Moander

Moander was an ancient deity of rot, corruption, and decay, whose origins predated the empire of Netheril. The deity's been banished from Toril on many occasions but the Jawed God always slithered back.

Description
Moander's presence and worship has been chronicled in many ancient texts, some were older than his first recorded organized worship in Netheril. Moander had been depicted and described in ancient texts as a masculine deity, a feminine power, or simply referred to as "it." The Darkbringer's most renowned avatar was called the Abomination of Moander, a massive pile of animated rotting mass of animal carrion, and putrified vegetation matter. The Abomination had some superficial resemblance to shambling mounds and gibbering mouthers. The entire surface of the avatar was covered in vines, lichen, moss, tendrils, eyes, and fanged maws of different shapes, sizes and belonging to different creatures, all mumbled, cracked, screeched, and emitted deafening uncontrollable chaotic ravings and chanted Moander's name in a demented chorus. The Abomination, a lumbering mountain or rot, produced putrid black slime everywhere it went, and it absorb any living or dead matter, increasing its body size.

Manifestations
Moander appeared to his worshipers in an intangible image of a red-eyed giant rotting humanoid male head that sprouted long tendrils instead of hair and a maw filled with fangs. This manifestation allowed Moander to communicate, manipulate objects with the tendrils and create a mental link with the individuals the deity touched with the tentacles. The link remained after the contact was broken and the dark god continues whispering the the individuals' minds until the effects were removed via remove curse or remove disease spells.

As the god of rot, Moander could manifest through any type of rot. The deity created long tentacles of rotting mater that sprouted from the decay. Each tendril was long and could freely manifest and move from one stop of decay to the next, within reach. These tentacles of rot could slam at the god's enemies and implant immobilized or sleeping creatures with the seed of Moander. These tendrils could feed on decaying matter and after devouring enough, they routed a bulb that matured into another independent tendril. These manifestations died and disintegrated when left without food after one-to-eight months.

Personality
The Darkbringer was known to be a cruel deity who reveled in controlling its subjects. The tyrant delighted in the torment and destruction of lesser beings, it sought to force the hands of mortals to destroy those who they held dear. Moander sought to corrupt any who refused to bow down to it. The Jawed God used lies and half-truth to cause emotional distress to those it tortured.

Powers
In his Abomination avatar shape, Moander was unable to cast spells, however, that was overcompensated by the sheer power and resilience of the creature. The rotting was could freely move across vertical surfaces or float on water. The entirety of its rotting mass could sprout tendrils, eyes, or mouths to communicate or to land devastating attacks on its enemies. Despite being an easy target, the Abomination of Moander had thick natural defenses, absorbing most attacks into its rotting mass. The Abomination had to be created by the hands of Moander's servants and the rotting mass that became the vessel of the Jawed God has to be at least in diameter. It had to continuously absorb organic matter in order to grow or simply exist, as if left without access to new matter, the Abomination eventually rotted away within one-to-four months, and turned to dust and foul slime. The Abomination's main mode of attack was via stalling tendrils and sprouting a massive fanged maw that devoured all who stood in front of the avatar. Moander's rotting body also often used huge tree trunks as spear-like projectiles or entangled its enemies. The avatar could also implant the seed of Moander into captures living creatures, taking full control over them.

Those who were unlucky enough to be swallowed by the Abomination, were crushed as endless tendrils rotted aways their equipment, clothes, eventually killing them and adding the carcasses to Moander's avatar. Some who survived within the creature could be infected with the seed of Moander. The deity gained knowledge of all those "blessed" with the seed, but that connection worked both ways, granting the victims a brief look into the god's mind. Moander could cast any spells ht deity knew through any of the seeded victims. Each of the enslaved victims shared their mind with the deity, making the Abomination permanently smarter and wiser.

This avatar was vulnerable to fire due to flammable gasses and fumes and the giant carcass constantly produced. Smaller sources of magical or mundane flames could damage the creature very little and were quickly snuffed out but the Abomination's wet oozing body. Bigger sources of fames, such as dragon's breath, could detonate the abomination, instantly destroying the avatar in a colossal blaze. Cold was harmful to the Abomination as it damaged it and halted the rotting.

Moander's core could move between piles of rot of big enough size through exuding a relatively small flying egg-shape pod. These pods held the essence of Moander and allowed it to possessed another rotting body, creating a new Abomination. Given enough rotting matter, the Jawed God's avatar could vomit a shambling mound twice per day, and a gibbering mouther once every there days. These spawns were under the god's control for the following one-to-twelve days. After, the creatures were granted autonomy and wandered away from their creator. Lastly, the Abomination could open a gate at will at the price of about a month worth of rot that sustained it.

