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court-jobi · 1 month ago

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Runner's High

((banner by me! I don't own Horikoshi's work OR the mindblowing art of @gsony24~used w permission))

Pairing: Pro-Hero!Midoriya x reader (fem!Pro-Hero Reader)

Words: 2.5k

Rating: M | 18+ (begone, young heroes- Allmight is watching...)

Warnings: FOREPLAY (mostly kissing & touching), no piv, shower spicy times, Izuku is Foreplay King, pet names, post-mission stress relief, sweet fluffy times, married shenanigans ensue~

Summary:

How Izuku watched the news religiously almost every evening and still wasn’t tired of hero work after a long day of teaching it, you truly couldn’t fathom– especially since he's dipping back into action himself these days! Though now as you are currently the feature of a televised villain chase alongside his oldest friend, you completely understood his fervor tonight of all nights. He pays you a love-filled congratulations on a job well done~ “Want me to run a shower for you? Get you all cleaned up, relaxed, and back in your waiting man’s arms?” “You better not let me out of these arms unless it’s to get these clothes off.” “I can take care of that too, love. First things first~”

A/N: Spicy Deku lovin' on his pro-hero wife~ that's the fic

For my My Hero Academia Masterlist, check it out here!

Read on Ao3

“Honey!!” Izuku’s mop of green hair whirls around from where he’s been crouched at your coffee table, rushing around the furniture to meet you, “They just finished coverage, I saw the whole thing!!”

Despite your initially quiet entry into the house, you knew a calm ‘welcome home’ wasn’t possible with your darling spouse around.

Kicking off against your initial lock of the door, you push yourself up and meet his enthusiastic steps with confident strides up into his waiting arms. He squeezes you tight as you breathe deeply for the first time all night, as he praises you for an excellent job well done.

Ushing and gushing over you is standard business for Izuku, but when you respond to any kind of big heavy-hitting emergency, you’d best be prepared for a glowing lecture of how incredible you were. In detail. With footnotes.

All you can do is listen on to the praise-fueled rant and moan contentedly as he sways you in place, happy to stay in his space and never leave. You changed clothes at the relief zone, but wanting to get home to your husband meant you rushed the normal cleanup. Anything to expedite your departure and keep your runner’s high at the forefront of your mind. The debrief paperwork would be due by the start of business tomorrow: and that’s what the morning commute is for.

Izuku chuckles as you nuzzle him back in order to conveniently shut him up a little… but his chirps become even more surprised when your kisses grow firmer, more revved, with more nibble into each taste.

In your force, you’ve backed him up to the end of your dining table, his rear end hitting it with a small thud. Once he’s cushioned your joint collision with the wood surface, he’s freed up his hands to run the length of you in response.

Izuku’s always been this way– most sated when you’re home, even when he knows you’ve been successful in a fight. He just rests better knowing you’re back safe and sound and without a scratch on you. Given his previous and gratuitous ‘fighting strategies’, any day you come home unscathed is an extra dollop on the ‘win’ cake.

And don’t you just give off the impression of a treat, yourself. Dressed in a ‘Deku’ pullover and a winning smile is the perfect ensemble on you.

As you lean into every one of his touches and even go so far as to straddle a leg of his, Izuku holds you still for a second, and takes a deep inhale.

“Hm...You smell like Kacchan.”

Part of your finishing move tonight featured a combo with none other than ‘Dynamight’, where you partnered up back to back and utilized your powers in full force- and in close quarters.

While it’s a keen observation on his part, that comment turns up your nose. Burnt sugar and gasoline don’t exactly make an appealing mix to you.

“Ugh I know. Need’ta shower, sorry.”

“No, it’s ok! I don't mind it,” Izuku is quick to say and quicker to run his hands up and down your back. “I’m used to it, you know that! Just been a while since it’s uh– I’ve smelt it this strong.”

