Talona (tah-LO-nah)

Talona, called the Lady of Poison, Mistress of Disease, and Mother of All Plagues, was the goddess of poison and disease. Talona was depicted as an old crone who brought misfortune and death. On the other hand, she could also be depicted as a beautiful and innocent woman.

Personality

Talona was a strange goddess in terms of personality. She had been compared by sages to a greedy and petulant child, switching between the juvenile desire for attention at any cost to the aloofness of a discarded paramour. Curiously for a deity so closely tied to death, she had no personal taste for violence.

Worshipers

Her priests, known collectively as Talontar, typically wore ragged gray-green robes. Though they would wash these vestments, they would never repair them. Older and high-ranking members of her priesthood tended to either ritually scar or tattoo their bodies all over. When embarking on a battle or dangerous adventure, a follower of Talona would often don armor of a black and purple hue that was adorned with a variety of spurs, horns, and spikes.
Her followers often sold various poisons, antidotes, and medicines. When not doing so they were known to travel across Faerûn, seeking out new diseases or afflictions while also spreading rumours about Talona in hopes of boosting her reputation.
Talontar devoted much of their lives to building up an immunity to various diseases and poisons, by means of both inoculation and magic. Because of this often treated those afflicted with diseased or buried their bodies. They also tended to be hired by paranoid members of high society, such as wealthy merchants or rulers, to test their food for any poison.

Orders

• Followers of Plague: They experienced pain as if it were pleasure. They believed death was more powerful than life, though they were equal in balance. They followed the dictum to work in her name and let their doings be subtle or spectacular.
• Plague Rats: an elite group of assassins, thieves, and wererats that operated throughout the North and the Western Heartlands.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Talona appeared as a gaunt, 10 feet (3 meters) tall, human female with long, unkempt hair and reaching, elongated fingers. Her depictions in religious texts portrayed her as a withered crone with a scarred, tattooed face. The bodies of her avatars seemed like they were beautiful and voluptuous at one point, but their frames and charms been ravaged by the march of time, horrific diseases, and starvation. Even so, Talona's dancing movements were said to be alluring, and her lips nonetheless inviting and gentle.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

A demipower named Kiputytto once tried to challenge Talona for her portfolio. The conflict that ensued devastated the nation a number of nations with terrible plagues, forcing citizens to provide Talona devotional power in hopes that she would lessen the plague's effects. Talona ultimately won the conflict and shortly afterwards murdered Kiputytto. In the years that followed, texts would be written that referred to the latter deity as an alias of hers, further cementing Kiputytto's defeat. A formula to the concoction known as the Chaos Curse was indirectly given to the evil wizard Aballister Bonaduce by an avatar of Talona.

Social

Contacts & Relations

In ancient times, Talona was a servant of Bhaal and had a heated rivalry with her fellow servant Loviatar. During that time she was often teased and tormented by Loviatar. Mocked for her appearance, the size of her portfolio, and her small number of followers. She would occasionally provide aid to adventurers of good alignments if she viewed their goals as something that would damage Loviatar's reputation. She developed an alliance with the deity Shar.
She despised Chauntea, Mielikki, Kelemvor, and Tyr. She disliked Ilmater for the cures he found.

Divine Classification

Lesser deity

Religions
Achorian pantheon
Alignment
Chaotic evil
Honorary & Occupational Titles
Lady of Poison, Mistress of Disease, Mother of all Plagues, The Plague-crone Divine Domain
Death
Portfolio
Poison, disease