Divine Realm
Moander's divine realm Offalmound was located in Rarandreth, the abyssal layer numbered 223, both in the Great Wheel and World Tree cosmology. Adherents of the latter worldview speculated that with the deity's demise his realm was either pushed outside the Astral Plane without any connections remaining or collapsed altogether.

Relationships
Moander especially reveled in corrupting, enslaving, and rotting beholders and similar creatures. Sages though that to be tied to ancient rivalry with fellow god Bane, wile others thought that it was due to Moander's ancient bitter enemy Phalse, who resembled a monstrous beholder with a single eye in the center and mouths in place of smaller eyes.

Worshipers


Moanderite worship was predatory dogma that preyed on lonely folk, adrift in the world at large. Those desperate enough to join worship welcomed the firm direction It gave their life. Moander has never been flush with worshipers, however numerous cults have been dedicated to the deity. Individuals who joined Darkbringer's clergy were put through a ceremony where a seed of Moander was planted inside their bodies. The godly seed grew inside, slowly turning the entirety of their insides into rotting plant matter, and eventually dried dead greenery. Clergy of Moander was identifiable by a small flowered tendril protruding from the ear and wound through the hair. This seed allowed the god directly assume control of any creature infected by it.

Non-Human Worshipers
Moander was served by and could manifest itself as several intelligent non-human creatures, such as algoids, dark trees, gibbering mouthers, shambling mounds, and vegepygmies created by from russet mold. Moander and his cultists used giant toads, and giant slugs, for their nefarious purposes, and the deity summoned its loyal black or green dragons to serve the Mouth of Moander. Moander's hate of beholders led to the deity transforming dead enslaved many-eyed creatures into rotting death tyrants, fully subservient to the Jawed God.

Places of Worship
The oldest pace of Moanderite worship in Faerûn was an underground temple in the city of Yûlash in the Moonsea region that was over 1,000 years old by the 14 century DR. Another shrine of note was the Hill of Fangs, outside the city of Westgate. The hilltop was surrounded by a ring of eight plinths of red stone that resembled curved inward fangs. More obscure places of worship were mere rumors to most. The forests outside of Ylraphon were rumored to shelter shrines of several evil powers, including the House of Moander.

Holy Days
Cultists of Moander were expected to perform a daily ceremonial kill of a creature or gather vegetation to spread rot and decay. Balefire was one of the very few celebrations of the god's worshipers. It took place on the first of Hammer when Moanderites constructed huge bonfires in the name of the god of rot name to hold back the cold.

History
Although the deity's origins have never been made clear, Moander appeared throughout some of Faerûn's earliest historical recordings and folklore. One legend holds it responsible for corrupting Tyche, the goddess of fate in ancient times, which resulted in the deity splitting into the two "sister" goddesses of fate that existed later, namely Tymora and Beshaba.

In 75 DR, Moander the Darkbringer hurled its forces and the "creeping evil" against the elven city of Tsornyl, blighting much of the surrounding woods. The magic of Moander twisted all life, both follower and victim alike, into corrupt monsters, including deepspawn and shambling mounds. While the evil could not be destroyed, High Magic severed the creeping evil from Moander and imprisoned the corruption at Tsornyl (soon to be called the Darkwatch). This weakened the Darkbringer's presence in Toril, though it cost the lives of thirty-two elves, including two High Mages, to sever and bind the power.

This evil still lurked in the area known as the Darkwatch and awaited a sliver of divine energy to return Moander to life.

Over a thousand years before the 14 century DR, the Cormanthyr elves of Myth Drannor battled the deity's avatar in its last remaining major temple, located in what later become the city of Yûlash. The avatar was known as the Abomination of Moander–a huge mass of rotting vegetation and carrion that left the ground void of any living thing in its wake. The elves slayed the priests, banished the Darkbringer, and sealed the essence of his avatar beneath the ruins, to be released only by an unborn child. Some cultists fled south and the priesthood managed to survive. Over the next millennia, they tried to free the Abomination, but to no avail.

