Hello everyone Jorphdan here the PH is silent.
This is the start of a new series on the deities of the forgotten realms.
My plan is to go through the Forgotten Realms Pantheon, hitting as many deities as it takes
to make a 6 to 7 minute long video.
Some deities obviously have more history and story than others so it will be up in the
air how long each video is.
I hope you find it fun though.
Let’s dive in.
The first god I’d like to talk about is
Amaunator.
He is an older god of the Netherese empire.
The deity of Sun and Law.
He was very popular and a very powerful deity, however when the Netherese empire fell (click
the link to find out what happened to the Netherese) Amaunator lost his followers and
became very weak.
A deity without worshipers has no power.
Which I’ve always found interesting that deities get their power from their worshipers
and then their worshipers in tern get magical powers from their deity.
There were a few worshipers left after the fall of the Netherese empire but most of them
abandoned Amaunator because they believed he could have prevented the disaster but did
nothing.
This was not true as Amaunator was not allowed to interfere with another deity's domain,
in this case Mystryl and her domain of magic.
It’s poetic that just how the sun sets so did Amaunator.
He shone brightly for many centuries but just like a setting sun he faded away.
However he did not disappear entirely.
Amaunator came back to the Faerun pantheon as another greater deity Lathander.
We’ll talk about him in a later video but Lathander is the god of the dawn and although
a separate being he is an aspect of Amaunator.
It was in 1385 just after the spellplague that Lathander revealed himself to be Amaunator.
So this is weird but both Lathander and Amaunator are in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
as separate deities.
I mean one is the god of the sun and the other is the god of the dawn, but still they are
more or less the same guy.
I’m not sure if he really is split in two or if you can worship him under either name.
It’s interesting.
More on Lathander later.
People send prayers to Amaunator when making contracts.
Much of his clergy serve as judges in the courtroom.
They can also present cases, and hear legal arguments and disputes.
Up next is Asmodeus.
I made a video on the Nine Hells and spoke about Asmodeus a bit there.
You can find that video link in the upper right of the screen.
This will be a more indepth recap, I hope.
According to some 3.5 material Asmodeus began as a servant of the lawful gods.
Described in some versions of myth as an “angel.”
He was created, along with other beings, to fight the demons of the Abyss.
It was an effort by the gods to keep the demons at bay so they could focus on other more important
things.
Eons of fighting the creatures of the abyss took its toll on Asmodeus and his armies.
For one they could never seem to win, no matter how many demons they destroyed a new one would
always take it’s place.
The war was eternal.
Secondly the abyss seemed to change Asmodeus and his army.
They grew similar in appearance and methods to the demons which they fought.
The gods did not like this change and put Asmodeus on trial demanding he be cast out
of the upper planes.
But he argued correctly that Asmodeus and his followers had not violated any law and
should be allowed to stay in the Upper Planes.
Flash forward and the gods create sentient life on Toril, they created mountains, oceans,
and wastelands to seal up the gates to the Abyss.
But their creations defied their orders and explored the world, accidently opening these
sealed Abyssal gates.
The Gods didn’t quite understand why their creations would not listen to them, but Asmodeus
knew; there were no consequences.
Thus Asmodeus invented the concept of punishment.
Unruly souls were punished in the upper planes by Asmodeus and his kin.
The gods did not like having this so close though.
Asmodeus could not take the punishments away from the Upper Plane because he needed the
divine magic granted to him by the gods.
The gods did not want him to stay but they also feared making him a deity which would
give him the power to take his punishment ring elsewhere.
So Asmodeus created a contract called the Pact Primeval.
This allowed Asmodeus and his fellow devils to take up residence in the abandoned realm
of Baator (aka the Nine Hells).
It is here they would punish the souls of wicked mortals but also have the ability to
extract magical energy from these souls to fuel their powers.
This seemed like a win win, the gods would be rid of Asmodeus and he would be able to
fulfill the consequences of people not listening to the gods.
What the gods did not see is that all the devils would be tempting mortals away from them.
Because the more souls they could bring to The Nine Hells the more power the devils had.
The deities saw fewer and fewer souls going to their realms after death only to find the
Asmodeus the root cause.
A lot of this is 4th edition mythology.
Earlier books talk of Asmodeus as a primal force of evil in the D&D Universe.
Apparently in the manual of the planes Asmodeus’ true form is that of a Giant Serpent and he
was cast out of the Upper Planes before the creation of the current gods…?
I couldn’t find much information on this.
The demon lord Pazuzu aided Asmodeus by getting him a small piece of the shard of evil which
resides at the heart of the Abyss.
Pazuzu was a demon that predates the Abyss.
He was an Obyrith that manipulated the god Tharizdun.
In 4th edition lore he was the one responsible for corrupting Asmodeus with that small piece
of the shard of evil.
Asmodeus took that piece and crafted his ruby rod out of it.
In some mythology Asmodeus is a deity already.
But in 4th edition, during the spellplague the deity Azuth was thrown into the Nine Hells
where Asmodeus devoured him, or fused with him rather.
Both beings coexisted in the same body but Asmodeus overpowered Azuth and gained his
divinity.
It wasn’t until the Sundering that the two separated.
Asmodeus agreed to release Azuth to help in the resurrection of an untherite god named
Nanna-Sin as a non-god immortal. They were going to bring back this god but as a non-god just immortal being on Faerun
Now the Unther were an old empire tribe brought to Faerun by the Imaskar Empire as slaves.
When they came they brought their gods with them, much like the Mulhorandi pantheon.
Asmodeus consumed Nanna-Sin’s divine spark and became a true god unto himself.
Nanna-Sin was originally killed in -1071 DR but brought back in 1487, his divine spark
given to Asmodeus Nanna-Sin took the form of a Giant Dragon Turtle.
Asmodeus is kind of complicated, I hope this is more clarifying than confusing.
But even as I’m going through this I see the contradictions.
I think the real answer here is Wizards of the Coast wanted Asmodeus to be a deity so
they used some old deity nobody would miss to allow him a divine spark.
That’s it for the first installment of the gods!
If you want more info on Asmodeus I have a video on the Nine Hells as well as some of
my earlier videos on the Shard of Evil and the Abyss.
Links in the doobly do.
Thanks for watching everyone, give a like to support the channel and I’ll see you
all next Wednesday!