Auril (AW-rill)

Auril is most powerful in those regions that are affected by deep winters or crouch at the edges of the Great Glacier. She is worshiped primarily out of fear. She is one of the Gods of Fury, along with her sister Umberlee.
When portrayed, Auril appears similar to her Frostmaiden avatar. She is a fickle, vain, and evil creature whose cold divine heart remains untouched by any hint of true love, noble feeling, or honor. She often toys with those who offend her, trapping them in snow storms and then driving them insane by tantalizing them with visions of warmth and the comforts of home before she freezes them to death. Her eternal beauty is cold and deadly, the flower of womanhood preserved forever in a slab of arctic ice—with sensibilities to match the ice.

Tenets of Faith

Auril charges her clergy to: "Cover all the lands with ice. Quench fire wherever it is found. Let in the winds and the cold; cut down windbreaks and chop holes in walls and roofs that my breath may come in. Work darknesses to hide the cursed sun so that the chill I bring may slay. Take the life of an arctic creature only in great need, but slay all others at will. Make all Faerun fear me." Auril's clergy are commanded to revere her and sing her praises into any chill breeze or winter wind. They are to make all creatures fear or worship her and to bring down her cold power against all so that all may know her and quake before her. They are not to raise their hands against any other priest of Auril.

Worship

Clergy of Auril seek to make all folk fear their goddess and her clergy (to cut down on the attacks they face) through the fury of the winter weather. They also try to make themselves personally wealthy and influential by carrying out tasks that others cannot in the worst winter weather and by magically protecting those who pay or obey from the worst winter conditions. Clergy members make offerings to the goddess of some of the wealth they amass by scattering it in falling snow during a storm or throwing it through cracks in river ice or glacial crevasses during the winter.
In the cold months, Auril expects each of her priests to force or persuade someone to pray to her in the approved manner by beseeching Auril for mercy and praising her for the "cold cleansing" she brings. This prayer must last for the length of time it takes a piece of ice larger than the "supplicant's" hand to melt against his or her bared flesh. It must be done out of doors and preferably at night. During the winter, Aurilian clergy are also expected to slay at least one creature by cold. This is often done so as to provide worshipers or potential worshipers of the goddess with food or to slay a personal foe of the priestess or priest.
Two informal but enthusiastically celebrated rituals are the Coming Storm and the Last Storm—howling ice storms called up by clergy working en masse with all the cold magic they can muster. Together they bring fierce weather down upon a town or region to mark the onset of winter or its last gasp as spring begins.

Symbol: A white snowflake on a gray diamond (a heraldic lozenge) with a white border
Divine Classification: Goddess
Portfolio: Cold, Winter
Domains: Nature, Tempest
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Home Plane: Winter's Hall in Pandemonium
Worshipers: Druids, elemental archons (air or water), frost giants, inhabitants of cold climates, arctic rangers
Cleric Alignments: CN, LN, NE