You rolled your eyes. Only he could idolize Katsuki Bakugou in this way, even as he’s recalling memories when he was on the receiving end of said hero’s blasts, back in training. Never once has Bakugou held back in practice or in gametime; he’d consider it an offense if you were to ever bring anything less than your best to the table; so go beyond, you did.

But Izuku assures that he doesn’t think the combination of that heady scent is repulsive on you. Quite the opposite.

“It’s proof that you worked hard; you both did what you had to do. You saved the day, my love~”

You never get tired of hearing that. As a support hero, it's a largely thankless job. When you are acknowledged, it's usually en masse with other heroes like you from a grandstand: ‘without whom none of this is possible’.

But to come from your man, who holds you in such high esteem no matter your hero ranking, it’s the only kind of praise you need. After tonight’s showdown, you might have very well proved yourself to Bakugou as well, but it’s not like he’d ever admit it to your face.

You leave it to Izuku alone: who makes it his job to build you up everyday.

“You saved everyone. N’ hey- you’re my hero now, aren't you? All mine, for the rest of the night~” he speaks the claim as truth.

A happy-hearted sigh leaves you under the full grasp of his attention.

“Yeah…But if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather smell like you, not a pomeranian with bomb sweat and- ahhh- ah– anger issues...”

Kneading -and needy- hands rub your lower back muscles expertly and grab a handful of your ass while they’re at it.

Izuku kisses the sliver of your neck that’s just barely exposed; an excuse to offer his relaxation plan to you,

“M’yeah? Want me to run a shower for you? Get you all cleaned up, relaxed, and back in your waiting man’s arms?”

Tightening your hold, tugging him down his sweatshirt by the drawstring, you whisper back to him, “You better not let me out of these arms unless it’s to get these clothes off.”

Izuku smirks but not without an excited shudder– still unable to shake your forwardness even months after you’ve married. Just as you’ve done for him when he’s come back from a tireless night on patrol, he kneels to start on your boots.

“I can take care of that too, love. First things first~”

He takes the greatest care when handling you- from every latch, button, and tie as part of your hero getup. Each element is what protects you, so he treats it with appreciation. He’s also extremely knowledgeable about how best to maintain each support item– slowing down to stow each piece away properly, where you’d normally rush through taking it off in favor of getting yourself out of work-mode.

The change in pace is meant to subliminally teach you how to do it better, but you honestly love the special attention he spares to even your accessories, and claim an angelic ‘I like the way you do it’ to get out of the task entirely.

You’ll blame the adrenaline on it later, or maybe the power high you’re on from receiving more than a fair share in tonight’s mission success you didn’t typically get from the media…in either case, you feel on top of the world- and fully intended to carry that energy home, where Izuku alone will benefit.

Sometimes you’ll chat away, while other times find you too tired to say anything at all… but here and now, you can’t help but let the tongue and your hands wander.

To thank Izuku for this and all other efforts he makes to your benefit, you take advantage of this angle. From the moment you’re propping your foot up on his bent thigh in order for him to unlace you, he’s an easy target: he goes near brainless when you stroke through his hair while he carries on with a job, so you do just that.

One long, smooth scratch along his scalp, and Izuku’s cheeks lift at the touch- until his face goes slack altogether at your words:

“They don’t make ‘em like you anymore, y’know that?” you sigh down to him, “My sweet boy…”

A little sound escapes him, soothed for a moment, until he doubles down and whines low in his chest,

“Aww, don’t do that..”

Testing his limits, you settle on thumbing along his cheek instead, “Why not, baby?”

“This is s’possed to be ‘bout you..”

“Who says this isn’t for me?” you try for a scratch along the nape of his neck instead; it bears the same heavy-lidded result. “You’re who I work hard for at the end of the day, after all~”

Your husband gawks up at you, turning the tables on him so quickly. He shouldn’t be surprised because you were always so sweet on him… but it’s a show of his resolve how he shakes his freckled face at you with a knowing smirk and pats your other leg to switch sides.

Someday you might win in the battle of who can outdo one another in love, but Mr. Midoriya seems to be winning this one. Must be because you’ve exerted enough for one day and he has one up on you– that’s the excuse you’ll cling to, that is.

