Beshaba

Beshaba is the chaotic evil intermediate deity of accidents, bad luck, misfortune, and random mischief. Lady Doom is the equally acknowledged counterpart of Tymora, Lady Luck, and demands worship to keep her misfortunes at bay. Most fear her presence, but few would risk not invoking her name and inviting her to any event, lest she take offense and wreak havoc upon all involved.

Description

Beshaba appeared as a young, tall, slim, and beautiful maiden with a wild mane of pure white hair. The woman was pale, had a small waist and voluptuous shape. Her corpse-like pale skin was countered by flushed hues of blue and violet on the cheeks and throat. Beshaba's most prominent feature were her yellow-rimmed eyes that were ablaze with insanity. She was adorned in a tight gown that snugly wrapped her body in pitch-black fabric. She wore a tiara of black pearls.

Personality

Beshaba is a spiteful, petty, and purportedly insane goddess whose actions often seem random to onlookers. Her primary motivation, however, is jealousy, specifically towards her sister for her more favorable public reception, and so she demands equal lip service (if not actual veneration) lest she curse the offenders. Unlike her sister Tymora, who happily shares her gifts with her own worshipers as well as her godly allies, Beshaba hoards her divine powers, creating a reserve.

Worshippers

Beshaba was revered more out of fear than out of religious faith. Her doctrine stated that bad luck befell everybody and the only way to avoid it was by worshiping her. She was renowned for being spiteful and malevolent, and her priests manipulated common folk into revering and providing for them by acting mysteriously and playing on morbid fears. Her clerics offered an entreaty for their spells and made sacrifices of alcoholic beverages such as burning brandy or wine. There were two festivals in the calendar of Beshaba, at Midsummer and Shieldmeet. Both were celebrated by revelry and indulgence in food and drink.

Red Wizards of Thay were known to erect shrines to Beshaba near their ritual chambers to ward off bad luck.

Giant black stags with red eyes who could gore an elephant with ease served the goddess of misfortune and inhabited Beshaba's Blood Tor.

Clergy

Orders

Doommasters: The best known order of specialty priests, universally feared for the way they reveled in the infliction of misfortune on others. Black Fingers: Only by Beshaba's favor could some evil male clerics, thieves, and fighters join this secret order. They acted as assassins dedicated to their goddess's name. Wormlucks: In order to spread Beshaba's influence and counter the church of Tymora, the Wormlucks (or Priests of Bad Fortune) were created, serving as a focus for calamities that occurred wherever they went, often affecting them as well. Their style of dress was distinctive, forced upon them by the orthodox clergy to avoid confusion with them and for high visibility. They wore bright red robes worn over armor and white hair wigs, which had to be obvious and usually ill-fitting, to honor Beshaba's own locks.

Relationships

Beshaba, who was said to have gotten Tyche's looks where Tymora got her love, was considered to be attractive to many male deities and some have been devoured by her lustful passions. Mortals who perceived the Maid of Misfortune were often destroyed by their lust or driven to maddened loyalty.

She rejected advances from Talos, among other hopefuls.

Beshaba was the twin sister and sworn enemy of Tymora.

She was Tempus' lover.

Beshaba was served by alu-fiends who were outfitted with silver breastplates decorated with the goddess' symbol - stag horns. Two of her loyal demonic servants were Okim and Airdna.

History

Beshaba came into being when the deity Tyche split during the Dawn Cataclysm, a separate disaster relating to the machinations of Lathander. Tyche was infected with a taint of the dark god Moander and was forced to split into two parts by her friend Selûne. Those two parts, Tymora and Beshaba, sprang out fully formed and immediately fought.

Beshaba

Intermediate deity

Basic Information

Titles

Black Bess
Lady Doom
The Maid of Misfortune
The Maid of Misrule

Adjectives

Beshaban

Pantheons

Astoran

Attributes

Alignment

Chaotic Evil

Symbol

Black antlers on a red field

Realm

Infinite Layers of the Abyss/13th Layer

Portfolio

Accidents, Bad Luck, Misfortune, Random Mischief

Favored Weapon

Ill Fortune (barbed scourge)

Following

Worshippers

Assassins
Auspicians
Capricious individuals
Gamblers
Rogues
Sadists

Alignments

CN, NE, CE

Domains

Chaos (Whimsy)
Destruction (Catastrophe)
Luck (Curse, Fate)
Trickery (Ambush)

Favored Aspects

Animals/Plants

Cockroaches
Rats

Monsters

Half-fiendish humans
Bebiliths
Bodaks
Quasits

Colors

Black
Mauve
Purple

Manifest- ations

A 12 ft tall, white-haired head with a maniacal expression

An unexplained grotesque shadow with faint maniacal laughter