• Name: Duvan’ku
• Allegiance: Gods of Disaster
• Portfolio: Entropy, Erosion, Dissolution, Earthquakes, The Passage of Time
• Titles: The Sleeper; The End of All Things; The Enemy of All Life; The First Titan; Father of the Gods; The Bones of the Earth; The Inevitable
• Symbols: A skull carved from stone; A petrified bone; An hourglass
• Worshiper Alignments: TN, NE, CN, CE
• Core Doctrine: He is Inevitable.
  • Edicts:
    • Nothing. Everything will be destroyed in the end, nothing you do matters.
  • Anathema:
    • Nothing. Everything will be destroyed in the end, nothing you do matters.
• Allied Faiths: Armok, Ghaunadaur, Talos
• Enemy Faiths: Everyone else, but especially Grimnir and The Blessed Afflictor
• Pseudonyms: Aurgelmir (Firbolg), Bláinn (in the south)

Base Requirements

• Races: Human, Half-Ogre, Bugbear, Firbolg, Gnoll, Minotaur, Ogre Mage
• Base Class: Cleric
• Ability Requirements: Muscle 17
• Alignments: Non-Lawful, Non-Good
• Starting Cash: 2d4 x10gp

Proficiencies

• Weapon Slots: By class
• Allowed Weapons: All Crushing and Cleaving weapons.
• Allows Armor: Any Armor or Shields.
• Bonus Weapon Proficiencies: none
• Required Weapon Proficiencies: none

• Non-weapon Slots: By class
• Available Groups: Spiritual, Martial, and Survival
• Bonus Proficiencies: Ancient History, Mountaineering, Sabotage, Time Sense
• Required Proficiencies: Ancient Languages (Noga or Jotunalder)
• Recommended Proficiencies: Ancient Languages, Armorer, Bulwark, Endurance, Excavations, Geology, Omen Reading, Rope Use, Sacred Legends, Survival, Wild Fighting.
• Forbidden Proficiencies: none

Priest Spheres:

• Major: All, Combat, Earth, Fire, Necromantic, Numbers, Plant, Time
• Minor: Chaos, Weather

Overview: Duvan’ku, or Aurgelmir as he is called by the giants, is the first being, a titan created from the drops of water that formed when the icy void of Limbo met the heat of Hell. Duvan’ku was the father of the first gods; a male (Annam, god of giants) and a female (Titania, lady of the fey) grew under his arm, and his legs produced a seven-headed daughter (Tiamat, mother of dragons). The cow, Audumla, nourished him with her milk. Audumla was herself nourished by licking salty, rime-covered stones. She licked the stones into the shape of a man; this was Ao, who laid the ordening of the gods and who became the grandfather of the once-great god Grimnir and his brothers. These gods later killed Duvan’ku, and put his body in the void and fashioned the earth from his flesh, the seas from his blood, mountains from his bones, stones from his teeth, the sky from his skull, and clouds from his brain. His eyelashes became the fence, the crystal sphere, surrounding Abeir Toril, the home of mankind.

To his mortal worshippers, Duvan’Ku represents the passage of time and the inevitable destruction of all things. According to ancient Noga legend, the bones of Duvan’ku sleep beneath the Dragonspine Mountains. It is said that when the end-times are near, the first titan will awaken and tread upon the Realms that were made from his flesh for the first time, crushing the nations of men beneath his feet. Only occasionally does Duvan’ku stir, but these stirrings are always accompanied by earthquakes, rockslides, and floods for the people that live near the mountains.

Description: Most of Duvan’Ku’s worshipers are giants or else humans of Noga heritage. Whether giants or men, they are always large, powerful figures. During the height of the Noga empire, when Duvan’Ku’s worship was more common, his priests wore elaborate suits of plate armor, capped with spikes that resembled mountain peaks, decorated with skulls, and lacquered the color of dried blood (often with actual blood) for ceremonial purposes. They wore the same armor when combat was called for, wading into battle with the heaviest weapons they could lift.

Today Duvan’Ku’s scattered cults lack any serious support and are largely destitute. While they favor ceremonial plate armor when they can afford it, they are more likely to be seen dressed in whatever scraps of armor they can scrounge. They carry chunks of hard stone, carved into the likeness of a skull or bone, as their holy symbols, but favor actual petrified bones when they can be obtained.

Role-Playing: Priests of Duvan’Ku are fatalists, seeing the awakening of their god and the destruction of all things as a forgone inevitability. Of course, they are also aware of the timescales involved, constantly reassured by the slow and steady erosion of the mountains that the end times are far off. They tend to worship out of fear, hoping that regular propitiation will keep Duvan’Ku in his ages-long sleep, despair, wishing for the end to come sooner, or the mad desire to watch the world crumble around them. These priests seldom find flocks, but when they do they are hordes of fanatics, driven to murderous rage by the power of their god.

Special Abilities:

• Priests of Duvan’ku are able to inspire warriors to a state of berserker-like rage. The priest can use this power on any number of warriors per day, one at a time, but only on a willing target. It takes one round for a priest to incite a single warrior to rage; which last six turns. A warrior may only be incited to rage once per day.
  This rage is not identical to the abilities of the true Berserker. However, it does give the warrior a +2 bonus to hit and damage for the duration of the rage. While enraged, the warrior cannot flee from a fight; he cannot leave the field of battle until no enemies face him. Once he does leave the field of battle, the rage ends.
• Duvan’Ku’s power protects his priests from the destructive powers of the earth. Earth and stone-based attacks (including attacks by earth elementals, hurled boulders, or spells from the Earth sphere) deal -2 damage per die (to a minimum of 1 point of damage per die).
• Because of the destructive power of their god, All priest spells cast by a priest of Duvan’Ku that deal direct hit-point damage inflict an additional +1 point of damage per die.
• Starting at 8th level, priests of Duvan’Ku can summon an Earthquake (as the priest spell of the same name) once per week.
• A priest of Duvan’Ku of at least 8th level, automatically attracts a body of followers, both men drawn by his charisma and creatures drawn by the power of his god. These special followers arrive whether or not the priest has established a temple or base of operations. These followers will freely accompany the priest on his adventures and aid him in whatever way they can. These followers consist of 1 5th-level Priest of Duvan’Ku, 1 5th-level Berserker, 2 Earth Mephits, and 14 1st-level Fighters.

Special Disadvantages:

• Priests of Duvan’ku cannot turn or control undead.
• Priests of Duvan’ku are almost unknown in the modern realms. They have no known temples or hierarchy and do not gain the temporal benefits of food, shelter, loans, sanctuary, or aid common to clerics of other faiths. Nor do they gain financial support for the building of temples or attract the lay followers common to other clerics. Should a priest of Duvan’Ku ever manage to build and sustain a temple of their own, their underlings might be able to draw on such benefits.

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