Kelemvor

Kelemvor (pronounced KELL-em-vor ), formerly Kelemvor Lyonsbane, also known as the Lord of the Dead and Judge of the Damned, is the god of death and the dead, and master of the Crystal Spire in the Fugue Plane. In his mortal days, Kelemvor was a skilled mercenary, with the heart of a noble paladin, concealed under rude manners and thwarted by his mysterious family curse.

Fair yet cold, Kelemvor is the god of death and the dead—the most recent deity to hold this position, following in the footsteps of Jergal, Myrkul, and Cyric. Unlike these other deities, whose rule as gods of the dead made the afterlife an uncertain and fearful thing, Kelemvor urges knowledge that death is a natural part of life and should not be feared as long as it is understood.

Worshipers
The death clergy as they are known have many duties, most involve tending to the last wishes of the dying and provide burial services to those who die alone. They also set out to cure diseases and defend people from monsters so that folk do not die before their time. Their final and debatably most important task is the destruction of undeath in all its various forms as it is an affront to Kelemvor. Elite priests of Kelemvor are known as Doomguides.

There is only one major centre of worship devoted to Kelemvor, the Tower of Skulls in Ormath.

Orders

 * Most Solemn Order of the Silent Shroud : An organization of gravediggers, embalmers, and other cemetary workers and crafters. Those of this order identify each other with a series of secret signs. Their task is to keep the church informed of undead sightings and gravesite desecrations.


 * Eternal Order : This recently established knightly order's purpose is to hunt and destroy powerful undead. They develop powerful undead-fighting powers by sacrificing other paladin abilities.

Relationships
As mortals, Kelemvor and Mystra were lovers, but it is unlikely this is maintained now that they are both deities with responsibilities (Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad gives an account of the end of Kelemvor and Mystra's love—though via a possibly unreliable author). Kelemvor's greatest enemy is Cyric, but he also fiercely opposes the machinations of Velsharoon, the necromancer god who animates the dead into undead and thus stands against everything Kelemvor works for, and Talona, for the unnatural deaths caused by her diseases. This also makes him an ally of Lathander the Morninglord, who also opposes undeath. Kelemvor maintains practical alliances with good- and neutral-aligned gods of death in other pantheons—Sehanine Moonbow, Osiris, and Urogalan amongst. Kelemvor is served by the original deity of death, the mysterious, fatalistic, and pragmatic Jergal, who keeps records of the final disposition of spirits of the deceased.

Mortal days
Kelemvor's story as a mortal is mainly described in the Avatar Trilogy

The Curse of the Lyonsbanes had been passed down for generations in Kelemvor's family. All this started from the greedy mercenary Kyle Lyonsbane, who was utterly ruthless in extracting payment, to the point that one day he left his sorceress companion on the battlefield to die so that he could plunder the enemy's stronghold. In her last breath, the sorceress bestowed a curse upon Kyle. From that day on the mercenary can never attempt to perform an act for any type of reward without becoming a panther, and transform to human only by taking a life. Under the curse, only unselfish and heroic acts were permitted. The curse was passed on to Kyle's son, but it was reversed, making him unable to perform any act without asking for a reward, or suffer the metamorphosis. This resulted in a long line of mercenaries in the Lyonsbane family, and as family member grew old it become more dangerous for those who live around them, since the seniors could no longer remember if a reward had been offered. Thus it became the responsibility of every Lyonsbane to slay their father when they reached the age of fifty.

Kelemvor was the seventh descendant of Kyle. Because of the curse, Kelemvor had become a panther and mercilessly killed his own cruel father when trying to protect an innocent house maiden. After that he evaded the Lyonsbane castle, and became a sellsword, as most of his family members did. However because of the curse, many of his comrades died in front of his very eyes, and all he could do was turn away. Kelemvor dreamed of a day when he could perform heroic deeds free from the curse, become a true hero as those stories he had read when he was a child in the Lyonsbane castle.

After this he met up with Midnight and Adon of Sune. During the events of the Time of Troubles the curse was removed by the god of strife, Bane. Together with Midnight and Adon he recovered the lost Tablets of Fate, bringing them to Waterdeep, to return them to Ao. In a final confrontation with Myrkul on top of Blackstaff Tower, Kelemvor was killed by still-mortal Cyric—wielding the sword Godsbane—who would later become god of death in place of Myrkul. Godsbane (Mask in disguise) siphoned away Kelemvors eternal spirit, hiding it from the new Lord of Death, and for ten years Kelemvors spirit lived in this pocket plane, all the while Cyric was searching for him, bent on destroying him for good.

