Church of Umberlee

The Church of Umberlee was disorganized, and different locales vary significantly in the way they practiced faith in the Bitch Queen. Following Umberlee's nature, inner disputes and questions of primacy and rank were usually resolved through dueling, and the strongest Umberlant prevailed, while the other was thrown aboard the next ship to leave port.

Clergy
The majority of Umberlee's priests were female, with a ratio of nine to one. On top of being feared, the clergy of the Queen of the Depths had a reputation of being loose. In reality it was just an attempt to receive a temporary relief from "Umberlee's touch'' that kept the warm-blooded members of the Church feel chill of the sea.

Umberlant clerics could walk unmolested at almost every port and surrounding areas, and they were always welcomed aboard ships in hopes that their presence appeased their furious goddess. The clerics of the Bitch Queen often lived off the offerings by the fearful sailors and merchants. They collected the coin and food left at the shrines when no other was around and splashed the altars with buckets of cold sea water and seaweeds. This symbolized the goddess claiming what was rightfully hers. They prayed for spells at high tide (in the morning or the evening), while making offerings and self-anointing on the brow, hands and feet with sea water.

The Church of Umberlee did not have a bug number of affiliated order or organizations, although one order of note was the adventuring order called the Queen's Breakers. The members of the adventuring order partook in treasure-hunting activities and various recovery missions both on land and under the sea.

The clerics of Umberlee could rarely be found wearing uniform vestments, as a matter of fact the only thing they had in common was the easily detectible marine theme. They could be dressed in robes of the color of the seas, weaves, and storms, shark teeth necklaces, or in hotter regions, such as the Utter East, they could simply be draped in foul-smelling seaweed.

The clerics of the Bitch Queen who resided in temples, especially found in bigger cities, adopted more sophisticated vestments. The ceremonial outfit consisted of a tight sea-colored body-stocking with a lush white fur-trimmed high-colared cape. The outfit represented the waters of the seas and foaming waves. They often wore skeletal hands of the drown dead on their sashes as a rank-indicator.

The clerics of Umberlee charged exuberant amounts for their services, as per the Church's creed. A long journey from Waterdeep to Calimport may cost an average merchant ship up to 500 gp. That amount often tripled if the ship was a caravel transporting highly valuable goods. The priests on board often charged extra for any and all spells they used throughout the journey and negotiated the trice before actually casting.

Pirates often paid handsomely to the Umberlant for the speak with the drowned dead spells as they could help them find precious sunken treasures.

Ranks
The lowest on the Church's pecking order were the novice clerics called the Untaken. Once the goddess acknowledges them as her clergy they became entitled to collect offerings and donations to the Bitch Queen, lead prayer ceremonies, and dispense her blessings.

The next step in seniority could have many titles, regardless of the actual rank and the priestly powers. Those titles were: Flood Tide, Dark Breaker, Puissant Undertow, Wave of Fury, Savage Seawind, Wavemistress, Wavelord.

Waveservants or the True Servants of the Wave were the special clergy titles, they often combined any of the titles listed above with added word "Dread" in front.

Holy Objects
The priestesses of Umberlee considered preserved hands of the drowned people to be a precious and holy object, and some even used the as their holy symbols.

Some powerful priestesses sold special enchanted items called the prayer-tokens of Umberlee, an especially powerful but fickle item that could summon the Queen of the Depths' servants to aid the traveler (or on occasion if the goddess was bored, to destroy the supplicants). The prayer-token was known to raise ghost ships from the sea depths, filled with sea zombies, under the temperamental goddesses' control.

Abilities
Following the Time of Troubles, clerics of Umberlee did not have access to the turn undead ability, but could control the undead created from the creatures perished in the sea, or aquatic by nature. They were granted divine ability to breathe underwater, and the ability to swim.

The Umberlant priests' favorite weapon was a uniquely shaped hooked sickle-like knife. These knives represented Umberlee's reaping of the those killed at sea.

By serving Umberlee faithfully, the priests hoped to earn enough of her good graces to be teleported to safety, in the event of the ship they were on sinking.

