Campaign Design - The Lords of Heaven: Lódur

Lódur (Fíonn)

The Many-Faced Lord; The Spy of Heaven; Celestial Lord of Changelings, Shapechangers, Luck, and Gamblers

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral.
Domains: Alteration, City, Fortune, Gestalt, Luck, (Shapechanger), Transformation.

Summon Monster: Lódur's clerics and favored souls can summon anarchic and shadow creatures using summon monster spells.

Symbol: A mask.
Favored Weapon: "Surprise!" (arm knife).

Lódur is the most mercurial and unpredictable of all of the Lords of Heaven. The embodiment of the fickle vagaries of luck and fortune, he is often presented as being cheerfully unreliable in the best of circumstances. In many of the folktales in which he features, he is often shown as an almost perfect agent of chaos, sowing confusion and turmoil in his wake. And yet, when the Lords of Heaven were in their direst need, Lódur proved himself to be one of the most valuable of their number, using his ever-shifting abilities to infiltrate the infernal realms and ferret out the Demon Lords' most closely guarded secrets. In this way, Lódur claimed dominion over spies and espionage.

No one knows that Lódur's true form is. He is often portrayed as a featureless being with pale skin - akin in appearance to a changeling, but many question whether even that is what Lódur truly looks like. Although Lódur is often referred to as "he" by default, the celestial lord seems to be just as comfortable taking the role of either gender, and in some tales he is the father of children, while in others she is the mother of progeny. Capable of assuming any shape, Lódur appears in legend in almost every guise one can imagine, often revealing himself only at the end of the tale and even then usually only by implication. In fact, it is a not uncommon confidence game for a grifter to pose as Lódur in an effort to sway the gullible, a hustle that is just plausible enough to sometimes actually work. As far as Lódur is concerned, his followers say that the Many-Faced Lord is amused and honored by such deceptions, pointing to the stories in which mortals attempt to trick him and he responds to the attempts with a good-natured chuckle.

Though Lódur is often seen as capricious, he is never portrayed as vindictive, just like the luck and fortune that he represents. Temples dedicated to Lódur are rare, and his priesthood is quite small, but rogues, gamblers, con artists, and spies all appeal to the Lord of Luck to look kindly upon their endeavors. He is held in high regard by changelings, who regard him as the patron of their race. Whether Lódur agrees with them is unknown, and may be entirely irrelevant given the general attitudes of the changeling race. In fact, to many changelings it seems like it would be entirely fitting to have a patron deity who is uncaring and indifferent.

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