Maal'fas

"'Fear me, for I am doom. Praise me, for I am the answer. Fail me, and I shall be both.'""— Maal’fas" Maal'fas ( PRONOUNCED : /'ma:lfas/ MAHLFAS) is the old God of strength, wrath, tyranny, conquest, and strife. In his home world of Attunia, he is known as The Blackened Eye, The Tyrant God, and The Emperor of All. Maal’fas is a selfish deity that desires nothing more than to become more powerful than his contemporaries and to conquer all of the mortal world.

Description
When invoked, Maal'fas appears as a mountain made of elastic tissue, muscle, and sinews under scarlet clouds and a black sky.

At the peak is a coliseum of bones and steel, with a formation in the shape of a deformed yet symmetrical face marking the farthest wall across the entrance. This face is used as Maal'fas' avatar to appear before mortals. His voice emanates as a deep echo like thunder, filled with disdain for the weak and a chillingly cold, yet beguiling, tone when speaking. Standing in his presence alone drives weaker willed men to their knees, and those who hear his voice often die of shock, fearful of whatever dark promises The Tyrant God may make.

Divine Realm
Maal'fas' divine realm, the Mountain of Triumph, is totally inaccessible from Lorone. This is because it is in Attunia, the world beyond Lorone's multidimensional borders. Though portals to it can be invoked under the right conditions because Attunia and Lorone reside within the same Crystal Sphere.

Relationships
As an Attunian God, Maal'fas has a very distant but ancient relationship with the Gods of Lorone. In his eyes, he sees them as cowards who would seek to hide away from his claim to their divine domains and to his claim of Lorone's landmass. Maal'fas' desire for absolute control over all things, and intolerence of defiance, makes him violently antagonistic towards the Gods of Lorone.

In particular, he views Gali as an upstart and an unqualified conquerer, and would want nothing more than to overthrow them and subsume their divine portfolio.

Worshippers (Lorone)
Due to being an Attunian God, Maal'fas is unable to manifest on Lorone, and his worshippers have all since been slain or phased out due to their God's presence being gone.

As a result, he is only able to manifest a planar portal to Lorone when invoked by intense arcane rituals that require the Lorone God of law to be distracted or unable to see the magical effect caused by the ritual. Alternatively, he may manifest himself and portals to Attunia if the God of Law is deceased, as he did in 0 CA when Brohn Silverwile absorbed the powers of the dead God of law, and again when Brohn was slain.

Worshippers (Attunia)
In Attunia, most priests and paladins of Maal’fas are very free to solve their disputes and issues with aggression and threats of violence, though some decide against this due to the perceived needless bloodshed among their numbers. Regardless, the church encourages the conquest or destruction of other churches, perceiving other faiths as lesser and an insult to The Tyrant God.

Their primary tenants are to conquer all other forms of life, as it is their given right to rule over all others due to them being too weak and foolish to rule themselves. In the eyes of a worshipper of Maal’fas, civilisation is fickle and requires total subjugation in order to ensure their survival.

Those in servitude to Maal’fas must quickly become accustomed to the presence of both celestials and fiends, as well as beings that toe the lines of being both. Many goblinoids, monstrosities, and aberrations are also in Maal’fas’ ranks, serving him to become more powerful and numerous.

His worshippers can be recognised by holy symbols of a bloody sword on a sunburst, depicting an eye in the background, representing the ever-watchful gaze of The Tyrant God upon the world and his worshippers. This symbol typically appears on war gear, such as breastplates and shields, though some fanatics decorate their weapons to suit this symbol, such as staining a sword with blood or decorating the symbol of an eye on the guard.

Brohn's Ascension
In 5 DF (0 CA), when Brohn Silverwile ascended to become the God of law, the rift sealing Lorone off from Attunia was briefly weakened. This allowed Maal'fas, in an alliance with Nh'thielus, Khol, and other Attunian God-kin who wished to travel to Lorone, to open a planar portal to send a group of demigods and divine servants to Lorone.

But this would not last, as in mere moments Brohn's ascension to Godhood was complete. The new deity quickly discovered the presence of the Attunian rift and unleashed a wrathful spell with all his newfound might, the spell that would become his Light of Judgement, immediately destroying everything that emerged from the planar portal. Brohn then quickly dispelled the portal and began to erect his Tower of the Law God in its place, ensuring that no one on Lorone would be aware of what transpired within those split seconds.

Brohn's Death/Joeri's Ascension
Enraged, Maal'fas would not end his machinations with the loss of so many forces. Upon Brohn's death, the God of Strength seized the opportunity to remove a sentient splinter of his greater being, and threw it into Lorone's Material Plane without an intended destination. This randomness would hide the splinter's existence from Joeri's gaze but would hide it for many decades beneath the ground.

The sentient splinter was eventually unearthed by a group of adventurers in 20 CA, dubbed "The Blade of Strength, Maal'fas" by a pair of dragonborn brothers who were quickly driven insane by the weapon's overpowering personality. After converting their party to worship of The Tyrant God, they travelled to Vikyron to test their might against the legendary beings who reside there. But, they were intercepted by Noah Aeternus who was in the company of his adventurous friends. After a brief scuffle, Noah was able to wrench the blade off of the brothers, but not before becoming infected by it himself.

Luckily for Noah, his experience with aberrations (and his believed ignorance) allowed him to steel his mind against Maal'fas' influence. But, this did not stop Maal'fas' influence from spreading across Noah's body, slowly corrupting his mind and body to the God of Strength's desires. Worse yet, Noah was sought out by one of Maal'fas' demigod progeny, Ulr'k, who saught to kill him and inherit his divine father's sword or die trying. Despite Ulr'k massacring a tavern of civilians in Pholotthu, Noah talked to the half-God and convinced him to end his bloody quest, becoming friends with him and even making him one of the founding members of the adventuring guild known as SaltieDiksMaelo.

Oathbreaker
In the early Bonti Tide of 20 CA, after Zacharias Celeste broke his oath and ran from Vikyra, Joeri Celeste took a much more aggressive approach to his Godhood. During this time, Joeri formed an agreement with Noah and the other Attunian demigods he knew, allowing them to remain in Lorone so long as they did not spread the word of their deities. Joeri also requested that Noah hand over The Blade of Strength to him, so that he may destroy it later.

For now, it resides in his divine plane, bound by divine magic to become totally inert while guarded by a troop of angels.