Waveservants, Umberlee's specialty clerics, were proficient in combat with bludgeoning weapons, tridents, harpoons, and exotic-looking Umberlant dueling knives. They also were known to speak some of the aquatic languages, such as dragon turtle dialect of the draconic language, aquatic elf dialect of the elven language, koalinth language, kuo-toan, locathah language, nereid language, merfolk language, morkoth language, sahuagin language, and triton language. They could breathe underwater, and additionally, more experienced Waveservants could move through water with ease, as if they were wearing a ring of free action. Especially powerful waveservants could summon and control sharks as long as the waveservant performing the call was within the sharks' natural habitat.

Magic
These were the divine magic spells granted to the clergy of Umberlee :
 * speak with the drowned dead • striking wave • oars to snakes • stormcloak • waterspout • maelstrom

Waveservants also received additional arcane and divine spell-like abilities from Umberlee due to their speciality status :
 * watery double (once per day) • water walk (at will) • striking wave(once per day) • control weather(once per day, only in sea, this spell-like ability was only usable to worsen the weather conditions, and never to improve)

Holy Days and Rituals

 * Umberlee necklace.pngThe Drowning: the dangerous and private ritual held by the worshipers of Umberlee to promote the Untaken to the senior level of the clergy. This ritual was forbidden from observing or partaking by anyone but Umberlee's clergy. The Untaken supplicant was laid up on the altar encircled in candles, each lit with an intoned prayer to the Bitch Queen by a different priest. The clerics then left the room as the most senior of the Umberlants casted a spell, flooding the room with a crushing wave of seawater that swept the supplicant away. If the Untaken survived the trail they were considered to be confirmed in the service of the Queen of Depths. The ritual symbolized Umberlee's divine powers sparing the servant, the grace she could take away at any moment. The priests who displeased Umberlee never woke up the following morning, as their lungs were mysteriously filled with seawater.


 * First Tide: this holy day was celebrated when the ice broke up in a harbor, it consisted of a flute and drums parade through town with a caged animal, which was tied to a rock and then thrown into the sea. If it survived, it was magically healed and treated as a sacred animal with the rank of an Umberlant. This was an ancient custom with its roots in the days of old when Umberlee selected her clergy from among the human sacrifices drowned in the same manner as the animals of the First Tide.


 * Stormcall: a mass prayer to send a storm away, redirect it to another harbor, port or ship, or summon one to wreck vengeance on the town's enemies. The Stormcall commenced with the worshipers kneeling around pools of seawater with floating lit candles fixed to driftwood collected by Umberlee's priests for the ritual. The worshipers then tossed valuables into the pools as the priests tried to keep the candles lit with their divine magic. If the candles blew out, it meant the goddess' displeasure.

Waterdeep
In Waterdeep, at the end of Fleetswake, the Fair Seas Festival was held. It was a ceremony dedicated to placate the Bitch Queen, during which tithes were given by dropping coins, included those collected during Fleetswake by increasing the normal docking fee to 1 gp, into the deepest reaches of the harbor. Strong currents dragged this wealth into Umberlee's Cache.

Baldur's Gate
The oldest temple in Baldur's Gate - Water Queen's House was staffed by widows of the folk lost at sea. The temple's servants rarely interacted with outsiders, only venturing out to purchase bare necessities at the market, collecting tithes after the worshipers rang the temple's bell, and giving out prayers and blessings. Most of the tithe collected was carried down the temple's mossy stairs into the sea. Most outsiders did not know what happened to the treasures taken underwater by clerics, but in reality, Umberlee-worshiping sahuagin retrieved it within an hour after the treasures were taken to the sea and left at the very bottom of the stairs deep underwater.

Notable Members of the Church of Umberlee

 * Wavelord Darjast Surnden - the leader of the Shipsgrave Tower in Velen circa 1369 DR. He as well as the rest of the temple's clergy were tough as nails ex-pirates.
 * Wavemistress Royal Qalbess Frostyl - the leader of the pirate temple in the hidden harbor of the Cove of the Queen on Mintarn circa 1369 DR.
 * High Trident Thaeryld Nornagul - the leader of the Stormhaven House on Orlumbor circa 1369 DR.
 * Deep Wavemaster Ultho Maelatar - the high priest of the prosperous temple Seacaves of the Roaring in Teshburl circa 1369 DR.
 * Wave of Might Whaerd Petayr - the high priest from the temple in Murann circa 1369 DR.
 * Malakia - the shaman from the Temple of Red Sails in Luskan circa mid-14th century DR.
 * Allandra Grey - the dour waveservant that led Water Queen's House in Baldur's Gate circa 1494 DR.