Moander

Moander (pronounced moe-AN-der ), called the Darkbringer, was the deity of rot and corruption.

History
Although the deity's origins have never been made clear, Moander appears throughout some of Faerûn's earliest historical recordings and folklore. One legend holds him 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 exists today, namely Tymora and Beshaba.

In 75 DR, Moander the Darkbringer hurled his 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 lurks in the area known as the Darkwatch and awaits a sliver of divine energy to return Moander to life.

In 171 DR, the Cormanthyr elves of Myth Drannor battled the deity's avatar in Moander's last remaining temple, slaying the priests, destroying it and sealing his essence in a spell-bound brick amid the area that is present day Yûlash, to be released only by an unborn child. However, some cultists fled south and the priesthood survived. Over the next millennium, cultists tried freeing the 'Abomination', the name given to Moander's avatar, but to no avail.

Death
In 1357 DR, however the mercenary Alias and her party were manipulated into freeing the Abomination for a time, as described in The Finder's Stone trilogy by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb. Alias, her friends and the dragon Mist destroyed the Abomination after it had wrought terrible destruction in Cormanthor and Westgate. Reduced to a demipower, Moander was brought back to the Realms by a tribe of Saurials whom he had enslaved but was again defeated with help from the Harpers, Alias, Finder Wyvernspur and a saurial paladin named Dragonbait. The story culminates with Moander's death on his home plane, roughly a few months to a year after the Time of Troubles, at the hands of Finder Wyvernspur who then takes the divine mantle for himself and becomes a demipower of change in the arts.

Legacy
If any deity in the realms can truly be called 'dead', it is Moander. However, there is still a tiny fraction of his power that still resides with his corpse which now floats through the Astral plane so theoretically, he could be revived, given enough worship.

What worshipers he had left could have been reorganized and concentrated once more had an opportunistic individual thought of it, that is, if Lolth had not already beaten them to that goal already. To the elves of Myth Drannor, Moander could corrupt individual elves and destroy their beloved forests, more so than Lolth ever could and also, since Ao instructed the gods to pay more heed to their worshipers, Lolth has realized that she may not be able to rely solely on those living in the Underdark to be her followers and thus, took up the alias of Moander to gain some more varied worshipers on the surface.

Appearances

 * Azure Bonds (1988)
 * Song of the Saurials (1991)

Game appearances

 * Curse of the Azure Bonds – the computer game version of the novel Azure Bonds.
 * Pools of Darkness – in one of the interesting levels, Moander drifts among the bodies of other dead gods in the Astral plane.