It’s not like he’s unaffected by you, however. What he will do is carry you off to the bathroom like you’re weightless with stars in his eyes, runs hot water while kissing every inch of skin he exposes.. and when he gets to your back, light sheen of caramel-y sweat exposed in its fullest, he finds himself wiping it off with particular prejudice before you can even step into the shower to wash it off completely. Makes you giggle, how funny he takes your word so seriously; he will get that smell off of you if you want it gone, dammit.

Seems there was a purpose to it after all, because in your mirrored reflection you catch sight of Izuku lapping up at the spot once offending you as it doubles now as pleasure. Sweetly and gently toying the line between being at your service and keeping you all to himself.

It’s a dance you love and are addicted to- especially knowing that this behavior out of your normally shy and doting sweetheart comes from a place of complete adoration and attraction to how capable and competent you are. That reciprocated oath is what you promised each other: to uplift and protect each other’s hearts, minds, and souls above all else~

Actions follow his promised words; Izuku knows nothing of half measures.

He’s barely letting you stand under the stream of water without his hands or lips on you, washing you up and taking extra care with every crease and crevice… until of course you feel an extra wave of satisfaction when he gets analytical of your capture mission, and put you right back on the edge of jumping his bones:

Only he could turn hero commentary into steamy shower talk~ and you love it.

“Y’know just when I think I know your tells… knees tucking in on your bike, making it change to your size.. squaring up, leaning into a curve- you still come up with these out-of-the-box ideas...”

It’s up to you to get your hair washed, since his attentions are squarely set elsewhere.

“Maximizing your output using another power source in your rear engines -siphoning Kacchan’s firepower like that-, gosh, that's… that's inspired! And not even straying an inch from your trajectory? I-I don't know how you do it, honey~”

Heavens, he’d better stop with this. Then again, do you really want him to? He’s so considerate, even now as he’s breaking down what he loved most about watching you while his hands busy themselves with that favorite sugar scrub of yours.

It’s about your skill, not just confidence. Your reasoning, not just the pared-down version you have to minimize for the press in order to not seem self-absorbed or take too much of their time. You might sum up your work in a more palatable way for the public when interviewed as you were and keep the conversation mission-based; Deku here knows full well that’s at the center of why you work as a hero! But beneath all that, listing out each of the things you know you put into plan and executed -minutiae that you spare the reporters on site- is a whole other level of attentiveness.

No one knows you like ‘Zuku does. No statistician can catch those little moves, knowing you’ve put thought and training into every one. No bystander or fan adores you like he can, praising you the minute you come home as a gesture more meaningful than just to flatter you.

Izuku means to be your partner in everything; to be your anchor and the wind in your sails. When he can’t be alongside you in a mission together, he’s damn sure to be there the moment you can share space again.

And even when things go sideways and bear down on you harder than you anticipated– his tune doesn’t change. He’s still proud of you. To an immense and immovable degree. The way in which you try your best doesn’t change, so why would his opinion of you fall away? He would still collect you up in his embrace and take care of you in the same fashion with the same promises of support, rain or shine.

Izuku whispers gently as he takes the showerhead completely off the wall to rinse you– the stream is directed squarely between your shoulder blades, exactly where you like it…

“Your talent,” he continues, “that strength comin’ out of nowhere…” down your back, lower and lower as your wits tread on a thin wire– “You, baby, are nothing short of striking, and creative a-and-”

“And turned on as fuck-” you push him back into the wall with a hard kiss.

Izuku drops the showerhead completely with a touch of concern to what it’s done to your tub lining– before you override his attention span, that is. Hands into his dampened hair, you show him what his eye for your strengths means to you.

And damn him, when you do give him room for breath– he’s smirking.

“So says the girl who swears Kacchan is ‘not rubbing off on her’.”

He pokes fun at your atypical foul mouth, but you kiss that smirk off him anyway.

