Maiden of Pain, the Willing Whip, Patroness of Torturers
Holy Symbol: A black nine-stranded whip, the ends bloody and barbed, or (in elder days) a chalk-white, slim, female human left hand, fingertips downward, with three drops of blood dripping from each of them.
Kindnesses are the best companions to hurts, and increase the intensity of suffering. Let mercy of sudden abstinence from causing pain and of providing unlooked-for healing come over you seldom, but at whim, so as to make folk hope and increase the Mystery of Loviatar's Mercy. Unswerving cruelty will turn all folk against you. Act alluring, and give pain and torment to those who enjoy it as well as to those who deserve it most or would be most hurt by it. The lash, fire, and cold are the three pains that never fail the devout. Spread my teachings whenever punishment is meted out. Pain tests all, but gives strength of spirit to the hardy and the true. There is no true punishment if the punisher knows no discipline. Wherever a whip is, there am I. Fear me-and yet long for me.
(You need to abide by these as clergy, not as a worshiper)
-
Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Commoner, Fighter, Shaman, or Witch
-
Any race
-
Non-Cleric Initiation: You must capture and torture an enemy, or befriend and then betray someone in a way that causes them great torment; you must also injure yourself grievously and dedicate the scar to Loviatar
(You need to abide by these as clergy, not as a worshiper)
-
Level 1 Spell: Sanctuary
-
Detecting malice? You are to be malice.
-
-
Level 5 Spell: Words of the Unspeaking
- You are to sever yourself from the spirits of all things.
-
Level 9 Spell: Repair
-
Too much relief for one sitting.
-
(If you wish to become clergy of this god, take three of these as your vows—if you violate them you lose any moves, spells, and any other benefits granted by this god until you atone.)
-
Pain (Forbidden: Using painless means in anything—weaponry, healing, medicine, body modification, clothing, cosmetics; if a more painful way of doing something exists, you must do that, upon others and yourself.)
-
Agony (Forbidden: Allowing any hope or comfort to go unattended by despair and pain, either simultaneously, or alternatingly)
-
Torment (Forbidden: Allowing anyone to feel comfort in certainty beyond pain)
-
Suffering (You must flay or otherwise let blood from yourself painfully once a day)
Loviatar (Loh-VEE-a-tar), one of the Dark Gods, appears in her religion's art as a pale maiden dressed in white, pleated armor and carrying a bone-white wand, a whip, or a scourge that she uses as a weapon against her foes. She is venerated by torturers, sadists, and other twisted and evil people and creatures, including some nonhumans who love to bully other nonhumans. While he lived, Loviatar served Bhaal along with Talona, though the two goddesses are heated rivals. Loviatar loves to torment and tease Talona and has more than once expressed the opinion that by all rights Talona ought to and eventually will serve her.
Loviatar is aggressive, domineering, and fearless. She has a cold and calculatingly cruel nature and is also almost unreachable emotionally-toward love, fear, or even hatred. It would have to be a miracle for any deity or moral to make a dent in her icebound heart. She has an instinct for inflicting both physical and psychological pain, and she always seems to know what to say and the way to say it to inflict the most hurt and raise the biggest self-doubts in someone, mortal or deity. Unlike most simple bullies, she does not fear pain or hurt, herself, and laughs at attempts to physically damage or verbally humiliate her. The only possible weakness one might use against her is her very calculating nature, which relies on her assumption of the innate selfishness of human nature; beings acting in a self-sacrificing or heroic manner can sometimes snarl her carefully knit plans.
