Xatuum

Xatuum was the sadistic and evil High Priest of Bhaal who resided in the seemingly peaceful monastery that later came to be known as the Stronghold of Liam's Hold. "Are you a faithful worshiper of the one true god, the almighty Bhaal?"

- Xatuum

Description
In his undead ghoulish form, Xatuum was surrounded by the putrid stench of rot. His face and bare chest were covered in oozing open sores. His dead skin was sickly pale and one of his hands was rotten away, revealing a skeletal appendage.

Personality
Xatuum believed The Treatise of Suffering to be the creed of the Bhaalist faith and led his hidden temple according to it. He believed pain, suffering, and death to be the best way to pay respects to the Lord of Murder, especially when the victims were children. Xatuum blindly believed prophecies of Bhaal's unending glory and denied the events of the Godswar.

Xatuum's dark morals dictated that the greatest reward, both a worshiper of Bhaal and a heretic, could gain was death in honor of the Lord of Murder.

Possessions
Xatuum wore an enchanted +2 cloak of fortification and was armed with Bhaal's Bloodletter, a ritual dagger of the Bhaalist faith.

History
Under High Priest Xatuum's leadership, the Stronghold's Bhaalist sect posed as a monastic order that co-existed peacefully with the hamlet of Liam's Hold. However, the truth of the monks' heinous evil deeds remained a secret until the advent of the Time of Troubles.

On Ches 13, 1358 DR, Xatuum's monks stoked hate and fear among the inhabitants of Liam's Hold, leading them to burn a woman on a stake in the middle of the town. The Bhaalists manipulated the locals into believing the woman was a witch, while her deathly sufferings brought joy to the Lord of Murder. On Ches 15, 1358 DR, the High Priest Xatuum culled the number of his followers after rumors of spies spread throughout the Stronghold. The monks refilled the basement shrine's blood pools with the help of those slain. On Tarsakh 4, the Bhaalists captured five children who were tortured to death to please their deity.

Then, on Eleint 16, a small force of druids and elves, led by Maerovyna of the Harvest House, stormed the walls of the Stronghold. Xatuum's followers successfully repelled the assault with minimal losses and only minor damage to the Stronghold's walls. Shortly after, during the Time of Troubles, when gods were cast down to walk on Toril, High Priest Xatuum was distressed by his deity falling silent and he organized a group sacrifice in a failed attempt to reach Bhaal. The grand act of evil transformed Xatuum into a ghoulish undead creature that remained in the Stronghold's underground temple, still serving the dead god. Over the years that followed, the undead priest prayed to the dead deity and hoped for the opportunity to some day perform a blood ritual using the heart of his enemy Maerovyna.

It was believed that in 1372 DR, the Hero of Daggerford ventured into the Stronghold's undercroft after being gifted the structure by the mayor of Liam's Hold as a reward. There, the Hero confronted Xatuum. Some said that the Hero slew the undead creature; others claimed that the Hero performed an ungodly task of revenge for Xatuum, namely killing Maerovyna of the Harvest House; and some said that the Hero agreed to kill the priestess but brought back a heart of a boar. Whatever the actions of the Hero were, Xatuum was still unable to reach his beloved god as Bhaal had been killed during the Time of Troubles.

Appearances

 * Video Games
 * Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford