Pantheon: M'shesh

Pantheon: M'shesh

This is a deity written up by Wizzzargh on his blog for his OSR campaign. I really liked the idea, so I adapted it for my setting, making only slight alterations.

M’shesh

Intermediate deity

Alignment: Neutral

Symbol: skull encircled by withered flowers

Home plane: Astral Plane

Portfolio: undead, death, rebirth, darkness

Domain (-30%): spells that heal, animate, or bolster undead, spells that create or control darkness, pacifying spells. M’shesh cannot and will not grant any spells that deal damage, harm, or kill anything.

Worshipers: undead, necromancers, pacifists, monks

An ancient goddess who opposed the creation of the concept of death itself, M'shesh's rebellion against the cycle of life and death led her to be demonized as the “Mother of the Undead” and cast out from the living world. She cradles the souls of all her dead worshippers in her arms, keeping them safe for rebirth, and her living worshippers can exhale these waiting souls into corpses via the Breath of M'shesh. Her afterlife is essentially just waiting in a big line for rebirth, and the line is the giant skeletal jungle of her immeasurably titanic body as she strides through the grey mists of the Astral Plane, swatting away demons and psychopomps like flies. She tries to convert sympathetic souls as they head to their respective afterlives, offering them second chances at rebirth if they agree to join her cause in favor of whatever afterlife they were aimed at.

Dogma: M'shesh seeks to create a world without death, where living beings need not kill to eat, where no one dies of old age, a world without pain. A world without life. To make that world a reality, she must break this one. Most other worldviews see this as M'shesh trying to bring about a zombie apocalypse, whereas M'sheshans assert that once everyone is zombies, everyone can focus on being nice instead of killing each other for bread. M'shesh really despises apologists for death and pain. Even when some people believe that the world cosmologically requires death and pain, she either does not know or does not care.

M'shesh has no issue with her faithful killing those of faiths that actively oppose her goals (those who stand with death are welcome to it, after all) but apart from that, her worshippers are strongly discouraged from killing if at all possible, preferring conversion or mercy for subdued foes - though she accepts the need for self-defense in the world of death. The more pious a worshipper is the more pacifist they become. Many carry a broom to sweep the ground before them as they walk so they don't trod on insects, and vows of chastity and castration are common so as to not bring any more souls into this world of suffering.

DEITY-SPECIFIC SPELLS

Breath of M’shesh

Keywords: Buff.

Full Cost: 45 points.

Casting Roll: None. Special casting time.

Range: Touch.

Duration: Truly Permanent.

Clerics of M’shesh may use the Breath of M'shesh, a ritual that takes 8 hour of uninterrupted meditation and costs 7 FP, on bodies that M'sheshian souls are willing to inhabit (this means that they must be in decent condition and humanoid, usually). Rarely a soul will decide to inhabit a body of an animal, but it is still possible. This reanimates the corpse as an intelligent undead, the soul of a M'sheshian worshipper from days gone by piloting the corpse. If the corpse was already that of a M'shesh worshipper (cleric or otherwise) they have the highest priority when claiming their own body, but otherwise there is a long waiting list of dead souls awaiting reincarnation so treat the risen dead as random NPCs who are generally amicable to the idea of helping out the one who raised them if they don't have their own plans. Reanimated creature not only gets an appropriate undead template, but also loses 20 character points. See page 152 of GURPS Magic for some undead templates, but remove all mental disadvantages and advantages that are associated with mindlessness.

Statistics: Affliction 1 (HT; Advantage, Breath of M’shesh, +200%; Costs 7 FP, -35%; Divine, -10%; Extended Duration, Truly Permanent, +300%; Immediate Preparation Required, 8 hours, -90%; Melee Attack, Reach C, Cannot Parry, -35%; No Signature, +20%) [45]. Note: “Breath of M’shesh” is Extra Life 1 (Divine, +0%) [20].

Mend Undead

Keywords: None.

Full Cost: 11 points.

Casting Roll: IQ.

Range: Touch.

Duration: Instantaneous.

By making physical contact with an undead creature, you may restore it 1d HP. If used more than once per day on a given object, you are at a cumulative -3 per successful restoration. Failure costs you 1d FP instead of the usual 1 FP!

Statistics: Healing (Accessibility, Only on undead, -30%; Capped, 2 FP, -25%; Divine, -10%; Injuries Only, -20%; Reduced Fatigue Cost 1, +20%) [11]. Note: The 4 HP of healing has been converted to dice per p. B269.