Revolt against Cyric
Ten years after the Time of Troubles, after Cyric murdered Bhaal and ascended to godhood, the first thing he wanted to accomplish was to have Kelemvor's soul so that he could gain an advantage over the new Mystra, his most hated rival, and whose portfolio over Magic he coveted. However, for ten years, Cyric and his church were unable to find Kelemvor's soul, every divination and spell they tried yielded nothing. Cyric suspected that there were traitors within his own church who fostered Kelemvor's soul. He later launched the Second Banedeath in 1368 DR, unleashing his Inquisition on Zhentil Keep, Yûlash, Darkhold, Teshwave, and the Citadel of the Raven to cleanse all Zhent holdings of non-Cyricist priests. Cyric also released Kezef the Chaos Hound from Pandemonium, and commanded it to trace Kelemvor's soul. Kezef ended up being trapped again by the God of Thieves.

Kelemvor's soul, was absorped into Cyric's sentient sword, Godsbane, in the moment he was killed on top of Blackstaff Tower. The sword was actually Mask, the God of Thieves in guise, who planned to bring Cyric's downfall and gain Cyric's portfolio over lies. Mask used Kelemvor's soul to gain the cooperation of Mystra, all the while planning a revolt in the City of Death against Cyric. With the help of Mystra, Torm, Oghma, and Cyric's own high priest Fzoul Chembryl (whose loyalty lay with the dead Bane), great chaos was caused in two of Cyric's most important bases of faith: Zhentil Keep, and the City of Death. A great number of Cyric's follower lost their faith, thus greatly weakening Cyric himself. Without the will to control the City of Death, dead spirits were freed and roamed about the City. In addition, Cyric's nightmare was freed from Dendar the Night Serpent, and the dream found Cyric, causing him to think that Kelemvor had somehow returned to life and to seek revenge. At that moment, Cyric, though a Greater Power, lost his mind, crushed his sword, which freed Kelemvor, and made his nightmare come true. The two fought, a dead soul against a god. Cyric's fear, indecision, and madness had became his defeat, and Kelemvor finally managed to overthrow Cyric's rule in the City. By the wish of all dead spirits and Denizens in the Gray Wastes, in 1368 DR Kelemvor became the new God of Death.

Godhood
To be the Lord of the Dead is to be the judgment of the departed souls. In the novel Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad, being the new Lord Death, Kelemvor wished to clear all the corruptions in the Realms of Death brought by former Lords of Death. He reshaped the Bone Castle, a twisted citadel in the Gray Wastes where Jergal, Myrkul and Cyric had all ruled from, into the transparent Crystal Spire, its translucency representing that no more should Death be a frightening mystery. While faithful souls would be claimed by their respective deities, faithless souls and those with a false faith that his/her god did not want, are judged before the God of Death. Former Gods of Death would decide whether they were the Faithless, or the False. Either way, in the hands of Myrkul or Cyric, these souls eventually ended up being eternally tortured.

Kelemvor, however, was more lenient on those Faithless and False who were virtuous and honorable in life, while the ones who were cowardly or capricious were severely punished. Those souls being judged as noble, would be sent to the then merrier and heaven-like parts in the City of Death, such as the Singing City, or Pax Cloister, while for thieves and cowards there were hell-like parts of the City such as Acid Swamps.

As a result, honorable and brave mortals no longer feared death, and recklessly threw their lives away, trusting in Kelemvor's judgment rather the worshiping of other benevolent gods. The cowardly and crafty mortals became too fearful to do much, lest they die and find themselves before Kelemvor. This, in combination with Mystra's unjust granting of magic, favoring only those good, brought unintentional imbalance and robbed the other deities of potential worshipers. Being exposed by Cyric, Kelemvor and Mystra were accused by the Circle of Greater Gods of being guilty of Incompetence by Humanity.

Kelemvor wondered how he could judge the damned, when he himself failed his own personal judgment. He gradually came to realize that there is nothing human in being a god. To correct his mistakes, great changes were undergone in his realm, as well as in himself. The City of the Dead was changed to a gray world, not truly light, not totally dark, simply dull gray. Gone was the good and evil in the City, only indifference and silence remained. The once diamond-like Crystal Spire was also smoked the color of topaz. Kelemvor also rid himself of all signs of humanity in order to properly fulfill his duties, which means replacing the warrior-like human he used to assume with a darkly robed figure, his raven black hair turned to silver, his eyes became pupiless, his appearance aged, his armor tattered and black, and donned a silver death mask.

He then conducted the Re-evaluation, where all souls in the City were to be judged according to new criteria, then be sentenced to new places in the City. Souls being judged will not find torture, but neither will they find joy. They will exist with souls ethically similar to themselves.

During the process, Adon (Kelemvor and Mystra's mutual friend, as well the patriarch of Mystra's new church) was driven mad by Cyric's trickery, losing his faith in Mystra, and had died a faithless soul. Mystra came to Kelemvor and asked for Adon's soul, which Kelemvor steadfastly refused since Adon was now one of the Faithless, or perhaps even the False. This, along with Kelemvor's loss of passion, eventually caused the breaking up of their relationship.