Incabulos

The Black Rider, God of Plagues, Sickness, Famine, Nightmares, Drought, and Disasters

Symbol: Green Reptile Eye within a diamond
Home Plane: Gray Wastes (Charnelhouse)
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Portfolio: Disasters, Drought, Famine, Nightmares, Plagues, Sickness
Worshipers: Cultists the paranoid, the mad, evil creatures
Cleric Alignments: NE, N, LE, CE
Domains: Tempest, Death, Twilight
Favored Weapon: Falchion

Incabulos (in-CAB-yoo-lohs) is a dread power feared by mortals, fiends, and (it is said) even some gods. The bringer of disease and blights is a terrifying figure—deformed body, skeletal hands, nightmarish visage, and garbed in a black robe lined with orange and green. He rides a nightmare and is accompanied by hags. He causes a nightmarish slumber in any who meet his eyes, and his great staff causes seeping wounds and withers flesh with a touch. His symbol is the magic icon for the eye of possession. Incabulos hates all other gods, although he is indifferent to Nerull, who completes the work Incabulos starts,

Appearance, Manifestations

Incabulos's appearance is said to be absolutely terrifying: a deformed body, skeletal hands, and a face from the worst nightmare. His skin is tinged a diseased blue. His filthy black robe is lined with sickly orange and trimmed in moss green. He rides a nightmare and is accompanied by night hags or daemons (but not both). Any who meet his eyes are stricken by nightmares, and he carries a staff that causes seeping wounds and withers flesh.

Relationships & History

Incabulos hates all other gods except for Nerull, the death-god who finishes the work Incabulos starts. Incabulos regards Nerull with total indifference.
Since he is the bringer of plagues, famine, and drought, and because of the immense joy he gets from the suffering these things bring, he is feared by even the demon princes of the Abyss and the archdevils of Baator.

Dogma

The suffering of the world is meat and bread to Incabulos. Sickness, famine, and other curses bring him power, Some feel that the Black Rider can be warded off or appeased by prayers; but this only delays the inevitable. The world of dreams is his battleground, and he wages war against minds just as he rots bodies.

Worshipers, Clergy & Temples

Incabulos has only a small following, but common folk throughout the Flanaess give him offerings, usually foul-smelling, guttering black candles, in a vain attempt to appease him or avoid his wrath. More vile individuals will venerate the Black Rider for his power and evil. Incabulos is popular among the Tiger Nomads.
Clerics of Incabulos are secretive and paranoid, fearing persecution by those who value their health and well-being. Most of the followers of Incabulos try to hide from others, and many members of the clergy are paranoid and madmen. If they reveal themselves, it is only to strike great fear in those already suffering. Threats are used by older church members to keep secrets and to maintain a sense of hierarchy among younger members. The priests of the Lord of Evil are intoxicated by inflicting suffering, carrying out slow torture and delivering all kinds of misery. They enjoy torturing others and spreading disease and blight. They travel the lands to discover new diseases or to spread them.
Many priests deliberately get infected with lycanthropy because it gives them an advantage over 'ordinary' clergy members, while strengthening their position in the church. The clergy include cultists, half-orcs, orcs, hobgoblins, and other evil creatures.
The priests of Incabulosa spend most of their time increasing their own power and expanding their influence, as well as raising money, which is always accompanied by doing evil on behalf of the Black Rider. Kidnappings, slave trade, arms smuggling and desecration of graves are commonplace. Priests also love to manipulate ordinary people they use for their own purposes by using both threats and magic.
Many priests spend a lot of time researching diseases and how to make them even more effective and how to spread them in areas protected from plagues. These priests often work and experiment with various animals and insects - pigeons, bats and, of course, rats . More inventive priests may even decide to work with powerful necromancers and intelligent undead.
Priests of Incabulos are constantly plotting, creating far-reaching plans that will result in total chaos and despair among the masses. For this purpose, they take advantage of every opportunity - especially natural disasters, deaths of important people and other types of tragedies.
Although the Incabulites try their best to adapt to the culture in which they live, there is one thing that sets them apart from the crowd - stink and general lack of hygiene. This is the only thing they don't care about and it doesn't bother them at all. Older priests are prone to purchasing works of art and jewelry made of bronze.
All clergy members wear black shirts decorated with a rusty bronze eye in a diamond. The robes of the higher priests have orange borders, and those of ordinary clerics - green. All robes are called the Soul Shroud and are obtained from older clergy members. They are worn until the end of life or until they are completely worn and destroyed. Some priests also wear ritual masks with horrible and gruesome images of Lord Evil painted on them.

