| Nox |
Stop the Press! This Isn't Right! |
Nox Other Titles: The Putrescent, Turning Worm, Dust and Bones, Lord of Rats, Wounded God Associations: Disease, Undead, Plague, Hunger, Waste, Poison Associated School: Necromancy Core Values: Decay, Undeath, Destruction, Suffering Poison
Disease
Nox's name is a curse in every language. The god that favors an end to all things. Societies, traditions, countries, history, promises, duties, life, the ground, the sea, the air, the world itself. It is this god's most fevered desire to scour the lands of the world clean of every living thing, and at last find peace from all the screams. Nox is the amalgamated misery of every being in Novitas. The hunger of the destitute, who languish in the shadow of opulent temples to the Sept. The betrayed, who are forsaken for new lords, new spouses, new causes. The murdered, bleeding out, whose final thoughts linger on cursing their killers. The grief ridden, who bury sons, wives, daughters, and cousins, yet linger on suffering, forgotten by the Stranger. The abandoned, the sick, the insane, the lost; their cries are heard by Nox, who drinks their sighs from his cupped hands. It is these miseries that have broken him.
Personality and Behavior
Nox inflicts punishment to all mortals, those who follow him and those who oppose him, equally. He commands disfigurement in his highest acolytes. He created undeath to have an unnatural hungry hate towards life; there is no reason why this should be so except that Nox wills it. He commands kidnapping and torture conversions of both the highest wizard and the most unimportant farmhand alike. He builds diseases that infect through laughter as well as loving touches, and sets them free without plan or intent. His water is sewage, his meat corpses, his bed is ash and he would invite everything to share his home and be welcome in his madness. The punishing torment of disease, the sudden seizing death of poison, a world of servitor undead who have no tongues to voice misery... these are the goals of Nox. All in an effort to shut out the noise of the world. Nox plots to bring an end to all things. Only with total destruction and silence can Nox ever hope to be soothed. According to Nox worshippers, early in the struggle Nox swindled the secret of magic from the Sept, who had first stolen it from Draconus himself. Intended by the Sept to be a tool for only their own servitors and slaves, Nox corrupted it and made it freely available to those who served the Three. However, in doing so he suffered a terrible wound by the Knight, who could not be corrupted. The pain of this wound in chorus with the pain of the world’s miserable outcasts has driven this god (further) insane. Nox is the most zealous of the Dark Three, but he is not their leader.
Physical Appearance
Within the various cults of Nox he is only ever depicted as a skull. However when appearing before his faithful, or anyone else he decides he wants to communicate with, Nox will appear as what he thinks will be the most horrific appearance relative to the viewer. Often he will take the shape of a loved one covered in boils, pustules, and blood. For those who suffer and will not be driven to further suffering by such simple tricks Nox appears as a skeleton, a reminder of death.
A Myth of Nox's Origins
Legend holds that Nox was once an ancient god of wine and good tidings. This legend supposes that he existed in another world. Nox was tricked by Darkness into truly listening to all of those that drank from his cup. At first, he heard only those who sought his cup in celebration, reveling in their exuberance. But, in time, he began to hear the sighs of those who used his cup to escape their mortal woes. Shocked at their plight, the god of celebration abandoned his fetes, and turned his attention to the kin of these hopeless drunken mortals, urging his followers to surrender some of their joy to raise the condition of their brothers and sisters around them. They refused, and abandoned him, content to serve only their own joy to the exclusion of all others. Cruelly disappointed and devoid of worshippers, he turned to those that needed a god. But he only knew joy, and found that he could not raise these sufferers to their feet with mindless glee. No, these souls needed a solution, but he could only offer distraction. Desperately frustrated by his inability to serve the stricken, he used wine and play to seduce an unknown nature goddess into revealing the art of poison, to offer the suffering the escape of sleep. Those that drank of his now poisoned cup died quietly, and found rest. But those they left behind began quailing in grief, and the stink of the dead bodies brewed disease that became plague, and the cacophony of misery grew ever louder. The god, who had for eternity known only the joy of celebration and pleasurable abandonment, found himself battered to his knees by the combined grief and suffering of the world. It broke his divine heart. He had no capacity to better the world with play, and even less as a fallen god of wine. His pain, ever reinforced with mortal suffering, became anger. He missed his privileged place as a joyous god, and realized it was the mortals who had driven him from it. That no matter what could be done, they would endlessly find new torments. That mortalkind was a contemptuous and festering thing. And so he renamed himself Nox, unleashed plague and poison, his new domains, and killed his world. Then Darkness returned, and whispered that a new world was in the making, and that soon it would be filled with more hungry mouths, more betrayals, more voices that would echo towards him across the cosmos. Thus did Nox side with Darkness, and come to Illumitas ready for murder.
Avatars of Nox
The first avatar of Nox was Eradusk, a sorcerer from Gersh. Eradusk showed the suffering Gershans just how to bring that suffering to those who had rejected them and in doing so spread Nox’s will. Nox’s avatars are a conundrum. Some are extremely long lived, the better to ensure they suffer continuously. Others are given deadly and sometimes downright insane assignments that ensure they are found and killed before they grow into full power. It has been sometime since one has been seen, no one is entirely sure if that is a good thing or not.
