Pesta (3.5e Deity)

Summary::Pesta the Whisperer is the god of disease, death, necromancy, and secrets. Born of awe, he opposes Spellweaver Volho.  His scion is Lifeshaver Ankou, the grim reaper.

Origin
As Hiranyagarbha, father of the gods, returned to the world he found it dominated by the beings known as dragons. They dominated others with powerful magics and words of power. To oppose them he created Volhov, lord of magic, and Pesta the Whisperer, he who knew the secrets of the dead and knowledge lost and hidden. These two creatures born of awe to the powers of gods took their great powers and taught mortalkind the art of spell and science, of protective arts and weapons of war, the way of healing, and deadly disease.

In the early days, the dead had no afterlife. Once they died, they just... stopped. Their knowledge was petrified in the stones of the earth, unable to be accessed. In Hiranyagarbha's quest to learn what he could, and to find the soul of Iphigenia, the father of the gods created Peste. He was born half-dead, and thus could reach the underworld and revive the souls of ancient beings. As god of death, he ferried the dead to a new home, an afterlife for them after passing through the trials of At Tawwab. Here they could persist in peace. In addition, he taught others of secrets of divination and necromancy, so that the knowledge of the dead could be accessed. Dutiful in his task, his job nevertheless exposed him to a great many evil souls and the grim knowledge of a thousand ways to die. Perhaps it is what drove him to betray the gods. Few know, for Pesta is soft spoken and rarely acts.

Regardless, Pesta began to plot, whispering forbidden secrets to mortalkind and giving them occult powers that threatened both god and man. He taught them the necromantic arts not merely to call upon the dead's knowledge, but to summon the dead back to life through undeath. His acts caused a plague of disease and undead to conquer the world. The gods were displeased, yet they could not simply destroy death, lest the souls no longer have a caretaker anymore. Thus they split his domain unto Iphigenia, permitted his scion limited mobility and access, and allowed Pesta to retain control over evil and difficult souls. To this day, none know Pesta's true motives.

Regardless of his creation, he is considered having fallen to darkness. He rarely speaks and when he does, he whispers. What few things he has said usually drive mortals into despair upon hearing them. Perhaps he became aware of some dark secret not even the other gods know? Whatever it is, he's not telling.

Description
Pesta's true form is obscured, but through visions he has always appeared as a giant hunchback skeleton, whose few clumps of flesh (namely his heart) are rotten and diseased. His skull is a bird's skull, shaped not unlike the mask of a plague doctor. He cloaks himself in bones and black cloth and hat, and has a long blue tongue whose touch brings plague upon its victims. He is usually carrying an item: a skull, a flame, a rake, a broom, or a scythe, and each object brings with it portents of doom. In spite the terrifying appearance, Pesta is largely harmless; unlike most of the fallen gods he still performs his duty without (apparent) problems or complaint, and still takes orders from his good-aligned brothers and sisters as if the split never occurred. But since Pesta rarely, if ever, speaks it is not sure what he thinks about the whole situation. Out of all the imprisoned gods, he has the most freedom. While he himself cannot leave, he may still send his scion without restriction as long as he continues to play nice.

Pesta is typically associated with his favored creature, the rat. The rat carries his diseases across the globe, infesting everything in a pale of death and sorrow.

Dogma
Petsa's dogma and motives are mysterious. He offers secrets and knowledge, sometimes, and when he does it is often at a high price. To contact the dead and call upon them often requires a sacrifice, and his foresight of the future allows him to see if these choices will bring misery (which they often do). The only certain thing that seems to please him are the burial of the dead and the raising of the undead. It is rumored he plans to turn all the world undead, but since Pesta has never been clear on this his clerics bicker about it endlessly.

Curiously enough Pesta is both the source of disease and its cure. Some very limited amount of worship to Pesta is allowed by the logos belius for healing and the recovery of disease. Pesta seems just as willing to lift disease off beings as he is to grant them. Sometimes. As you may have guessed, his behavior has proven to be obscure and mysterious to the very end. Not even Baal Adramelech knows what to think of him.

His scion is Lifeshaver Ankou, the grim reaper by any other name. A classic skeleton in black robe and scythe, he acts as a psychopomp for both good and evil souls and places them in their appropriate afterlife. Unlike his master, its said that Ankou is actually quite talkative and apparently a joker, in complete contract to his dire job. The rumor also goes he is corrupt, willing to be bribed and to place things on chance with a game against death. Perhaps the reason he is willing is because he cheats; he is unbeatable and all the souls have never gotten out of his grasp (or at least not without a terrible price). Still, myths pop up about heroes who cheat death back and get away with it. Ultimately while allowed to move as a psychopomp, Lifeshaver Ankou seems to be working on his master's will, for he occasionally supports undead plots until found out by the gods and made to behave again.

Pesta lives in Duzakh, a world under the netherworld accessible by wells with infinitely deep pits. At the bottom of the bottomless pit is a world of utter darkness and chill mist, where the souls of evil dead rot and freeze, their knowledge frozen with them and thawed out only when Pesta has use for them.

Clergy and Temples
The temples of Pesta are never true temples, but more graveyards with a shrine hidden away somewhere. These shrines are grim reminders of mortality and death, and typically only visible when dealing with places of healing from disease. Pesta's other aspects are too horrid to consider. Even places completely dedicated to him do little more than work a shrine or alter into a pre-existing temple. After all, death is universal.

His clergy dress all in brown, gray, or black, with hooded robes and grim visage. They rarely speak, enjoying the silence of the dead instead, and thus they also rarely mingle.

Pantheon
Peste is a god of the Logos Malius pantheon, on planet Maya.