Malar

The Beastlord, the Black-Blooded Pard, The Ravager

Malar (MAH-larr) is the god of the savage wild. Along with Umberlee and Auril, he is one of the Gods of Fury who serve Talos. He is worshiped by hunters who revel in the kill or who hunt for sport or to excess, fallen rangers, sentient carnivores, and lycanthropes. Those who suffer the depredations of wild beasts attempt to placate the Beastlord with offerings of freshly killed and bloody meat, but Malar rarely recognizes their entreaties. In his more favorable aspects he is revered by beings who identify with the untamed nature, grace, and amorality of predators.
Malar achieves almost sensual fulfillment from the hunt and the kill. He revels in the fear radiated by the hunted and hungers for the blood of his prey. He speaks only in low growling undertone or vicious snarl. The Lord of Beasts despises the Balance sought by druids and their deities and seeks to overthrow it through the actions of his faithful. He manifests an avatar in Faerun in an endless hunt across the Realms whenever the mood strikes him—which is almost constantly.
During the Time of Troubles, Malar stalked the length and breadth of Faerun. He is known to have battled Nobanion in the Guthmere Forest in a fierce conflict known as the Roar of Shadows. The Beastlord was driven north and west by the Lion God working in an alliance with the Emerald Enclave. When Malar appeared in the North, he was relentlessly pursued by Gwaeron Windstrom and could not shake the Master of Tracking from his trail. The Beastlord did challenge and defeat Herne, a corrupted incarnation of the Master of the Hunt brought to the Realms by an ancient wave of immigrants along with Oghma and other powers. Herne was venerated by the orcs of the High Forest, and Malar has since assumed his portfolio.
In the aftermath of the Time of Troubles, Malar has been weakened by the growing strength of Talos. As a result, he has been forced to seek new worshipers among the nonhuman tribes, and now numerous humanoids have begun to venerate the Beastlord as an adjunct to their traditional pantheons. Malar has also acquired additional human worshipers from the ranks of a few beast cults by slaying their totem spirits and assuming the animal spirits' portfolios as aspects of his own. One of the first beast totems to fall to his bloody talons was Blue Bear, an Uthgardt beast cult corrupted by pervasive contact with lower planar beings and venerated in other lands as Render, the Bear God.

Divine Domains

Death, Nature

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Bestial claw with brown fur and curving bloody talons

Tenets of Faith

Survival of the fittest and winnowing of the weak are Malar's legacy. A brutal, bloody death has great meaning: "May you die an old man" is an insult among Malarites. The hunt is the fulcrum of life and death, and the focus point of life is the challenge between the hunter and the prey, the judgment of who may live or die. Malarites are expected to view every important task as a hunt and to remain ever alert and alive. They must walk the wilderness without trepidation, as Malar does, and must show no fear in the hunt. By being bold, they expect to win the day.
Malarite novices are charged as follows "Savagery and strong emotions defeat reason and careful thought in all things. The strong must slay as frequently as possible and exult in the doing if they are to survive and achieve dominance of the pack that society truly is under the polite veneer it maintains. Taste the blood of those you slay and never kill from a distance. The glory and danger in the hunt should be told to all in grand tales. Work against woodcutters, farmers, and all fools who seek to cut back the forest and slay beasts because they are dangerous. Suffer no druid to live, for they believe not in survival of the strong, but in a weak-minded balance that allows the inferior to survive and often to rule. Slay not pregnant wild creatures, young wild animals, or deepspawns so that dire beasts to hunt may always be plentiful."

Holidays

Worship of Malar centers around the hunt and tends to consist of personal prayers to the Beastlord offered before the chase, during pursuit, and while drinking a toast over the slain quarry (sometimes a toast of the blood of the very animal killed). The droning Bloodsong is intoned over the bodies of all creatures slain during a hunt—and specific ritual prayers and chants should accompany feasting on any beast slain during a hunt.
The only high rites of the faith are the Feast of the Stags and the High Hunts. The Feast is celebrated at Higharvestide, when Malarite clergy parade through settled areas bearing the heads of the beasts they have slain during the previous tenday (a frenzied orgy of killing) and lead all who desire to eat to a feast. The beasts hunted down by Malarite hands are the main dishes at this two-day-long revel of gluttony, and all folk are invited (even druids may come and dine in safety, protected by "the Peace of the Table").
At this feast, clergy publicly undertake to hunt throughout the winter ahead for the tables of specific widows, aged folk, infirm individuals, and orphan children. This day marks the annual high point of regard for the faith of Malar in most communities.
By Malar's command, every hunt (religious community) of his worshipers must celebrate at least one High Hunt in each of the four seasons of the year. A High Hunt is a sporting event attended by all Malarite clergy members able to walk. They wear boots and headpieces made from the skulls or heads of beasts they have personally slain, and each wields only a single knife or the claws of Malar. Their quarry—a sentient humanoid, usually a human male—who is set free in a wooded area (or extensive cavern complex if necessary) ringed by Malarite clergy members. The quarry is armed and armored with all the nonmagical items he or she desires that can reasonably be obtained— and then hunted to death for the glory of Malar. However, if the prey escapes the boundaries of the hunt (set up at its beginning) within a day and a night or survives until the sun has cleared the horizon on the morning after the hunt begins, he or she wins freedom, can never be so hunted again, and can ask any boon of the Huntmaster that is within his or her power and does not involve killing a Malarite.
The prey is often a druid and cannot be a worshiper of Malar. (Huntmasters cannot use the High Hunt to eliminate potential rivals within the clergy.) When slain, victims of the hunt are wholly burned to ashes as a meal for Malar.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Day-to-Day Activities