“Gimme a break,” you moan into his space, “You’ve been out of practice with him for a few years. Get an earful of his rants in your ear day in and day out, and see if you don’t start cussing up a storm.”

“I seemed to make it ok the first twenty years of my life. My baby must really be tired, thenNNN!!.”

An exploratory hand crept down and teased right along Izuku’s happy trail.

“Not that tired, Mr. Midoriya. Now if you do not take me to that bed in the next ten seconds, I swear I am going to explode.”

So up you go into his arms, over his shoulder and deposited onto the bed a bit more rough and playful than normal– soaked to the bone without a care for grabbing a towel on his way out. He sure aims to please.

You shriek in laughter, at least until you feel him yank you to the bed’s edge– to his waiting mouth.

“Proud of you, honey… lemme show you how much, hm?”

#izuku midoriya #izuku x reader #midoriya x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #mha fanfiction #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha x reader #bnha x reader #mha #bnha #izuku smut #deku smut

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st5lker · 1 year ago

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i totalled my car which was my only source of income. help me afford food and a down payment on a replacement

the other day i got into a 3-car accident on the freeway. the car in front of me rear ended the car in front of him, and because of poor visibility on that freeway + bad reaction time because I was out of my vyvanse, i didn’t react in time and crashed into him. since i was at the rear without a dashcam, i won’t be getting anything from the other drivers’ insurance, and my collision coverage has a deductible which was basically the value of the car.

i was doing ubereats which was my only source of income, ive been rejected from dozens of fast food jobs and others because nobody wants to hire right now, especially a college student with limited availability. i also live 15 miles away from college in a city with awful public transit, so without transportation i have to worry about my grades in addition to income.

i had some savings before i crashed my car but theyre not enough to afford a down payment since i don’t have a credit score yet or anyone to cosign. its close, but still very difficult, and the longer i spend without a car (and therefore without income) the more difficult it’ll be as i use those savings on food or other necessities. i would really appreciate any help at all. any donations would go directly into a down payment or into food so i don’t have to spend what little i have for it.

c/sh app: $rosechxrch

v/nmo: @ rosechxrch

if you need my paypal please dm me. thank you

#i havent had to make one of these for so long but im at the end of my rope #literally anything helps no matter how small i just need the little bit to let me get a replacement and ill be back on my feet #but that little bit feels so far away with no income and no time either during finals season

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y-rhywbeth2 · 3 months ago

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Deities and Clergy: Bhaal

Revamped

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

I think I lost my mind: I did this before, but this time I decided to redo it with far more detail by dragging out even more sources, and go into Bhaal himself. When I say 'long' I mean '12,419 words, 17 pages long.' Just to let you know before you click 'read more.' Fuck, I don't even know if it's coherently edited at this stage, but here's every scrap of Bhaalist lore I can find. I'll even put it in the tags this time, why not. Witness the chaos.

The full dogma A brief coverage of Bhaal's sacred symbols and the creatures he acts through. Worshipping Bhaal: the opening to a prayer, who, why and how one worships Bhaal including a bit about how to use the altar

The Priesthood: what their objective is, the do's and don'ts, the hierarchy and responsibilities, the cults, what you get for being Chosen, the funerary customs, the different places of worship available, and histories and schisms. Don't live in Baldur's Gate.

Bhaal: His personality, the world he wants to see, 'the owlbear is your great-great nephew by the way,' his parenting skills, his realm, his relationships with other deities, his avatar and manifestations and powers, more on his divine servitors and the butlers, and his brief history.

(...Why the tentacles though?)

