Name: Aspix the Forsaken (God of the Butcher’s Alley)
Symbol: None
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Long ago, Aspix was the god of what would become Zhentil Keep. Many were the virgins who died on his altars, and endless was the stream of precious metals and stones consigned to his furnaces with great pomp. But Aspix was weak and pampered, and eventually his city fell and his worshippers were slain. A new city rose on the spot that cursed his name, and he was left to rage in the darkness with only the meager sustenance of fear and hatred from the conquering people. Over time the city of his conquerors was destroyed and rebuilt in its turn, and Aspix was forgotten entirely. No one spoke his name or invoked his memory in the new city, even to curse it. Where once his magnificent temple had risen, with its gilded blood basins and marching lines of blank faced alabaster sphinxes, now was the garbage strewn back alley behind a humble butcher’s shop. Aspix desperately clung to the city, roaming the streets in secret stealing the offerings left to other gods. But in time he became too weak to dare approach their temples, and he was unable to travel far from the spot where once thousands had bled out their lives in his name.

Aspix’s portfolio and even his name are forgotten, but most of the butchers and meat-packers pay him homage (by pouring a little blood at the mouth of the Alley). Now Aspix is confined to the alley, dreaming his dreams of ancient glory while he drinks the trickle of blood from the butcher’s shop and clings feebly to this world.

Aspix can’t manifest an avatar, nor serious affect the world in any way. Some of the meat-mongers claim that it is possible to contact the God of Butcher’s Alley, if a blood offering is made at the alley on the night of a new moon. Provided such propitiation is made, Aspix can summon the strength to answer three questions per night, though these will be limited to cryptic one-word answers—anything more would strain his limited existence. This otherwise functions as a contact other plane spell.

Each time Aspix is invoked and questioned, his power grows slightly. There is even a chance that he will gain enough strength to begin manifesting in the world.