Reina the Broken
Saint of Envy, Pain, Darkness, and Loss
Titles: Saint Reina the Broken, The Cruel Mistress, The Voidlight Lady, She of Tears, Bearer of our Burdens, The Covetous Collector, Reina the Reforged, She of the Spurned, Lady Brainstitch
Favored Weapon: Sickle
Alignment: Void
Elemental Lord: Hannoxyn, Duchess of the Abyss
Obedience: Spend one hour writing down your most recent pains, losses, or sorrows onto any valid informational medium - once this is done, offer whatever you wrote such things on up to Reina at an alter to her name so she may take them on in your place and take your burdens.
Effect: Your eyes are infused with the power of voidlight, and you become capable of seeing the sufferings of others. By focusing on others as a full-round action, you may learn one of the follow things(A Recent or especially terrible sin they committed, A haunting regret or source of pain, what object they value most, or their greatest desire or want). You must wait an hour between uses of this ability on the same target. Additionally, 1/day, you may immediately end any ongoing poison, curse, magical effect, or disease you are suffering and transfer it to any other valid target within 30ft(determined randomly by die roll), whom it affects with no save. Alternatively, you may simply be rid of the effect by letting Reina take it from you, but doing so causes 1d4 points of damage plus an additional 1d4 damage for every 2HD you possess. This damage cannot bring you below 0HP, and bypasses all resistances and immunities.
Divine Domains
Darkness, Protection, Healing, Void(Isolation and Stars Subdomain ONLY), Evil(Corruption, Fear, and Kyton Subdomains ONLY), Trickery(Deception and Greed subdomains ONLY)
Holy Books & Codes
The Cruel Mistress's Teachings
Divine Symbols & Sigils
A pair of hands clasped around a ruby with a dagger inside it
Tenets of Faith
Sicker is the unspoken soul. Cry out your woes, and spread your pains onto others that they might share your burdens. Carve your sorrows into others to ease your pain.
Envy and covet, to fill the void in your heart. Yearn for what you do not have, be envious of the belongings of others, and be unabashed in taking both - to want is to live.
Suffering be thy art, the body thy canvas. A life untainted by misery is no life to live - bring pain, give loss, and accept both onto you that life might be worth living.
Do not deny the darkness inside. Accept your own brokenness and wear it with pride, as you teach others the truths of the Cruel Mistress.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
To teach others to accept their innermost sins and passions.
To spread the truths of pain and suffering.
To teach others to covet and desire and be greedy, that they might prove they are alive.
Relationships
History
A strange relationship, Reina seems to be especially fond of the Saint of Medicine - and has long had a standing order to all her followers to not harm those who follow the teachings of Saint Shen. This order is absolute, and is punishable by exile - though none have determined why Reina is so fond of the meek master of science and medicine. Shen, for his part, has issued no such decree to his followers, though they often take on followers of Reina as patients to try and heal them in whatever ways they are broken, creating a friendly(or at least noncombative) atmosphere between the two faiths.