‘Make all folk fear Bhaal. Let your killings be especially elegant, or grisly, or seem easy so that those observing them are awed or terrified. Tell folk that gold proffered to the church can make the Lord of Murder overlook them for today. ‘Murder is natural. Slaying is what all creatures in Faerûn do, daily if they can. At least daily, slay something living—and the Lord of Murder is most pleased if the victim is one of your own kind and as formidable as, or more powerful than, you. Kill with swift skill, not by torture, forced suicide, falls, or collisions. Do it personally, with ever-greater deftness and elegance, and teach others the skills and the delights of slaying. ‘Deathbringers are to slay with enough skill that witnesses are impressed. They are always to challenge those more powerful than themselves, the clergy of other deities being prize targets. Slay with pleasure, but never with anger. Be in exquisite control of yourself. Utter the name of Bhaal so the victim can hear it. Ideally, it should be the last word a victim hears.’ - Bhaal’s Dogma

Holy Symbol: ‘The Circle of Tears’ A human skull surrounded by a circle of sixteen bloody teardrops going counter-clockwise – the blood of the murdered and the tears of grief shed for their death, known as the ‘Tears of Bhaal.’

Sacred colours: Black, deep purple, violet (possibly silver) Sacred animals: N/A Sacred stones: N/A Sacred monsters: The Undead (particularly skeletal undead), the Haarla of Hate, ‘many tentacled monsters,’ Imps (employed as butlers), Perytons, Owlbears, Displacer Beasts, Bhaalspawn

---

Worship:

‘O mighty Bhaal, Reveller in Blood, master of my destiny…’ - The opening of a prayer to Bhaal - Darkwell

‘Few openly admit to worshipping the Lord of Murder, but there is an unspoken assumption that anyone who benefits from violent death has some respect for Bhaal.’ - Descent into Avernus

Bhaal is god of murder, patron deity of assassins, and formerly the god of death in general (I’ll get to that later). He is worshipped by those who desire somebody’s death and those who cause it (including more non-evil-aligned mercenaries and bounty hunters as well as your stereotypical evil assassins), and supplicated by those who seek to avoid it. While it has been implied he once held greater status, his limited domain means he isn’t the most widely venerated god in the world and the people who would worship him exclusively and join the priesthood are uncommon. Like all evil deities he has a ‘legitimate’ form of worship that makes him more sympathetic to the common people and that’s vigilante killings of criminals, where he overlaps with and cooperates with Hoar.

Faerûnians pay homage to the Lord of Murder for ‘his overlook’ whenever they are at risk of death by violence; for example when setting out on journeys (which, due to the dangerous nature of the world always carries a risk of death), or whenever death and violence is occurring around them and they hope – if somebody you know is murdered then the tradition, encouraged by Bhaalists, is to make an offering to Bhaal in the hopes of averting his further attentions. Bhaal despises all that lives as a stain upon the perfection of death, good only for the joy of killing them and drinking their lifeblood, and only those that offer homage to him gain his tolerance.

Even during calmer times people are encouraged to make an offering to the nearest temple or shrine (or visiting Bhaalists from the nearby fortress doing the rounds). As with most gods, Bhaal usually takes offerings in the form of cash and other material gains as well, offered while saying prayer. How these rates work hasn’t been described, and probably varies. The dogma specifically says ‘for today,’ so it’s possibly a daily offering, or perhaps you can buy lengths of time (like, ‘1gp per day, 8gp for a tenday, for the low price of 1000gp you can enjoy a whole year, murder free!’) Donating land deeds and buildings to the temple or shrine in your testament (your will) is always greatly appreciated by Faerûnian faiths.

Such tithe collection is accomplished through ‘frightening common folk into placing offerings of coinage and valuables before Bhaalists.’ As the priests should not be identifiable and will likely be recognised by wearing their full ceremonial hoods and veils (designed for intimidation as well as anonymity) and none but the faithful may not know the location of a place of worship, let alone enter one, this is presumably done in a fashion akin to simply walking through the streets (possibly after a recent murder) as people hurriedly place valuables in the path in ‘before them,’ or maybe into an offering bowl being carried, possibly with a quickly mumbled ‘hail the Lord of Death’ thrown in. (It is believed that to touch a Myrkulyte is to bring death, and many physically avoid being near or sometimes looking at Myrkul’s Reapers lest they draw the god’s attention (which is encouraged because it keeps the fear from spilling over into violence against the priesthood). It’s not unimaginable that Bhaalists would have something similar going on, and they are stated to be ‘darkly popular’ and ‘still command respect and fear throughout Baldur's Gate’ even if not reverence.)

