Loviatar

Maiden of Pain, the Willing Whip, Patroness of Torturers (a.k.a. Scahrossar, Goddess of Exquisite Pain)

Loviatar (Loh-VEE-a-tar), one of the Dark Gods, appears in her religion's art as a pale maiden dressed in white, pleated armor and carrying a bone-white wand, a whip, or a scourge that she uses as a weapon against her foes. She is venerated by torturers, sadists, and other twisted and evil people and creatures, including some nonhumans who love to bully other nonhumans. While he lived, Loviatar served Bhaal along with Talona, though the two goddesses are heated rivals. Loviatar loves to torment and tease Talona and has more than once expressed the opinion that by all rights Talona ought to and eventually will serve her.
Loviatar is aggressive, domineering, and fearless. She has a cold and calculatingly cruel nature and is also almost unreachable emotionally—toward love, fear, or even hatred. It would have to be a miracle for any deity or mortal to make a dent in her icebound heart. She has an instinct for inflicting both physical and psychological pain, and she always seems to know what to say and the way to say it to inflict the most hurt and raise the biggest self-doubts in someone, mortal or deity. And unlike most simple bullies, she does not fear pain or hurt herself and laughs at attempts to physically damage or verbally humiliate her. The only possible weakness one might use against her is her very calculating nature, which relies on her assumption of the innate selfishness of human nature—beings acting in a self-sacrificing or heroic manner can sometimes snarl her carefully knit plans.

Divine Domains

Death

Divine Symbols & Sigils

A black nine-stranded whip, the ends bloody and barbed, or (in elder days) a chalk-white, slim, female human left hand, fingertips downward, with three drops of blood dripping from each of them

Tenets of Faith

Loviatar teaches that the world is filled with pain and torment, and the best that one can do is to suffer those blows that cannot be avoided and deal as much pain back to those who offend. They (chillingly) believe that true pleasure is only won through pain. In the Loviatan faith, the strong are those who taste pain and strive on.
Novices in the Loviatan faith are charged as follows: "Kindnesses are the best companions to hurts, and increase the intensity of suffering. Let mercy of sudden abstinence from causing pain and of providing unlooked-for healing come over you seldom, but at whim, so as to make folk hope and increase the Mystery of Loviatar's Mercy. Unswerving cruelty will turn all folk against you. Act alluring, and give pain and torment to those who enjoy it as well as to those who deserve it most or would be most hurt by it. The lash, fire, and cold are the three pains that never fail the devout. Spread my teachings whenever punishment is meted out. Pain tests all, but gives strength of spirit to the hardy and the true. There is no true punishment if the punisher knows no discipline. Wherever a whip is, there am I. Fear me—and yet long for me."

Holidays

The most basic ritual performed by Loviatans is a kneeling prayer at morning and at evening performed after striking oneself once with a whip. Other rituals of the faith center on consecrating wine, whips, holy symbols, and other items—both practical, such as potions of healing, and horrific, such as torture implements—used by the devout and on celebrating advancement in priestly rank.
All four seasonal festivals are celebrated by Loviatans with the Rite of Pain and Purity: a circle dance of chanting, singing clergy members performed upon barbed wire, thorns, or broken glass or crystal, where the priests allow themselves to be urged to greater efforts by the whips of high level priests and are accompanied by the drumming of lay worshipers. A red radiance rises gradually and forms a flickering cloud above the ring. If Loviatar has important missions to speak of, is especially pleased with this group of followers, or wants to enact her displeasure, she manifests in the heart of the cloud. If Loviatar does not manifest, the ritual ends after half an hour, and the priests heal themselves.
Every twelfth night (unless such a night coincides with a Rite of Pain and Purity, which preempts it) the clergy members celebrate smaller Candle Rites wherein they sing, chant, and pray as they dance around lit candles, passing some parts of their bodies through or over their flames repeatedly until the rite ends with the highest-ranking priestess extinguishing her candle with consecrated wine.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Day-to-Day Activities

As one of the Dark Gods, Loviatar likes to be feared, and her clergy members are ordered to whisper of her ever-present power in the darkness after they have inflicted pain. Their Prime Charge is to tirelessly cause suffering, both widespread and personal. This work may be as brutal as flogging an encountered band of ores until they flee or as subtle as breaking hearts among young nobles by pretending to fall in love with the gallants (while disguising one's Loviatan faith), working to break up existing amours and friendships, and engaging in scandalous dalliances before coldly spurning the victims and departing. The activities of prudent worshipers of Loviatar should never be so high-profile that local authorities set out to imprison or thwart them upon first sight, but such activities should be energetic and numerous. Being a good actor—and of striking beauty, or experienced in using spells to appear so—are very useful traits for a Loviatan, but the most successful Loviatans are those who understand the ways and natures of folk and so know just how to cause them the most pain and to manipulate them toward that end.

Priestly Vestments

Loviatans of both genders wear high black boots, black choker gorgets, and long black gloves that reach up to their shoulders. They also wear daring-looking leather body harnesses over or under side-slit ritual robes of icy white or black lined with scarlet silk (so that movements cause red flashes).
Loviatans are usually armed with saw-edged daggers and whips. A typical priest of low rank has a dagger at her belt, another in one boot, and a barbed whip with a 6-foot reach. A priestess of "full" (medium) rank adds to this gear a barbed cat-o'-nine-tails with a 4-foot reach, and perhaps a black metal mace with skin-contact sleep venom in its hollow handle, so that its first strike releases the venom.

Adventuring Garb

Priests and priestesses of Loviatar wear a pleated armor that resembles scale mail. However, the ceremonial garb is lightweight and designed for fashion rather than protection. It is constructed to emphasize the figure of the wearer rather than to provide true protection.
The pleated mail is often augmented by breastplates that bristle with spikes. From a wearer of such augmented armor, a firm hug (the Embrace of Loviatar) does damage. The addition of the breastplate adds somewhat to the protection provided by the armor.
Loviatar grants boons, in the form of white wands, to those who have caused widespread suffering. She usually grants these boons to members of her priesthood who have served her outstandingly. However, she has been known to grant white wands to individuals outside her faith who have, willingly or not, caused widespread suffering. She prefers to grant them to those who have unwillingly or unknowingly done so, in particular good and lawful types who will be tormented just knowing that they have advanced her cause. (Loviatar delights in tormenting good or lawful beings with these "gifts"; in such cases, the wand emits her cold laughter whenever it operates). Loviatar's white wands appear mysteriously, but their origin and purpose are mentally communicated to the beings they are intended for upon first contact.

SYMBOL: A black nine-stranded whip, the ends bloody and barbed, or (in elder days) a chalk-white, slim, female human left hand, fingertips downward, with three drops of blood dripping from each of them
Home Plane: The Barrens of Doom and Despair
Alignment: Lawful Evil
PORTFOLIO: Pain, hurt, agony, torment, suffering, torture
Worshipers: Beguilers, torturers, evil warriors, sadists and masochists, the depraved
Cleric Alignments: LE, LN, NE
Domains: Death
Favored Weapon: Painbringer (scourge)
Aliases: Scahrossar, Goddess of Exquisite Pain
SUPERIOR: Bhaal
ALLIES: Malar, Bane, Bhaal
FOES: Ilmater, Eldath, Talona, Lliira

Divine Classification

Lesser Power