Followers & Priesthood
As the only saint of Hannoxyn, Duchess of the Abyss whose faith is not universally regarded as a cult and is often allowed into civilization centers, Reina's followers are a strange lot amongst the other saints of Hannoxyn, Duchess of the Abyss - contrary to their more evil and self-centered nature, they tend to be highly lawful and ordered in their organization and hierarchies despite this running contrary to the self-centered nature of their usual alignments. Followers of the Reinan faith are generally organized into parishes and communities that can vary wildly in appearance from group to group, and depending on whether or not a given parish or gathering of the faithful leans more towards being evil or antiheroes in their following of their Saint's Creed. For the more evil groups of the faithful, they tend to gather into relatively normal looking churches and other structures of worship - these are typically unassuming and often unadorned buildings on the outside, while on the inside they tend to be incredibly well-equipped torture chambers used for both religious and practical purposes. For good reason do many believe that "all can be broken within the churches of Reina" - and oftentimes these churches are referred to as "Sanctums" or "Hookspires", and are a sickeningly marvelous shrine to cruelty, adorned with hooks hanging from the cieling, on the walls, and all manner of cruel implements all over the interior. For more non-villainous groups of the faithful that lean more towards being antiheroes(and only rarely 'good' people), their churches tend to take more interesting forms - sanitariums, mental hospitals, and other institutions of psychiatric care or care for the troubled are surprisingly common among the faithful, though if no such building exist their churches tend to become either buildings capable of serving such a role or complexes with such buildings within its walls. These buildings are decorated with more visible iconography on its exterior, and are typically more adorned both inside and out - and are generally more prepared to serve other roles aside from outright torture. In general, Reinanites run the gamut in terms of reasons for joining the faith as well as their origins, and can come from all sorts of places and motivations whether they be cruel sadists, twisted masochists, or those who spirits are so damaged that only spreading pain to others can distract them from their sorrows - however, those who embrace spiritual darkness, their own twisted minds, insanities, or troubles also often fend themselves drawn to Reina's twisted embrace, as well as those who are focused on 'fixing' the same brokenness of others that they have themselves and walk the path of Psychologists, Counselors, and the like. They do not wear a strict uniform per se, but are typically notified by their scarred flesh, visible wounds, and outfits that either allow them to bear such scars and wounds with pride(Either taken from Self-mutiliation or in pursuit of Reinan ideals), while more hardy guards and warriors of the faith tend to dress in armor and plate, or at least protective leathers. Regardless of their leanings in the faith, they tend to dress in revealing and either somewhat fetishistic outfits, or simply color themselves in reds and blacks, and oftentimes paint their skin in elaborate patterns to honor their Saint.Ethics
Followers of Reina are somewhat evenly divided in terms of the ethos they ascribe to - these two groups are loosely divided into the 'villainous' and 'antihero' categories. Those who embrace the former code of the ethics are the most straightforward breed of evil that Zheng-Kitar often sees - embracing the experiencing and spreading of pain and suffering both mental and visceral as a path to honoring their Saint and embracing their madness or the darkness in their hearts to become twisted murderers and inflicters of punishment and torture. These cruel faithful relish in the spreading of pain and misery, and often engage in self-mutilation and flagellation as they greedily covet, steal, and desire the belongings and possessions of their peers - making their churches a brutal power struggle where all is coveted by all others, and only the strong and suffering rise to power and keep it for any period of time. For the other side of the faith, they are the breed that is more commonly accepted into society, and while they yet relish the spreading of pain and suffering, they are made up of those who either retain enough of their minds to function or, in their madness, seek to prey on others more villainous or more outcast than they as a form of cruel and delicious irony as they prey upon criminals, outcasts, and others the societies they inhabit will have no qualms with them attacking, torturing, and possibly killing. They are also more outgoing in their beliefs, as well - these members of the faith interpret Reina's tenets in a more positive light and see themselves as helpers of others, and often see it as a divine duty to "take in" the sufferings of others in the form of their listening to and understanding their troubles and worries and sorrows, and "dealing" the same by speaking out about what ails them and what eats at their hearts, and staying vocal about their physical and mental health issues. While they may have a hard time reeling in their envy or perhaps just direct it into outlets that will not get them arrested, they also see it as a naturally holy duty to take in the broken and hopelessly sorrowful or shattered and help them back onto the path of life - though this often comes in strange or twisted forms that often end in them inducting those broken souls into the creed of Reina, though