Offerings are also made to Bhaal for success by those who are setting out to kill another person; mercenaries and bounty hunters out to collect bandit heads, a battered spouse taking a knife to their sleeping abuser, a vigilante in a corrupt city hunting violent criminals who will never see legal justice, and assassins killing for money, all pay their dues to the god whose domain they are stepping in (some of them alongside Hoar, god of vengeance and one of Bhaal’s allies).

Bhaal was also worshipped by in the Guge kingdom of Eastern Faerûn by the spirit-folk known as the Gugari, now isolated in the Hollow Crown Mountains, where he is revered as the god of death Niynjushigampo. Their ruling class is obsessed with the royal bloodline which, coupled with their insular society, means they are inbred to high hell. Death rites and necromancy are a big part of society, and executing people for public entertainment is a popular activity at festivals (or noble parties). Which is a fair idea of what a primarily Bhaalist society looks like, I guess (surprisingly, murder is still illegal. Very little else is).

Prayers to Bhaal occur during the hours of darkness involve sacrifices of both victim’s blood and/or the supplicant’s (the sacrifice of blood and life is to ‘offer [one/one’s blood] as Tears of Bhaal,’).

Creating and maintaining an altar requires regularly anointing it with your own freely given blood to feed your Lord, done by gouging their thumbs. This leaves a subtle mark, kept visible by regular prayer, that allows worshippers of Bhaal to recognise each other. The blood is then smeared over the eye-sockets to form tears of the altar’s skull, which serves as a stand-in for Bhaal himself – this may be a large steel mask placed on the wall above it, or sitting in the centre of the altar in the form of a real human head or an expensive marble statue.

‘Carved from white marble, it was perhaps four times the size of a human head. Red streaks, which could only have been fresh blood, ran from the eyes of the skull across its cheekbones in a garish caricature of tears. ‘ - Black Wizards

‘Hanging on the wall above the altar is a three-foot-tall steel mask cast in the form of a frowning human skull.’ - Descent into Avernus

When stepping away from the altar one is to bow to the skull sitting in the centre of the altar in reverence before turning away.

Bathing in blood appears to serve some ritual purpose for Bhaalists, although the significance and purpose has not been explained.

Clerics pray for their spells just after sundown before retiring for the night (assuming they have no work – ritual sacrifices always take place at midnight. Priests occasionally take a day off work from their day job and regular life to sleep in order to conserve their energy, particularly before going out on the hunt.) In temples and fortresses a mass known as the Day’s Farewell is held at sundown.

Something from word of god which didn’t get into the published realms for various reasons, including the Satanic Panic, but which does kind of crop up in Baldur’s Gate 3 is this:

‘Sex is used in rituals in specific (narrow) ways, for worship of the deity and "improvement of self to make the self a better servant of the deity as well as more pleasing to the deity and therefore more favored by the deity.”’ - Ed Greenwood

‘Once Bhaal's favour has quickened within one oh his beloved murderers, the bliss of his love is nigh-indescribable. For he blesses his loyal with a new sensation: a mindless, instinctual, primal sensation that comes within the bowels, an erotic spasmthat washes over the killer, in the moment of murder. It is said that in that instant, his Divine Essence can almost be tasted. Forsake all other hedonisms, acolytes, for nothing can compare. Until the true ecstasies of murder wash over you, initiates, this scroll contains a prayer, you may say after a kill, calling for the Lord's disgrace to find its course in your body.’ - A recording of a sermon, one of several out of the way examples of Bhaal being a touch invasive found in Baldur’s Gate 3

There are several references to the Dark Urge going grave digging, with necrophiliac undertones. Whether that’s part of the above, or just Durge things is up in the air.

(While the priest giving the sermon says to forsake hedonisms, Bhaalists very much have been depicted engaging in every hedonism their whims take them to and Bhaal didn’t particularly care, so it doesn’t appear to be a sin within the faith, just a turn of phrase or this one priest’s opinion.)

