Loviatar

Overview

Loviatar is the aggressive, domineering and fearless patron of torturers, sadists and bullies. She is cold and cruel, and has an instinct for inflicting both physical and psychological pain, always striking at the weakest link in her victim's emotional armour. Unlike most bullies, she does not feel pain herself, but her schemes often rely on the innate and inherent selfishness of human nature.

Description

Loviatar appears as a slim, beautiful maiden with thigh-long, straight, platinum-blond hair and a cold, sinister demeanor. She wears revealing white silks decorated with silver chains, or white pleated armour, or black leather studded with outlandish spikes. She usually carries a bone white rod, a whip, or a scourge that she uses against her foes. She speaks softly and moves with sensual grace, and truly enjoys inflicting pain on others - not caring if she is struck in turn; in fact more than one opponent has been startled when she has deliberately advanced to receive a blow. When she bleeds, her blood is black and thick, like syrup.

Holy symbol

Loviatar's symbol is a black, nine-stranded whip (or scourge), with barbed and bloody ends, or a pale female hand, fingertips pointing down, dripping three drops of blood from each fingertip, or a pale hand holding a white dagger.

Favored Weapon

Loviatar wields a scourge known as Painbringer, but has also been known to wield a whip or a dagger of ice. Her priesthood have selected the scourge as their favored weapon.

Realm

World Tree cosmology

In the World Tree cosmology of Realmspace, Loviatar resides within her realm, known as the Palace of Pain, which is located on the outer plane known as the Barrens of Doom and Despair which she shares with her fellow Dark Gods, including Bane, Beshaba, Talona, and Hoar. The Barrens of Doom and Despair are simply inhospitable, and are so bleak that life could never thrive there. The plane consists of vast expanses of black sand, great plains of featureless granite, and bleak canyons ringed by sheer cliffs of knife sharp obsidian. No water trickles through the wastes, no plants grow, and nothing wholesome thrives here. Despite the oppressive heat, there is no sunshine, instead black clouds cloak a glowering red sky, shrouding the lands in darkness. The wastes grow colder and colder, until snow and ice stretch as far as the eye can see, and fiendish dire wolves howl in the distance. Travellers lost in the wilderness might find hope in the sight of a beautiful aurora shining above a glittering ice palace, but they will find no comfort here, for this is the Palace of Pain.

Great Wheel cosmology

In the Great Wheel cosmology, Loviatar resides within her realm, known as Ondtland, which is located on the icy slopes of Mungoth, the third mount of the Bleak Eternity of Gehenna. Ondtland is a wasteland of ice and snow, filled with carnivorous caribou and packs of dire wolves. While it boasts such beautiful sights as the aurora over Loviatar's ice palace, it is not a place for the unprepared.

Worship

Loviatar is the chosen deity of those who inflict pain as a matter of course, including torturers and others who need to break the will of their victims. She is favored by sadists and masochists, and some of her followers form cultish cells of secret adherents. Each of these groups is led by someone who takes pleasure in administering pain and dominating others, supported and backed up by a number of submissive sycophants. For Loviatar's faithful, pain isn't a means to an end, but an end unto itself. To them, nothing is as transcendent as suffering, and all pain is holy, from the crudest barbarism, to the most sublime torture, to the emotional suffering of the heartbroken or the betrayed. The pain that one feels is proof of the Lady's attention, and so her faithful are notorious self-flagellants. Pain is also a path to power, in terms of both one's ability to inflict it and one's ability to endure it. A cold, cruel demeanor is considered ideal because it best emulates their goddess, and for the same reason her faithful appreciate beauty, cultural refinement, and a certain adeptness at manipulation.

In Spelljammer

Loviatar is a member of the Faerûnian pantheon and as such is considered native to Realmspace. Priests of Loviatar are unable to cast any spells in the phlogiston, and if they leave Realmspace, will be unable to recover any mid-to-high level spells until they return.

Appendix

External Links

• Loviatar article at the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.
• Loviatar article at the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Wiki, a wiki for official Dungeons & Dragons content from 2nd edition AD&D.

References

Connections