Tharmekhûl

Tharmekhûl was the personal assistant of Moradin, and a dwarven demigod of the forge and the furnace. The Tender of the Forge was revered as a deity of fire's many aspects: as an engine of creation, a weapon of destruction, and a tempering purifier.

"Forge and furnace, melt me and mold me..."

- The start of a daily prayer to Tharmekhûl

Description
Tharmekhûl was depicted as either an azer, or as a dwarf with bronze skin and whose hair and beard was made of black smoke.

Relationships
Moradin's assistant was aided by fire elementals and azers, his herald being an azer with exceptional fighting skills and significant clerical magic.

Activities
Tharmekhûl's interests were fairly narrow. He might task his followers with the kindling of new forges with elemental fire, or with retrieving relics from ancient dwarven forges.

Worshipers
Worshipers of Tharmekhûl were primarily smiths and other dwarves inspired by the creative applications of the forge, but due to the destructive forces of fire and molten rock, as well as the forge's role in weapons manufacturing (especially siege weapons), he also had a minor following as a war deity. In either case, true clerics of Tharmekhûl were rare, and most communities had only one priest and their apprentice that would take up the role upon their master's death and then adopt a new apprentice of their own.

The dwarves of the ancient Clan Melairkyn worshiped Tharmekhûl, and, as of ca. 1492 DR, a statue and small shrine dedicated to the Tender of the Forge still remained within the "Obstacle Course", the 15th level of Undermountain. At the base of the statue was written the phrase: "Fire is the cure."

Rituals
Liturgy for Tharmekhûl was chocked with fire imagery, representing, for example, external dangers that tempered the dwarf race as a whole. Rites honoring him all involved tending to an actual forge, preparing it for use, stoking the flames, and then damping them. The Tender of the Forge didn't have his own temples, his clerics instead offering prayers as they tended to the forge in the heart of Moradin's temples.