Foreign and Unloving Gods

Foreign and Unloving Gods 7 MINUTE READ

Tulip laid the old board with bowls, choice cuts and ladles of the holiday’s feast. As she placed them, fingers running over the holy symbols painted in cheery but worn colors in the divots on the board, she named them for her daughter as she had every festival, every year.

“There’s Arvoren, for vigilance and war,” she said, placing the offering, “he watches over us when the tall folk go to war all around, and over those among us who take up sword and shield.

“There’s Brandobaris, the infamous sneak, who gives those who turn our ways to thieving a constant lookout,” she said. She poured three fingers of whiskey from the highest cabinet for him, only letting Poppy have a single pungent whiff of the stiff drink.

“Always with us, good or bad, is Charmalaine,” she said, tracing the burning bootprint picked out in browns and reds on the board before laying down the plate, “who metes out the danger and escape we face, to keep our lives interesting.

“I called Cyrrollalee to look after you when I let you out the door the first time, so you’d be shown the way home to our hearth.

“Sheela Peryroyl has her moods, lady of sun and storms.” Tulip laid a bowl of cut oats over a painted flower. “But she keeps us in enough rain and shine to grow and prosper.”

“Urogalan is grim at gatherings, but he sees us to our rest, when it’s time, and keeps the stories even when all who’d tell them have gone.

“Last but greatest of all is Yondalla, the mother,” Tulip says, small hand splayed over the overflowing cornucopia lovingly detailed on the board. “From whom our kind way of life springs, who picked each of the other gods from among mortals as the best of us and brought them to live in her house, and who saw us when we were wandering, underfoot, at the dawn of all races, and took us for her own.”

Poppy is thirteen and belligerently upset about everything when she asks, “Which one of them was supposed to be looking after Da?”

Tulip Nithercott chokes with the bowl for Yondalla in hand, and a drip of pure, golden honey runs over the side, like a tear.

…the elves set down thoughts regarding the power of innocence. They recounted how they had long observed the halfling race, watching as the chaos of the world swept around them and left their villages untouched. While orcs, dwarves, and humans struggled, fought, and spilled blood to expand their territory, the elves noted that the halflings dwelled in a state of placid disregard, uncaring of the events of the world. They remarked on how the halflings enjoyed the simple pleasures of the moment, such as food and music, family, and friendship, and how they seemed to desire no more than that. The writers concluded that the halflings’ seemingly innate ability to sidestep turmoil and ill fortune could in fact be a special boon of nature, in recognition of the value of protecting the halflings’ worldview, and to ensure that their unique place in the cosmos will be forever preserved.

– from notes on an ancient text, regarding the multiverse

Gregory Nithercott dodged the first carriage. Something had seemed to tickle in the back of his mind, and he’d dove without thinking, coating his merchant’s garb and velvet waistcoat in muck. The thunderous hooves of a team of six heavy horses charged past his back on the Secomber Road, whipped on by a human perched precariously in the driver’s seat. Heavy rain sheeted down on everyone. Mud splashed across Gregory’s stunned form as he lay just a foot out of the way of the carriage wheels slicing through the muddy track. Then it was gone, thundering west towards the Sword Coast.

“Did you see that shite?” he called back to his business partner, Tarlyn Donohue. Tarlyn stood in the sheltered doorway of The Nodding Watchman, warmth from the pub at his back fighting the chill of the storm outside. His pipe hung low from limp lips, his eyes wide with shock.

“You alright?” Tarlyn called as he hurriedly stuffed his pipe in his belt. “It’s the humans, mate, I swear, eighty years of life and scared to piss of losing a minute, even to being cautious on the roads in the midst of a mess like this.”

“You’re damned right,” Gregory said as he pushed himself to his feet. His red hair was plastered to his head and the rain and the mud had turned it nearly brown. He pushed it back to see better as he surveyed himself. “Yondalla above, look at this! Tulip made this vest for me! Keep an eye out for her, will you, I don’t want her seeing it, not till I’ve had a go at cleaning it up. And where has my cap gone?”

“Dunno, but you’d best get inside, no matter the state of your vest,” Tarlyn said. “It’s only getting worse, it’s not worth pushing back to Clough tonight.”

“Pish to that, I’ve got waiting customers,” Gregory called back, shielding his eyes with a hand against the downpour. There, between the tracks of that crazed wagon, was his felted hat, thankfully un-crushed. “Just keep an eye out!”

Tarlyn turned so he had a better view of the inside of the bar. Lightning forked overhead, briefly lighting the scene outside the roadside pub better. Gregory’s cart, laden with oilskin-tarped crates, rocked as it was buffeted by wind. Thunder rumbled in the wake of the lightning, loud enough to deafen. Gregory stepped back out into the road and snatched up his cap. He slapped at the muck on it, cursing the scant bit of rotten luck.

He didn’t dodge the second carriage, driven by an elf, running just as fast away from the Coast.

It is curious to note that there are no evil gods in the halfling pantheon. The only one among them who could be classified as “bad” in the sense of disregarding laws is Brandobaris, god of halfling rogues, but morally he occupies a neutral space, not condoning greed in excess or violence in shadowed work. Their god of death is similarly neutral, as much lore-keeper—stewarding oral histories lost to the end of clans and communities—as grave-digger, and not feared.

Other races have all manner of evil gods, however. Though they may be imbued with the favor of their kinder pantheon by blood, when halflings walk among us outside their sheltered valleys their gods have only as much sway as the others stalking the cities and hinterlands and seas.

It is said that Beshaba’s favorite treat is the bones of halflings whose luck has finally run out.

– from a treatise on gods and worship in settlements of many races

Poppy woke early for her watch and told Gryphus to go to bed, kicking sand into his spellbook when he tried to refuse for the sake of her getting more rest. He shuffled off after that, leaving her to take up his seat on a driftwood log, situated so the watcher could keep an eye on the jungle spilling onto the beach.

She sat the other way. She picked up a nearby piece of driftwood, silvery and smooth, and felt the weight of it in her hand. Not much usable. At best, a charm, a small comb, a pendant. A holy symbol, mayhap, depending on the grandeur of said symbol. Poppy had never worn one. Old as she was now, distant from childhood worship, she couldn’t even remember the shapes she might make. A dog’s head for Urogalan, was it? A flower for Sheela Peryroyl, but what kind?

Poppy just let her hands work. As the light slowly grew, the simplified form of Jheri took shape, cradling that big egg he’d fashioned a sling for like a newborn child.

“My brother the god,” she muttered, carefully navigating the shape of his snout, shaving in shallow divots for scales. “Just can’t get out from under the divine shite, can I?”

The wind stole her words from the camp, and she only half-heard herself. The others seemed fine now so she told herself again it wasn’t worth mentioning, especially because the wizard would probably be terrible about the whole thing, and she didn’t feel like coddling his feelings. But it drew her odds grimmer. She counted her misfortunes as she laid in cuts to mark out each of Jheri’s tiny fingers. Fatherless. Furious. Faithless. Sleepless. Deafened.

Only five fingers to a hand, but as she kept watch on the waves for shark fins she counted a sixth misfortune quite acute for halflings to her mental tally.

Surrounded by foreign and unloving gods.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 8/12/2019 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024