Home Plane
Mungoth/Ondrland
Portfolio
Sadism, pain, agony, torment, torture
Favored Weapon
Painbringer (Scourge)
Myths
Loviatar's Fall
Loviatar was once the Elven god of punishment from the beginning of the empire of Aer Arnad, and her clergy pledged themselves to serving the empire in the capacity of prison guards and executioners. Though she was feared, none would doubt her pronouncements were fair and appropriate. This ended with the rule of emperor Derelan, who began issuing cruel and unjust orders for her followers to follow. Loviatar expressed her displeasure to Derelan in a vision, but uncowed, Derelan challenged her to meet him in person. When she descended to Orben in her full glory, Derelan and his mother sprung a trap, containing the god to another plane of suffering and torment, which slowly drove her mad. In her absence, Derelan and his mother issued punishment as they pleased, and the church of Loviatar was twisted into a corrupt shadow of its former self. When Derelan was overthrown and killed, his conquerors released Loviatar, but she had forsaken punishment and had turned her portfolio to torture, both to represent her own shift in perspective since her imprisonment, and to retain her church, who had forsaken all just punishment entirely. Ao allowed this, for the church of Ilmater had also grown immensely during the rule of Derelan, and as the two faiths were inherently opposed, he preserve them both to maintain balance. The other Elven gods soon banished her and her church, engendering an enmity in Loviatar toward the Elven gods that persists to this day.
History
Loviatar's church has waxed and wane with the fortunes of kingdoms and empires, but has remained relatively stable for over a thousand years.
Relationship with other gods and churches
The church of Loviatar is currently relatively independent, though its members ally or war with other evil churches when it suits them. They particularly hate the church of Ilmater, which teaches that strength comes out of suffering, and the church of Eldath, which teaches of peace, the banishment of fear, and living in harmony with nature, since the specialty priests of these deities are resistant to Loviatar's pain-inflicting abilities.
Associated Lesser Deities
-
Worship of Loviatar tends to be strongest in large, decadent cities such as Maedia, Reggio Aedi, Mairmithon, Loamport, and even Yonill. Newcomers are often recruited from the ranks of the bored and wealthy or the desperately hungry beggars through large revels where much drugged wine is drunk and dancing and more intimate pursuits go on for several days and nights.
Priests of Loviatar are few in number, but widespread in power. Opponents tend to avoid them, since murder is the least that they will do in revenge again insults to their god. Women—both Humans and half-Elves—dominate the priesthood both numerically and in rank and have always done so. Loviatar's tightly organized priesthood is composed primarily of clerics. Her specialty priests, called Pains, operate as a separate arm of the faith, moving from place to place and ensuring that the god's will is carried out; they serve as the envoys and secret agents/inquisitors of the church. The clerics hold the pains in great regard, since they are often the tools of Loviatar's punishment. If an organized temple or shrine of Loviatar is present in a city, clerics make up the bulk of the organization, but one to three Pains are also able to be called upon by the clerics. Mystics often are attached to small groups of Pains, and monks, while living only with other monks in monasteries and abbeys, usually owe fealty also to the temple to which their abbey is hierarchically attached.
Priests of Loviatar are known as Loviatans (pronounced "Low-VEE-a-tans" and in old texts are sometimes referred to as Lovites (LOH-vites). They tend to be cruel and sadistic. They enjoy bestowing pain upon others (and receiving it) within a hierarchy of strict rules and discipline. Junior clergy members are often ordered to do tasks in a needlessly difficult or painful way to reinforce this iron discipline. Those who stay faithful usually develop truly awesome self-control, and in battle can carry on thinking and acting calmly even when dying from wounds or lacking limbs. They become very used to pain and are usually much scarred from self-inflicted injuries and hurts dealt by their superiors. To increase the agonies they receive and inflict, handfuls of salt are often rubbed in open wounds.
Loviatans always pray for battle spells before going out in public and are admonished to be alert. Although they boldly walk dark streets alone, their reputations sometimes land them in trouble with drunken sailors or dock workers or into ambushes from adherents of goodly faiths. Such attackers rapidly discover that most devotees of the Maiden of Pain are vicious in a fight. Since they do not fear pain or disfiguring wounds, they strike boldly where a more prudent combatant might withdraw. Some priestesses even go into taverns when bored or restless and deliberately start fights, though Loviatans rarely resort to such public methods of spreading mayhem in civilized areas for fear that they will be thwarted, slain, and the faith outlawed or adherents harassed in the future.