this lends them well to work in sanitariums and mental hospitals nursing patients back to some semblance of sanity. Regardless of their loyalties in the faithful, Reina's followers represent the dual nature of the Void alignment - on one side, they are every bit the self-centered and egocentric villains that many assume them to be as they carve suffering onto the flesh and bodies of others with cruel sadistic delight, while on the other side they can be more akin to antiheroes who enjoy suffering and pain, but also believing in caring for and tending to the especially broken, and listening to the sorrows of others while they in turn let out what eats at them to those who are similarly inclined to listen. Each group of the faithful tends to have the ability to be either, and many often switch between the two creeds during their time serving their Cruel Mistress - what they have in common, however, is their love of their Saint, who they see as a savior who accepts the darkness in their hearts and gives them precious direction in their otherwise hopeless and painful lives.History
The history of Saint Reina is one not well documented, but one that is undeniably tragic - though her birthplace has long since been lost to time, she is known to have been an ardent follower of Amnasol, The Lambent Overlord who was known in her time as Ambriel the Unbroken, a heroic Sanctor who led countless campaigns in the name of her lord, winning countless victories for the people who would in time go on to found the lands of Dhara as one of their foremost champions who did much to secure the lands that would make up what would in time become the Dharan Alliance during the beginning times of the Age of Conquest. The records of her victories during this time have been mostly lost at her own hands since, but she was known to have conquered such a vast span of land that it stretched from the bottom of The Great Vhudsing Range to the lands where the Dharan capital of Halerae stands in the current day hundreds of miles southwards. She was believed to form the beginnings of the Dharan lands and ruled it as a warrior-queen for a time - though, she is known to have gone out alone to defend her people from the advent of an incredibly powerful beast that was reported as 'towering ten stories tall, with sharp plates and a snapping maw capable of crushing iron' that had come down the Tianzhao River that threatened to obliterate the capital and tribal lands she had worked so hard to establish. Going off alone to fight the beast, she was said to fight no less than 5 days and 5 nights before slaying the beast, though she herself was near mortally wounded in the process. She was said to have laid on the battlefield for three days time after slaying it, holding out hope her people would send word to her - but it became painfully clear that her people had thought her dead, and abandoned her. Summoning the strength to stand after those days of laying aground, lifeless, the woman once known as Ambriel rose, her mind shattered from sorrow and despair, and staggered tiredly as she marched back to the lands she once ruled as its protector. Returning a woman broken and betrayed, her mind scarred by the thankless task she comitted, Ambriel did not believe truly that her people could have abandoned her until she returned to her lands and found that, in three short days, they had eagerly replaced her and now spoke of her as a tyrant - one whom they had grown to despise over the course of her conquests, berating her for 'forcing them on a death march' and overexerting them, forcing them to keep going far past the point they had wished to go to. Seeing this utmost betrayal, something in dear Ambriel snapped and, embracing her new madness, she took to assaulting the lands she had left only three days prior - and in her delightful sadistic rampage, she found her former charges pitifully unprotected without her. Laying them all to waste beneath her heel in a single day, Ambriel flattened the fledgling capital that they had begun constructing and left none alive - taking on the name Reina as she sat, crying, in the midst of a people who abandoned her at the first opportunity. Embracing her new madness, Reina the Broken now went north, exterminating all she had left behind in her noble conquests until finally, she was laid low at the gates of Narixia by Narix'ana the Ultimate himself in an apocalyptically lethal duel that rocked the foundations of nearby mountains and shattered villages miles away from the sheer force of the blows brought to bear. After her death, she was christened a saint by Hannoxyn, Duchess of the Abyss, who was noted as eagerly stealing Reina away from her original saint Amnasol, The Lambent Overlord, who had wished to accept her as a redeemed woman into his embrace - annoying the Evil Elemental Lord of light and starting a grudge that would last even well into the current day.
Divine Classification
Elemental Saint
Alignment
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Example Divine Oaths
Oath of the Greedy King: Always seek more wealth, and always take the lion's share of every reward you receive. Never stop taking and hoarding until all the world's treasures rest in your vaults. Never bend the knee, grovel, or reduce yourself for others, and spare no effort nor expense in protecting your treasures and that which you own.
Oath of the Counselor: Always stop to heal those who are mentally broken or scarred wherever they are found - teach them to embrace their brokenness and set them back on life's paths to walk again. Help and teach those who hide their flaws or burdens to embrace them and come to terms with them.
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