Moander's Torillian avatar remained trapped until the Kythorn 5, the. Moander's cultists found unlikely allies in a sorceress Cassana, her lich ally Zrie Prakis, the Darkbringer's ancient enemy fiend Phalse, and the Fire Knives assassins. The dark alliance pooled their resources to create a living construct, a "nonborn child," each member of the alliance planned on using the construct for their own purpose. The Jawed God's cultists sought to use it to unleash the Abomination of Moander onto the world once more. Against all odds, the construct was lost to the group and gained sentence, becoming the hero known as Alias. Via manipulation and the compulsory magic of her azure bonds, Alias and her companions were lured to the war-torn town of Yûlash and freed Moander from his ancient prison. The Abomination captured Alias and held her inside its massive rotting body as he grew even bigger, feeding of soldiers, beasts, and trees. Burning with vengeance, the Abomination made way across Cormanthor towards Myth Drannor, the city of his ancient enemies. The avatar left behind a cleared way in the elven forest later called Moander's Road. Eventually, Moander's avatar was destroyed in the aerial battle over Westgate by a red dragon Mistinarperadnacles Hai Draco. Many of the Darkbringer's cultists were killed in the battle of the Hill of Fangs outside of the city by joined forces of Alias, her "brother" Dragonbait, Olive Ruskettle, and Akabar Bel Akash. Of corse, the cultists of Moander were far from gone but the god itself was reduced to being a mere demipower. The Abomination shed a huge part of its rotting carcass along the route it carved through Cormanthor. Since then, Moander's Road was known for a huge mound that once was part of the creature. It spawned strange previously unseen blossoms all around the dead god. Locals believed that something dangerous was lairing within the rotting mound.

Supposed Death
Moander attempted a return to power in the Realms in the. The deity tracked down the saurial tribe Dragonbait hailed from and transported them as his slaves into a remote location within the Dalelands – Tarkhaldale. The demipower implanted the seed of Moander into Coral, an old flame and mate of Dragonbait's, turning her into the Mouth of Moander, the High Priest of the Rotting God. Reestablished on the Prime Material plane, Moander infected a powerful beholder Xaran, a Harper agent Kyre, and an army of treants. The Darkbringer's slave saurials were tasked into growing a pile of rot to become a new Abomination, defiling al living things in the Lost Vale and adding their own eggs to the dreaded god's body. In the advent of the Time of Troubles, Alias, Dragonbait, Finder Wyvernspur– Alias's creator and father, confronted the saurial colony and Moander. Dragonbait was forced to kill his old love Coral as there was nothing left of her but rotting vines on the inside. Finder Wyvernspur and Akabar Bel Akash followed the god into the Abyss and sacrificed their lives in selling destroying the Darkbringer with a shard of para-elemental ice that powered Finder's Stone. Finder inherited Moander's divinity, with sponsorship from Moander's enemies, goddess of luck Tymora and the House Wyvernspur patron goddess Selûne, and became a demigod in his own right.

Sages debated how true was Moander's destruction. His avatars were gone and his existence in the Abyss was cut short by a mortal with heat from the divine. Some claimed to have encountered Moander's body floating in the Astral Plane, and there was evidence of a fraction of the Darkbringer's essence growing in power in the planes. The truth about it was, that Finder didn't succeed at truly killing Moander. Like many other divine beings, Moander was more than a single entity. The old god's consciousness remained in Darkwatch, where it drained power and gained strength from people visiting the place and one creature of sufficient strength, like an avatar or a Chosen, would be enough for him to regain his demigod status. The method by which he lured people to Darkwatch was by infecting those with special spores. These spores could straightforwardly eat people or influence them like through suggestion to make the infected send more to be infected. Another method by which he lured people to Darkwatch was by making the appear like one of religious significance. This was met with different degrees of success. Clerics of Cyric ventured there to relish the dark energy there while Vhaeraun following drow wanted to have nothing to do with the place.

Meanwhile, the worship of Moander became splintered between cultists who followed the Jawed God and those who embraced a new religion dedicated to rot and corruption. Drow deity Lolth felt vulnerable after the Godswar and quickly seized the opportunity to claim Moander's name as her aspect in the surface world and the Rotting God's portfolio, unclaimed by Finder. Under Moander's guise, Lolth attracted surface humans, elves, and half-elves who found rot and corruption more appealing and comprehensible than Lolth dogma among the drow.

Trivia

 * Worshipers of Moander often cursed by "Moander's mirth" or swore by "Moander's Mouth." "Rose of Moander" was a common early-to-mid-14 century DR exclamation.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds
 * Novels
 * Azure Bonds &bull; Song of the Saurials
 * Sword Play &bull; Mortal Consequences &bull; Dangerous Games &bull; Cormyr: A Novel &bull; Swords of Eveningstar
 * Video Games
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds &bull; Pools of Darkness
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds &bull; Pools of Darkness

Connections
Moander