PANTHEONS

Cruach

Crom Cruach -- The Crooked One & Lord of the Earth: God of Fertility, Sacrifice & Death

"...He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him?"
"Little he cares if men live or die."
"Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune!"
"He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul."
"What else shall men ask of the gods?"
-- Queen of the Black Coast by Robert E. Howard

Aliases: Crom Cróich, Cenn Cruach/Cróich and Cenncroithi

Background: Crom Cruach isn’t Fomorian at all, but something alien that serves as a strange sort of third party to the Tuatha/Fomorian rivalry-with-benefits. He craves adulation and blood, gathering cults to worship him through terror and demanding firstborn cattle and children as sacrifices. He transforms 12 among the herd into terrible stone servitors that enforce his bidding, using 12 idols of power. Crom Cruach embodies agriculture and rots crops in the ground if the people don’t keep him appeased. When he shows his true form, he bursts up from under the earth as a ravenous worm with a gigantic maw. He slumbers fitfully in his Titanic realm, after the decisive thrashing he received from a Scion named Patricius centuries ago.

Provinces: Fertility, Sacrifice, Death

Dark Virtues: Rapacity & Dominance.

Dominions: EARTH, ENDURANCE, FERTILITY, PASSION (Fear), PROSPERITY, SACRIFICE

Realm: Magh Slécht - {The plain of prostrations}

Holy Days: Samhain

CETHLENN -- MOTHER OF FOMORIANS

Aliases: The Bane of the Dagda, She Whose Womb Is The Tomb

Background: The Bane of the Dagda and the mother of fomorians, Cethlenn is the foremost aspect of Crom Cruach. Once, though, Crom Cruach also boasted a great champion: the one-eyed Balor, father of fomorians. Together, Balor and Cethlenn ruled the lands of the Green Isle. But Cethlenn is a prophetess of great insight, and she foresaw the coming of the Tuatha Dé Danaan and her husband’s defeat at their hands. Still, she did not hesitate when the time came to raise her children-tribe against the fair Tuatha: So proud is the hideous Cethlenn that she would defy even Fate before she succumbed to another force. In that battle, she lost her husband but also struck the Dagda a terrible blow.

With the death of Balor, all that Cethlenn loved has been destroyed. The World holds only cold hate for her now; her children, the fomorians, are merely bitter reminders of what she has lost. Cethlenn would like nothing more than to see Eire sink beneath the waves, and if it can be done by her own hand then so much the better. She is the mother of stillbirths and a creature of rage and jealousy that will not hesitate to cast all of her children into death.

Cethlenn is still served by the fomorian tribes and by her handmaiden, the Cailleach. She also takes great joy in twisting normal creatures — particularly hounds, cattle, swans, ravens and other creatures blessed by the Tuatha — into outright horrors. From the clammy depths of her loins, she can produce fat, white grubs the size of a man’s thumb. These things she bids her servants to spread among the foods of such animals.

Once the animals eat the grubs, one in three will be driven mad. They will frenzy, killing and eating one of their own or a nearby human being. When this happens, the affected animal twists and warps, becoming horrible versions of themselves, driven mad by maggots infesting their brains. The other two in three simply go mad, suffering from a species-specific, highly infectious version of mad cow disease.

Cethlenn appears as a hag-like woman, though she is tall of frame and not stooped in the least. Her lined face causes nightmares in those who gaze upon it, and her gray eyes reflect the fear of mortality that haunts men and Gods alike. She is dressed in black, tattered mourning clothing, and her chalk-white skin is bruised by patches of frostbitten flesh.

Provinces:

Dominions: [[]], [[]], [[]], [[]], [[]], & [[]]

THE CAILLEACH -- THE WINTER HAG

Aliases:

Background: The Winter Hag is Cethlenn’s handmaiden and foremost servant. Where the mother of fomorians appears as an ancient regal queen, the Cailleach is nothing more than a crooked, twisted hag. The Cailleach’s iron-gray hair hangs down in brittle strands, obscuring her face. Her hands are tipped in vicious blue-black cracked talons, and what teeth she has left are terrible fangs made of yellowed ice (which cause her breath to steam in all temperatures as though she were in the middle of a winter gale).

Though her mistress has long been imprisoned with the other Titans, the Tuatha never managed to capture the canny Cailleach. For centuries, she has plagued the Children of Danu and all they hold dear from her terra incognita caverns (accessed from Ceann na Cailleach, or the Hag’s Head, which are the southernmost tip of the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, Ireland).

As autumn fades into winter, she can be found in the waters of the Strait of Corryvreckan, between the islands of Jura and Scaraba off the west coast of Scotland. There she creates a terrible tempest that results in a whirlpool from which Corryvreckann (meaning “cauldron of the plaid”) gets its name. In these frigid, swirling waters, she washes her plaid, which is dirtied with the soil and rains of the previous seasons. By the third day, when the whirlpool calms, her plaid is pure white, and winter truly begins.

The Cailleach bears a staff of old white wood, veined with cracks into which water has frozen. The touch of this staff can cause frost to form on whatever it strikes. She wears a cloak of white fox and wolf fur around her shoulders and a white plaid (a simple woven hip-garment, rather than something in the cross-lined design) around her hips.

