Mordaveth

Mordaveth

Type	God of the Free Cities
Titles	The Red Claimant; The War That Doesn't End
Domains	War · Ambition · Contested Death
Symbol	A broken sword hilt, no blade
Order	The Broken Blade

Mordaveth is the god of war, violent ambition, and the deaths that are taken rather than received. He does not wait for worship — he claims the souls of those who die fighting, whether they prayed to him or not. His quarrel with Ossara is old and unhealed: she holds that all the dead are hers by right of passage, he that the violently slain are his by right of conquest, and the dead caught between them do not rest.

He is not evil in his own theology. He is the god of those who choose the hard path and die for it, and his followers are as often defenders and liberators as conquerors. But he keeps what he claims, and what he claims does not always wish to be kept.

The Broken Blade

Exclusive devotion; Mordaveth does not share his faithful. A martial faith with no civilian congregation, practised within armies, mercenary companies, and warrior traditions. Its clergy are the Hilt-Priests — battlefield chaplains, combat medics, and givers of the mercy-kill. Before battle comes the Claim Rite: a small cut on the palm pressed to the broken-hilt symbol, with no prayer spoken aloud, for the deed is held to be the prayer. Soldiers reckon it very bad luck to refuse the rite. Afterward, for the dying, comes the rite of Final Words. Followers of Mordaveth do not attend Shore-Walker rites; the two clergies do not speak at funerals, and now and then they come to blows. A contract sworn before the Dawnbreakers Brotherhood is treated as a contract sworn before Mordaveth.