Ulutiu

Ulutiu, also known as The Lord in the Ice or The Eternal Sleeper, was the lawful neutral father of the giant-kin races and the god of glaciers, polar environments, and arctic dwellers. His domains consisted of animals, cold, law, ocean and protection. Ulutiu's symbol was a necklace of blue and white ice crystals and his divine realm was where he slept in the Astral Plane.

Description
Ulutiu's avatar appeared as a human with incredibly deep blue eyes, black hair, and icy blue skin. He had a round face, a flat nose, and small ears. He was rather short and had thick limbs and digits. While his avatar had always had an immunity to cold, after his imprisonment he developed an aura of deadly cold as well. He often appeared with a huge spear called the Harpoon of the Cold Sea.

He occasionally manifested as a perfect circle of ice near the shore of the sea, which his followers would flip and divine meaning from according to the cracks and protrusions on the bottom. He expressed his displeasure with icequakes.

As a demigod, Ulutiu had a single avatar, which created and was entombed within the Great Glacier. As such, barring any outside influence that freed it, he was very unlikely to reveal a true avatar. However, he could be prompted to reveal this avatar if Othea were resurrected or Annam returned to Toril. This would likely result in the eventual destruction of the Great Glacier.

Personality
Ulutiu preferred solitude to the company of others, and spent much of his time in contemplation and meditation. Despite this, he truly loved Othea and remained devoted to her even in death.

Worshipers
In 1372 DR, the clergy of Ulutiu acted as both leaders and protectors of their societies, often providing teaching and maintaining traditions in their communities. His primary worshipers were the Nakulutiun people of the Great Glacier and the Ice Hunters of the Savage Frontier, though their beliefs differed greatly.

Dogma
Nobody was considered to superior to anyone else in Ulutiun belief and deserved respect. The major exception to this was priests, who were more important than others due to their direct connection to the god and the necessity of passing his wisdom on to the world. The Nakulutiuns also did not extend this equality to any they considered to be heretics, which was anyone who was not Nakulutiuns. Priests could be of any gender.

Animals were viewed as the children of Ulutiu and as such were also the equals of people, though this generally did not preclude hunting. Both humans and animals had a life essence known as pokulu which returned to Ulutiu when they died.

Worshipers were required to pray three times a day, usually doing so at dawn, midday, and dusk. Priests received their spells at midday prayers. Supplicants would cover their eyes with their hands and look skyward silently for around a minute.

Nakulutiun Sect
The Nakulutiun people separated from the animist beliefs of the other Ulutiun subgroups after reading the stories on the Glacier of Ulutiu and claiming Ulutiu as their new god. They proceeded to move further north and declared the other Ulutiun heretics for denying Ulutiu's supremacy. They were extremely xenophobic as well, refusing to interact with outsiders in fear that prolonged exposure would corrupt the truths Ulutiu revealed to them. Magic from any other source than Ulutiu was also considered blasphemous, and magic users were shunned or driven out. While the specifics of their worship varied from village (meaning they didn't even fully trust other Nakulutiuns to behave properly), the fundamental tenet of their religion was that Ulutiu would someday rise to punish all heathens and collect the faithful to him. They did not, however, attempt to convert others to their beliefs. If one did not believe, then that was one's own fault and doom.

Nakulutiuns believed that Ulutiu had a strict order to all things, including their society, and as such their priests (called nakurits) ruled the villages with unquestionable authority at the top of a strict social hierarchy. The leading priest of a village was the urit, with their three lieutenants being called yaaurits. While their commands were often seen as harsh or cruel to outsiders, they were rarely motivated by self-interest. Instead, they were simply implementing the will of Ulutiu as best they saw it, regardless of the consequences it had. This was best exampled by the kaiurit edicts. A month prior to the first day of spring, the urit would begin to meditate and pray in isolation, allowing them to experience tiny parts of Ulutiu's dreams. They would then gather the village in a meeting called the iurit and announce the kaiurit, a set of rules they had divined and that the people were required to follow for the next year. These could seem very arbitrary, ranging from things as small as requiring everyone to paint a small mark on their forehead to being as extreme as killing any non-Nakulutiuns on sight. The kaiurit also varied from village to village, and changed every year.