STATISTICS

Attributes: Str 7, Dex 5, Sta 8; Cha 2, Man 5, App 8; Per 4, Int 5, Wits 5

Abilities: Animal Ken 3, Athletics 4, Awareness 5, Brawl 5, Command 4, Empathy 3,
Fortitude 5, Integrity 5, Investigation 3, Melee 5, Occult 5, Presence 3, Stealth 4

Virtues: Ambition 3, Malice 5, Rapacity 4, Zealotry 3

Supernatural Powers

Powers: Animal Aspect (Worms — Strength, Stamina), Animal Command (Worms), Animal Communication (Worms), Animal Feature (Worms), Blizzard Call*, Chill the Blood*, Create Animal, Death Senses, Earth Armor, Earth Body, Earth Travel, Echo Sounding, Enech 7, Frost Immunity*, Frozen Panoply*, Landslide, Hrimthurssar’s Touch*, Mother’s Touch, Night Eyes, Prophecy 7, Safely Interred, Shadow Mask, Shadow Step, Shadow Shroud, Shaping, Sky’s Grace, Storm Augmentation, Summon Ghost, Uller’s Stride*, Wind’s Freedom, Wind Grapple, Winter’s Mercy*

{Note that Powers marked with an asterisk (*) are from the Dominion of Frost; see Scion: Ragnarok for more details.}

Corrupt Creations: When Cethlenn uses her Create Animal power to create worms or grubs, the resultant vermin can warp any normal animal of special significance to the Tuatha Dé Danaan who consume them, as described above.

Divine Attributes & Flairs: Epic Strength 5 (Crushing Grip, Divine Rampage, Holy Rampage, Knockback Attack, Uplifting Might), Epic Dexterity 3 (Escape Artist, Lightning Sprinter, Untouchable Opponent), Epic Stamina 7 (Body Armor, Damage Conversion, Devourer, Divine Damage Conversion, Holy Fortitude, Impenetrable, Inner Furnace, Internal Refinery, Regeneration, Self-Healing, Skin-Shedding), Epic Appearance 5 (Center of Attention, Compelling Presence, Dreadful Mein, Lasting Impression, My Eyes Are Up Here, Serpent’s Gaze), Epic Wits 3 (Eternal Vigilance, Meditative Focus, Opening Gambit)

Mathean Template: See “The Mathean Template” sidebar, p. 41.

Spells: The Cailleach has all spells of a rating of seven dots or lower.

Base Initiative: 10

Attacks: Claws: Accuracy 11, Damage 11L, Parry DV 10, Speed 4; Clinch: Accuracy 11, Damage 7B, Parry DV —, Speed 6; The White Cracked Staff: Accuracy 12, Damage 14B, Parry DV 11, Speed 5

Soak: Standard: 7A/28L/32B; Body Armor and Impenetrable Knacks activated: 11A/36L/40B

Health Levels: –0 x 45 / 46 = Incapacitated

Dodge DV: 13

Willpower: 10

Divinity 8: Divinity Points: 64

Other Notes: The Cailleach normally uses her Animal Feature Boon to gain a +1L/+3B soak, gaining the white, sloughing, rubbery skin of a worm. Through the Assumption of the Land Boon (part of the Enech Purview), the Cailleach has sensed the dinsenschas of several of the sites associated with her, most notably the Ceann na Cailleach, Mt. Ben Cruachan and the Strait of Corryvreckan.

Trophy: If killed, the Cailleach’s possessions might be claimed by those who manage such a feat. Her white fur mantle acts to grant access to the Animal (Worms), Death and Sky Purviews, as well as adding +2 to bashing and lethal soaks (though it is not itself armor and can thus be worn with other pieces of armor). The White Cracked Staff grants access to the Earth and Frost Purviews and has the following traits: Accuracy +2, Damage +7B, Parry DV +3, Speed 5

CROM DUBH Crom -- FATHER OF THE FIR BOLG

Background: The father of the Fir Bolg is a terrible, broken creature. Dirt-brown skin, a mouth full of rotten, jagged teeth and black rheumy eyes sunk into a skull made of jagged protrusions, he looks like a tremendously tall, humpbacked old man. Of course, this belies the truly deadly strength and horror that is the Crook’d One, Crom Dubh.

In ancient days, Crom Dubh created the Fir Bolg by mixing his blood with the soil of the earth. He rolled the resultant mud into little balls and baked them in the fires under the earth until they cracked open like eggs. Thus, the first of the Fir Bolg was hatched. The Fir Bolg have always regarded their “little bent father” with respect and fondness, even though they no longer serve him.

Unfortunately, Crom Dubh does not see it the same way. He hates that they turned from worshiping him to the fair Tuatha, but he does not blame his wayward children. To him, they are simply creatures — little mud-toys, in fact — and they don’t know any better. He reserves his fury for the Tuatha Dé Danaan and the aes sídhe, working against them where he may. Indeed, some legends of the aes sídhe tell that it was Crom Dubh who plucked bones of iron from his body and buried them beneath the earth, poisoning all earthly iron against the aes sídhe.

His Creatures: Crom Dubh delights in doing to the Tuatha what the Tuatha did to him: stealing their children. Of all the avatars of Crom Cruach, Crom Dubh is the most likely to lure Scions away from service to the Tuatha. His first and foremost servant in the World is a Scion of Danu named Fodla. Fodla is a maternal woman, rounded at the hip and breast, who he won to his side because of her bitterness against her mother for abandoning her. Fodla believes that the Gods are negligent parents (at best) and knows that many Scions feel the way she does: cast aside, forgotten and alone. Quite skilled with Epic Manipulation, Fodla knows how best to find what it is that bothers Scions about their relationships with their divine parents, and she plays on those doubts. More than one Scion has been lured into her nets to suddenly find themselves working for Crom Cruach against the Tuatha Dé Danaan.

Crom Cruach also uses more than a few nemean creatures, particularly the underground and muck- dwelling types. Occasionally, he will also find a way to unleash such a creature from within Crom Cruach — the World is rarely ready to face off against an albino, nemean lizard.

Provinces: Creator, Hunter, Liminal

Dominions: [[]], [[]], [[]], [[]], [[]], & [[]]