Morvast - the Swallower

Background

Morvast was the Old God of swamps, stagnant mires, quicksand, and the slow, inevitable consumption of the earth. While other gods fought over the skies, seas, and mountains, Morvast ruled the low, forgotten places where water refused to flow and the soil turned to suffocating black silt. He stood for stagnation, patience, and the reclamation of all things built by mortal hands. His strangest quirk was that he did not destroy what he consumed; instead, the acidic peat of his bogs perfectly preserved the bodies, weapons, and secrets of those he dragged down, keeping them locked in the dark mud for centuries like a greedy collector. He also despised running water, growing sluggish and irritable near fast-flowing rivers. Prior to the Ascension Wars, marsh-dwellers and travellers threw offerings of livestock and coins into sinkholes to appease him so the roads would not swallow their wagons. During the early days of the Ascension Wars, when necromancers began plundering ancient bogs to raise the preserved dead for their armies, the sentient mires suddenly went still. Morvast vanished into the deep mud and never answered a prayer again, though no one knows if he fled, died, or simply sank too deep to ever wake.

He is depicted as a bloated, amphibious colossus draped in rotting reeds, wet moss, and thick black peat, with a wide, toothless maw that perpetually drips stagnant mud. Often, only his yellow, cataract-clouded eyes and gaping mouth are shown rising just above the waterline. His symbol is a downward-spiralling whirlpool of black mud with a single skeletal hand sinking into its centre.

Domains: Nature, Death, and Grave
Alignment: Neutral Evil