Those who committed crimes were subject to ykulutik, which was a trial by ordeal believed to be judged by Ulutiu directly. If the accused survived, then the god had found them innocent. If not, then they must have been guilty.

Ice Hunter Sect
The Ice Hunters were a group who had broken off from the Nakulutiuns around and moved to the areas north of the Spine of the World and throughout the Savage Frontier. Rather than worshiping Ulutiu directly, they primarily revered the great animal spirits that served him. These included Clever Oomio the Gray Seal, Grandfather Walrus, Great White Bear, and Pindalpau-pau the Reindeer Mother. Priests of Ulutiu were not as unilaterally powerful among Ice Hunter clans, instead ruling through consensus rather than by command. They also served as keepers and teachers of history, regularly interacting with the clans children and youth to pass on both traditional and practical knowledge.

Ice Hunter shamans were able to channel the power of their chosen animal spirit, allowing them to temporarily take on physical characteristics of the spirit, summon groups of the chosen animals, and eventually shapeshift fully into their form. They were forbidden from hunting or eating their chosen animal, and could not use materials that came from those animals. Priests known as iceguardians could also channel these spirits for similar effects, but were not bound by the same taboos. Instead, they were forbidden from ever lighting a fire and in return were given powerful ice spells.

Ice Hunters did not follow yearly kaiurits, but instead had a practice called kaitotem, in which hunters went out in the birthing season of the animal related to the tribe's patron great spirit and captured an infant of that species. They were not allowed to slay other animals to do so, particularly the infant's mother or siblings. The infant was then brought back to the village and raised by the priests. It was fed the best food the tribe has and given great care. At the end of the year, the tribe's patron spirit possessed the animal and it vanished into the wilds. If the spirit was pleased by the care given to its vessel, the village was blessed with good luck. If the creature was ill-treated or died, the village might have been cursed by Ulutiu for the next year.

Holy Places
Ulutiu did not have what would qualify as temples to most people, but shrines were very common. They generally included an altar of unmelting ice with fetishes frozen inside.

The Glacier of Ulutiu was a wall of ice tall and was at one point  wide. It ran along the Uppuk River on the western Great Glacier. Ulutiu used this ice to magically record his thoughts, research, and history, carving glowing red symbols into it. The glacier was immune to natural and magical heat, but it did sometimes break and pieces would float away on the river. These broken sections were rumored to hold Ulutiu's greatest secrets and spells.

Relationships
Ulutiu's only true relationhip was with Othea, and he despised Annam for parting them. While he had no prior disputes with them, both Auril and Umberlee had overlapping portfolios, so he would likely come into conflict with them if he were to wake. Auril had also taken Ulutiu to her realm within the Deep Wilds and was slowly siphoning power from him. This was not enough to wake him, but would continually weakening him to the point of death, at which point she could subsume his portfolio.

History
Ulutiu's true origins were unknown. Some believed he may originally have been mortal while others believed he was always divine, whether he was an avatar of some other god or an refugee entity from another world. Regardless of his origin, he spent several years wandering the north before discovering the Cold Ocean, which was unusually calm. He created a barge of ice and sailed across it silently contemplating the universe.

Around Ulutiu began an affair with Othea, wife of Annam All-Father, leading to the firbolg, fomorian, verbeeg and the voadkyn. Ulutiu voluntarily exiled himself from Faerûn in when his affair with Othea was discovered by Annam. According to Skrom Jek's The Meanderings Upon the Friezes of Hotun-Shûl, Ulutiu's corpse was placed on a barge that floated into the Cold Ocean and when it sank, his magical amulet froze the water, creating the Great Glacier and the Endless Ice Sea, a process which took 75 years.

Since Othea's death, Ulutiu seemed content to stay away from Toril, but he would likely return if Othea could be brought back.

During the Spellplague, the goddess Auril had taken the body of Ulutiu and kept it in her realm within the Deep Wilds.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (1989-1999)
Ulutiu is first mentioned in the book The Great Glacier (1992). His relationship to the gods of the giants was explored in Giantcraft (1995).

Ulutiu is further detailed in Powers & Pantheons (1997).

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition (2000-2007)
Ulutiu appears in 3rd edition in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book (2001), and was further described in Faiths and Pantheons (2002).

A non-Realms specific version of Ulutiu appeared in the book Frostburn (2004).