Hierarchy
Novices or postulants to the Faith of Pain are known as Kneeling Ones. Confirmed priests used the titles (in ascending order): Taystren, Adept (in Pain), Sister/Brother (in Torment), Supremar, Caressor (of Terrors), Whiplass/Whiplar, Paingiver, Whipmistress/Whipmaster, High Whipmistress/Whipmaster, Branded (of the God), and Truescar. Words in parentheses in the precending list represent parts of the formal title seldom used except in rituals, disciplinary hearings, or documents. The last two titles are applied to all Loviatan clergy members who have served as the head of a temple, abbey, or monastery of the goddess or who have personally distinguished themselves in their service and taken up a life of wandering to further Loviatar's will and influence, often sponsoring or leading bands of "dark adventurers" to spread torment.
Vestments
Loviatans of both genders wear high black boots, black choker gorgets, and long black gloves that reach up to their shoulders. They also wear daring-looking leather body harnesses over or under side-slit ritual robes of icy white or black lined with scarlet silk (so that movements cause red flashes).
Loviatans are usually armed with saw-edged daggers and whips. A typical priest of low rank has a dagger at her belt, another in one boot, and a barbed whip. A priestess of "full" (medium) rank adds to this gear a barbed cat-o'-nine-tails, and perhaps a black metal mace with skin-contact sleep venom in its hollow handle, so that its first strike releases the venom, causing the next six blows to force poison into the victim's wounds.
Priests and priestesses of Loviatar wear a pleated armor that resembles scale mail. However, the ceremonial garb is lightweight and designed for fashion rather than protection. It is constructed to emphasize the figure of the wearer rather than to provide true protection.
The pleated mail is often augmented by breastplates that bristle with spikes. From a wearer of such augmented armor, a firm hug (the Embrace of Loviatar) can cause serious injuries, though not fatal. The addition of the breastplate adds somewhat to the protection provided by the armor.
Rites and Duties
The most basic ritual performed by Loviatans is a kneeling prayer at morning and at evening performed after striking oneself once with a whip. Other rituals of the faith center on consecrating wine, whips, holy symbols, and other items-both practical, such as potions of healing, and horrific, such as torture implements-used by the devout and on celebrating advancement in priestly rank.
All four seasonal festivals are celebrated by Loviatans with the Rite of Pain and Purity: a circle dance of chanting, singing clergy members performed upon barbed wire, thorns, or broken glass or crystal, where the priests allowe themselves to be urged to greater efforts by the whips of high-level priests and are accompanied by the drumming of lay worshipers. A red radiance rises gradually and forms a flickering cloud above the ring. If Loviatar has important missions to speak of, is especially pleased with this group of followers, or wants to enact her displeasure, she manifests in the heart of the cloud. If Loviatar does not manifest, the ritual ends after half an hour, and the priests heal themselves.
Every twelfth night (unless such a night coincides with a Rite of Pain and Purity, which preempts it) the clergy members celebrate smaller Candle Rite wherein they sing, chant, and pray as they dance around lit candles, passing some parts of their bodies through or over their flames repeatedly until the rite ends with the highest-ranking priestess extinguishing her candle with consecrated wine.
As one of the Dark Gods, Loviatar likes to be feared, and her clergy members are ordered to whisper of her ever-present power in the darkness after they have inflicted pain. Their Prime Charge is to tirelessly cause suffering, both widespread and personal. This work may be as brutal as flogging an encountered band of Orcs until they flee or as subtle as breaking hearts among young nobles by pretending to fall in love with the gallants (while disguising one's Loviatan faith), working to break up existing amours and friendships, and engaging in scandalous dalliances before coldly spurning the victims and departing. The activities of prudent worshipers of Loviatar should never be so high-profile that local authorities set out to imprison or thwart them upon first sight, but such activities should be energetic and numerous. Being a good actor—and of striking beauty, or experienced in using spells to appear so—are very useful traits for a Loviatan, but the most successful Loviatans are those who understand the ways and natures of folk and so know just how to cause them the most pain and to manipulate them toward that end.
Affiliated Orders
The Loviatan church has no affiliated knightly orders. Monks of the faith all belong to the Disciples of the White Rod, named in honor of the token granted to their founder by Loviatar and held in the home abbey near Calimport as a relic. Mystics follow an eccentric philosophy/order that they call the Way of Transcendence. When asked what their order's tenets are, they just smile knowingly.
