the Demon Lord's voracious and destructive nature, seeking to bring forth their inner bestial nature. Worship of Bål is almost universal among the slytheen, but he has few worshipers other than that race. Of his few non-slytheen priests and devoted servants, most are wererats, and rats, a perpetually hungry creature that can eat anything, feature prominently in his worship. Ritual feasting on rotted meat is practiced, and commonly ritual cannibalism. Many of the rituals associated with Bål involve consuming the bodies of their enemies. Bål's clergy are sometimes opposed by the White Hand because they occasionally reanimate the corpses of their enemies, which are then ritually destroyed so the undead flesh can be consumed, a practice that even the vile priests of Tuni and Tunar find abhorrent.

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