Worship of Nox
Why would anyone serve such madness? The truly faithful believe that once Nox has erased the world, that he will repopulate it. Such new populations will need masters, and who better to serve as these new masters than those who earned their place by assisting with Nox’s pogrom? When confronted with the point that Nox clearly wishes all life destroyed, the zealots snarl and say that this is propaganda put forth by the hated Scholar, who wishes to confuse Nox’s faithful. Indeed, this may be correct, as this notion does agree with the Scholar’s use of tricks and mind games to establish his desired result. The faithful also point to Nox's use of undeath as a tool, clearly there is a way to serve Nox eternally that doesn't require complete death. Nox worshippers are generally the crazed individuals Sept worshippers are talking about when they warn you about Dark Three followers. As a god of suffering and pain only the truly depraved would choose to follow Nox. This doesn’t stop it from happening. Those who have experienced great loss sometimes turn to Nox and he gives their suffering meaning: spreading that suffering to others. Others become Nox worshippers out of duress. It isn’t unheard of for Nox worshippers to kidnap others and torment them endlessly offering to stop the torture if the victim agrees to turn to Nox. This is then followed by grim initiation rites to make the person feel there is no turning back. As a god of disease and pestilence some turn to Nox to stave off the illnesses that can’t be cured. Nox grants them a reprieve and in return they reward that reprieve by spreading the disease to others. This is a common cause of the spread of lycanthropy. Finally, some turn to Nox for the offer of immortality. As a god of undeath Nox offers a form of immortality that is available to all. Some fear death so completely that they would do anything to avoid it and Nox has something to offer. Followers of Nox aren’t subtle like those of Darkness and have no chance to possibly be socially tolerated like those of Grak, they tend to be the shortest lived of all Dark Three worshippers. This means that most are likely to live in isolation or among others who support their practices. Some take a page from the followers of Darkness and learn to be subtle about it, carrying on their activities with the utmost secrecy. Others chose to attempt to carry on their activities in the faces of everyone but hide behind clever language. More than a few alchemists worship Nox in secret and publicly display their passion by selling poisons to anyone who wants them. Those turned to Nox against their will are generally the ones sent to perform suicidally dangerous tasks. If they live then maybe they get used for more complex tasks and if they don’t there are always others who can be made to suffer. Worship of Nox is both incidental and formal. Incidental worship is found even in the happiest of mortals. A suffering disease, the loss of a loved one, the common tragedies of life visit even the most pampered, giving cause for some misery. But the poor and forgotten are the true priests of this incidental worship. Lives that know only suffering do little more than sing to the mad god with every breath taken. Sobbing for the remembered dead, the keening wail of a broken heart, the rash actions of anger, the gnawing pain of hunger, the jagged intent of jealousy; all these miseries place another drop of bile in Nox’s poisoned cup. In this, everyone can for a short time worship Nox. Formal worship of Nox is a grand affair, and reserved only for those the world has broken. Nox only accepts his siblings into his coven. The insane, the vengeful, the power hungry, the desperate, the corrupt – these are the priests of Nox. Their worship is an overwrought ritualized affair; the coven's subjugation to apocalypse must be complete. Any who drink from Nox’s cup, and have any reservations or doubts, will soon find themselves doomed to live long lives and to know every pain and humiliation that Nox’s true servants may visit upon them. Those that embrace apocalypse, and willingly suffer the torments of Nox rise to great power. There are less twisted living worshipers of Nox – those who delight in the torment of others, imbibe untold amounts of mind-altering substances, and to sew pain for pain’s sake, but these practitioners tend to speak aloud of their patronage only in secretive meetings and private parties (that tend to be horror shows). Outside of these cults, Nox is a forbidden god to all civilized lands save Gersh. In the Snow Kingdom, he is acknowledged as a god of mercy, both one who deserves some measure of mercy for that terrible burden he suffers as well as the one who administers it with his quick acting poisons. As the undead are Nox’s progeny, many gravespawn, nosferatu, liches, and other sentient undead worship Nox openly, striving to further his goals to eradicate all life in any way they can. Nox cultists try to make it impossible for others to break free once indoctrinated. Whether willingly or unwillingly brought into the service of Nox, cultists are allowed to live as long as they are useful and pious to the cause. Those who are not useful can once more prove their usefulness as mindless undead. Those who attempt to escape are deliberately turned into more feral undead such as vampires, with just enough free will to feel regret for their actions.
Places of Worship
The location of his temples is the only secret Nox keeps. These are his recruiting grounds where the willing and unwilling alike are turned to his cause. At the heart of these temples is an Oracle. Kept in delirious pain and suffering, Oracles whisper Nox’s black secrets to these covens. Foul ritual magic, blackmail, and dark prophecies spill out from gasping bleeding mouths festering with sores. And with these secrets, covens of Nox work to end the world.
Expectations of Chosen
The Chosen of Nox live in suffering themselves. Selected for their misery and their desire to spread that misery the Chosen of Nox are the most miserable people you’ll ever meet. Among the followers of Nox the Chosen are the ones selected for their ability to prolong that suffering for themselves and others. These are the followers least likely to burn out and get caught immediately. They may not be subtle infiltrators but they can hide in plain sight just as well. The Chosen of Nox sell poisons indiscriminately, they encourage others to pollute their bodies with poor choices such as drug or alcohol addiction. When given the opportunity the Chosen of Nox will spread diseases and plagues, sometimes protecting themselves before doing so but not always. To fail Nox is to find happiness and joy, an end to suffering. Nox can’t abide emotional healing. There is no returning to Nox’s good graces, if he notices your lack of suffering, he’ll be sure to fix this for you immediately.
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