Most Loviatan temples feature extensive dungeons beneath their above-ground facilities. The surface temples are usually built of stone or thick wood and resemble nothing so much as a combination monastic cell complex and prison. Even the windows of priests' rooms often sport bars.
For Cleric/Wizards
When you gain a level from 2–5, you may choose a single Domain. A full list of domain spells and moves is under Choosing a God in Advanced Play Guides.
When you gain a level from 6–10, you may choose a second Domain.
If you choose the primary domain for your god, you also get the Primary Domain Move of that domain and take +1 to cast spells from the domain.
Clerics/Wizards
If you are a Cleric or Wizard (and your god permits your class), choose from the following domains. You add all spells of the chosen domain to your spell list, up to level 7 (once you meet the mana requirements) or up to level 9 (if it's the primary domain and once you meet the mana requirements).
Primary Domain
Torture (Gain this domain's level 1-7 spells, this Primary Domain Move, and this level 9 spell)
Primary Domain Move
Hurts So Good
You've built up an intense level of physical resistance. Take +1 to all CON Saving Throws.
Level 9 Spell
Thousand Needles | Level 9
A target of your choosing is stabbed suddenly and simultaneously with a thousand tiny needles. They take 2d6 damage, a debility, and -1 to their next roll.
Secondary Domains
Corruption (Gain this domain's level 1-7 spells)
Disease (Gain this domain's level 1-7 spells)
Murder (Gain this domain's level 1-7 spells)
Unluck (Gain this domain's level 1-7 spells)
For Non-Cleric/Wizards
When you gain a level from 2–5, you may choose a single Domain. A full list of domain spells and moves is under Choosing a God in Advanced Play Guides.
When you gain a level from 6–10, you may choose a second Domain.
If you choose the primary domain for your god, you also get the Primary Domain Move of that domain and take +1 to cast spells from the domain.
Non-Cleric/Wizards
If you are not a Cleric or Wizard, you gain access to all spells of your chosen domain up to level 3 and can cast them using the Cast a Spell Cleric move (you do not however gain any spells from the Cleric spell list). You can also gain a secondary domain move from that domain, in addition to the domain spells.
Primary Domain
Torture (Gain this domain's level 1 and 3 spells, this Primary Domain Move, and a Secondary Domain Move)
Primary Domain Move
Hurts So Good
You've built up an intense level of physical resistance. Take +1 to all CON Saving Throws.
Secondary Domain Moves (choose 1):
You Like Pain
When someone is under a control spell out of combat, you can inflict damage upon them without ending the effect of the control spell, so long as it doesn’t exceed one damage per round.
You’ll Feel a Little Prick
When you touch someone else, skin to skin, and pray to Loviatar, roll+WIS.
On a 10+ you deal excrutiating pain; they take 1d8 damage or one disease or debility.
On a 7–9, you deal 1d8 damage or inflict one disease or debility but you become vulnerable
On a miss, you become vulnerable and lose access to this ability until you rest.
Secondary Domains
Corruption (Gain this domain's level 1 and 3 spells and this Secondary Domain Move)
Secondary Domain Move:
I Plead the Fifth
If someone would normally be able to compel you to tell the truth (by a spell or other effect), you can say nothing instead.
Disease (Gain this domain's level 1 and 3 spells and this Secondary Domain Move)
Secondary Domain Move:
Tomorrow St. Peter’s
You can infect a single rodent or insect at a time with a brain-enhancing but fatal disease. It will die within 24 hours, but while infected it can serve as a familiar to you, and communicate feelings and visions so long as you remain within 20 meters of it.
Murder (Gain this domain's level 1 and 3 spells and this Secondary Domain Move)
Secondary Domain Move:
CSI: Evasion
When using Defy Danger to escape from the scene of a crime (or hide evidence) take +1.
Unluck (Gain this domain's level 1 and 3 spells and this Secondary Domain Move)
Secondary Domain Move:
I’m Bad Luck
Take -1 ongoing. Whoever enters your presence, looks at you, or interacts with you takes -1 ongoing as well until they cease to have anything to do with you.