Hierarchy

Members of the clergy are commonly known as Icabulites, and this name is used both inside and outside the church. Priests prefer to act alone, but sometimes they form small sabbaths whose effectiveness far exceeds the capacity of their lonely members.
Within the clergy, equal priests call themselves Ambassadors, while the younger ones turn to the higher placed 'Your Malice'. Within the church, novice priests receive the title of Larvae. Among the full members of the clergy, in order from lowest to highest rank, the following titles are used: Acolyte, Deacon, Vicar and Bishop. The high priest are called Patriarchs or Matrons. These titles are sometimes extended and combined as needed, and you should not be surprised when you hear about high-ranking priests known as "His Most Terrible Malice, Patriarch of Harm and Famine, Bishop of ..." However, many of them are not officially recognized by the rest clergy.

Temples

Temples of the Incabulos are hidden underground or in isolated, desolate regions. There is a temple to Incabulos in Erelhei-Cinlu.

Rituals

Followers celebrate various iniquities with their clerics and pray for more evils to enter the world.
Services to Incabulos are accompanied by weird humming and droning chants praising his evil deeds. These services take place in dark rooms, lit only by candles arranged around a stone altar. During the ceremony, items made only of bronze are used. There are no strict rules regarding when and how often they should take place.
Many priests decide not to show their faith in the Lord of Evil, trying to keep it secret. Elder priests require that clerical secrets be a priority for all its members. That is why holidays and grand ceremonies dedicated to Incabulos are so rare.
Like many other cults, the Incabulites celebrate the Blood Moon festival on the eleventh day of the month. During this ceremony, many innocent creatures are sacrificed, which are considered the greatest gift for the Black Rider. Priests of Incabulos get great pleasure from seeing fear in their victim's eyes. Among the clergy, it is believed that killing a follower of another deity is favored by Incabulos.
Another important holiday is the Feast of Hunger, which occurs in winter and is celebrated in hard-to-reach regions of Oerth. Members of the clergy go without food for several days. During this time, all peasants and farmers who have the misfortune to meet the priests of the Lord of Evil, must offer them some food. If they do not, that person becomes a target of the priest, who burn their house/barn, as well as kill farm animals and cast a curse on everything, leaving the unfortunate Eye of Possession - the symbol of Incabulos.
The last Incabulite festival worth mentioning is the Congregation's Eye held once every ten years. High priests of the Evil Lord gather in various places of Flanaess to meditate in the presence of the aspect or (less often) the deity's avatar, contemplating the nature of evil. The main purpose of these meetings is to plan and establish an action plan for the coming years so as to cover the largest possible area of ​​the Incabulos Shadow.

Orders

There is no armed order dedicated to Incabulos, but a group called the Bronze Kabbalah works very closely with the church, as they have similar goals. The Kabbalah consists of priests and wizards engaged in necromancy and disease research. Their main goal is to create a poison and a perfect disease, for which no antidote or medicine can be found. Lycanthropes that are willing to cooperate with the Incabulites are a large group in their ranks.

Holidays

On Fullfalling 29th, the followers of Incabulos celebrate Calling the Dark, in which the lord of disaster is beseeched and summoned. Clerics with enough power will use their spells to summon storms or plagues, while other followers may poison or taint food stores. This becomes a major threat to any community since the harvest period is over and the stores must support the community over the winter months. Most communities will increase the number of guards on grain silos and warehouses even if they don't have any information about cults of the Black Rider..

Mythology

Long ago, Incabulos cursed a tribe of hill giants, turning them into rot giants by giving them a rotting disease that left them in constant agony.

Divine Classification

Greater God