Priests of Malar indulge in hunting as often as possible and strive to route the hunt to make it as dangerous as possible, so that its finale (the killing of the quarry) takes place in a settled area (so that the Malarites can demonstrate their superiority, of course). Common folk who do not appreciate having desperate leucrotta, wolves, displacer beasts, and the like chased through town tend to hate and fear Malarite clergy members—which is the whole idea: Those who do not venerate the Lord of Beasts should respect him out of fear.
Malarite clergy members also preach the joys and the bountiful yields of the hunt and work to thwart the expansion of farms and settlements so as to preserve as much wilderness as possible. They work against the priesthoods of Chauntea, Deneir, Eldath, Silvanus, and Ilmater, staging raids and vandalism much as outlaws and bored young noblemen indulge in.
Malarite clergy seek to slay druids of all faiths whenever possible, for they see the natural Balance that druids promote and maintain as the true foe of all who love to hunt. They believe it interferes with the rightful triumph of the strong over the weak. Consequently, druid organizations, those with druidic connections, and those sponsored even partially by nature deities (including the Harpers) also seek out and destroy Malarite strongholds at any opportunity.

Priestly Vestments

Huntmasters wear headpieces made from the pelt and head of the most impressive beast they have been able to slay with their bare hands (usually a bear or great cat, but sometimes an owlbear, leucrotta, or peryton). Malarites carry hunting horns at their belts and are never without at least three daggers (usually one sheathed in each boot, two in belt sheaths, one strapped to either forearm, and another hidden in a nape-of-the-neck sheath under the hair or in an armpit sheath). Woodland garb of red or brown is the favored dress for hunts. By day, red hunt clothing is often concealed by a woodcloak of mottled black, gray, and green. Necklaces of animal bones, fangs, and claws and a variety of pelts are often worn in addition to normal hunt clothes when priests desire to impress.

Adventuring Garb

When adventuring, priests of Malar dress practically, but most favor armor constructed from the hides of living creatures that allows flexibility and rapid movement. Necklaces of claws and fangs and a variety of pelts from predator animals are often worn to quietly demonstrate a Malarite's hunting prowess to the members of a community.
Talons of Malar and Huntmasters are allowed to employ the weapons known as claws of Malar. Claws of Malar are metal weapons gripped in the fists that resemble brass knuckles studded with rows of sharp, jagged edges along the top like lion's claws. Although crude local specimens of these weapons exist, the best True Talons of the God come from one source: the Divine Den in Bezentil, the most important temple to the Lord of Beasts in all Faerun. Claws from this source are blessed in the blood of beasts slain in the hunt, enchanted to never rust (even if touched by rust monsters or assaulted by spells that should make them rust), and bear tiny markings that allow the smiths who made them to identify each pair. Other individuals can try to use the claws, but a nonbeliever or a nonpriest of Malar suffers the wrath of the church if she or he does so, and said wrath translates to the Malarites hunting down and slaying the individual as a warning to others.

Symbol: Bestial claw with brown fur and curving bloody talons
Home Plane: Fury's Heart, Land of the Hunt
Alignment: Chaotic evil
Portfolio: Hunters, stalking, bloodlust, evil lycanthropes, marauding beasts and monsters,
Worshipers: Hunters, evil lycanthropes, sentient carnivores, rangers, druids
Cleric Alignments: CE, CN, NE
Domains: Death, Nature
Favored Weapon: A beast’s claw (claw bracer)
SUPERIOR: Talos
ALLIES: Auril, Talos, Umberlee, Bane, Loviatar
FOES: Chauntea, Deneir, Eldath, Ilmater, Lurue the Unicom, Nobanion, Silvanus, Sune, Gwaeron Windstrom, Shiallia, Uthgar

Divine Classification

Lesser Power