Incabulos the Black Rider is the god of plague, drought and nightmares from the crystal sphere known as Greyspace.
"The suffering of the world is as meat and bread to Incabulos. Sickness, famine, and other curses bring him power. Some feel that the Black Rider can be warded off or appeased by prayers; but this only delays the inevitable. The world of dreams is his battleground, and he wages war against minds just as he rots bodies."
- Doctrine of the Church of Incabulos.
Overview
Incabulos is the god of evil sendings, including plague, sickness, famine, drought, nightmares and disasters. His greatest joy is inflicting woe and wickedness, to the point where even the dukes of Hell and the princess of the Abyss fear him. He is hated by just about every other entity in the cosmos who is aware of him. Even other gods of disease despise him. Incabulos favors battlefields and other sites of great carnage, for he draws much of his strength from such places.
Description
Incabulos appears as a deformed, nightmarish figure with skeletal hands, clad in black robes lined with sickly orange and nauseating moss green. He often appears riding an enormous nightmare, accompanied by a retinue of six night hags similarly mounted.
Abilities
Incabulos can cause a victim to fall asleep permanently, a curse that can only be lifted through exorcism.
Holy symbol
Incabulos' symbol is the magical icon known as the Eye of Possession, which resembles a reptilian eye on a horizontal diamond, or a green eye within a red diamond.
Favored weapon
Incabulos wields a quarterstaff that causes seeping wounds and withers flesh. Incabulos has also been known to wield an envenomed bastard sword.
Realm
In the Great Wheel cosmology, Incabulos resides within his realm known as Charnelhouse, which is located on Oinos, the first gloom of the Gray Waste of Hades. Charnelhouse is a disgusting place, even more so than the rest of the plane of pestilence and disease. The first thing a visitor notices is the stench - not even the Grey Wast can mask the overwhelming smell of decay that permeates the realm. The second thing a visitor will notice is their deepest fear coming to life in front of them. Whatever they fear the most, whether it be a skeletal steed with shreds of still-twitching flesh in its teeth, or the inevitable betrayal by their closest companions, it all comes true within the realm of Charnelhouse.
Worship
The priests of Incabulos are secretive and paranoid. Justifiably fearing persecution, they rarely reveal themselves for what they are except during times of great despair, when they can revel in the suffering of others. They enjoy torturing others, inflicting disease and spreading blight. The priests of Incabulos are widely traveled as they seek new opportunities to spread disease, or escape those who would destroy them.
In Spelljammer
Incabulos is a member of the Greyhawk pantheon and is native to Greyspace. Incabulos is not commonly worshipped in wildspace, except among some of the humanoids of Borka. Priests of Incabulos who travel into wildspace find that their spell are less effective, except for spells related to cold. However, on any planet with a day-night cycle, the priests of Incabulos are able to cast spells as per normal. In areas that have seen great devastation, such as the Grinder or Borka, priests of Incabulos find that they are able to cast an additional high level spell. When passing into the Flow, priests of Incabulos lose access to all their spells, and can only regain them when re-entering Greyspace.
Some inhabitants of the Grinder believe that the horgs are actually creatures of Incabulos. While this is not true, some have begun worshipping Incabulos in secret, in the hope that he can protect them from the horg scourge.