Priesthood:

‘The land of these mortals would become a land of death—a nation ruled by the dead, over the dead. No living thing would mar it ‘ - Black Wizards

‘When you are finished, when my will has been done, there will be not a single living creature upon this land that is not beholden to me. This island shall become a monument to death!’ - Darkwell

To the west of the Dragonreach worshippers – those who venerate Bhaal as a patron deity, rather than simply placating him as part of the larger pantheon – are known as ‘Bhaalists,’ and to the East they are ‘Bhaalyn.; Priests of Bhaal are known, generically and regardless of rank, as ‘deathbringers.’

Priests are to greet each other and supplicating lay worshippers with ‘Praises to Bhaal.’ To which the correct response is ‘Hail the Lord of Death.’

The primary purpose of the priesthood, expanding the Lord of Murder’s power and rule aside, is to sate his eternal lust for blood with a steady supply of victims. Bhaal has even been known to desire the blood of specific mortals and command his priests to sacrifice these on his altar – albeit these are usually ones that have personally crossed him, or who serve gods who have done so (Cyricists, Lathanderites, Chaunteans, Lliirans, Helmites, Tyrrans, Ilmatari and Tormites. Mystrans and Maskarrans may or may not be on the list nowadays). Once Bhaal has requested a specific victim on his altar – communicated through dream vision, typically – the Bhaalists will vehemently refuse to allow any but his faithful to slay them.

Bhaalists tend to be – and are encouraged to be – charismatic and outwardly charming (and if you really can’t manage there are cleric spells that can help). Build your people skills, make friends and allies. But of course the prime requisite of the job is that underneath all that charm is a violent sadistic streak and the ability to find joy and ecstasy in killing (which is required in order to serve Bhaal). Death is not simply a pastime or a means of employment for a Bhaalist; it is a calling and a holy duty.

Bhaalists are probably like most faiths, where the majority of their number come from orphans taken in by priests and raised from birth to serve the temple/shrine and its god. Considering their isolated and cloistered communities, I don’t think it unlikely that many are also born into their environments. The most common form of recruitment outside of that comes from what are effectively red rooms – anonymous meetings where all are masked and veiled and may gather to witness criminals and other hated figures whose death won’t be considered a crime by the mob being ‘righteously’ slain and sacrificed for the pleasure of both Bhaal and the crowd. Those who join the cult have the privilege of selecting the next sacrifice, and some of those may even graduate into the inner circles and become true Bhaalists and join the clergy.

Deathbringers are generally aware of their deity’s hatred and insatiable hunger and that they are not exceptions to it so long as they still breathe, for all that they are given a pass and even approval. They are also awarethat even if they have doubts about this that their life is immediately forfeit ‘if [their] master should suspect anything less than total obedience.’

Clerical garb, worn while hunting in the city at night or while at the shrine or temple, takes the form of black or deep purple robes with deep hoods and veils that are designed to fully obscure the wearer, giving the impression of an empty set of robes. It’s possible that black robes show that the priest is a Deathstalker and purple the regular priests, although it could simply be a regional thing that varies by location. The inner lining is black, to enhance the effect. The robes will be randomly and violently dashed with splashes and steaks of violet dye. The higher ranks of the clergy are distinguished by adding a scarlet sash around their waist, used to make their ranks easily distinguished in dimly-lit settings where nobody can see each others’ faces due to the veil.

Each deathbringer has a ceremonial curved short blade on the belt that may be used in rituals; only Deathstalkers such as the High Primate [PRIME-et] has the right to wield it as an actual weapon. These daggers are cursed so that if anybody but the faithful draw them from their sheath they won’t be able to release the weapon until they’ve used it to take a life. Attempts to otherwise remove the dagger, such as by magic like remove curse, will cause the blade to violently explode, spraying its surroundings (and the thief) with lethally toxic shrapnel.

Outside of ceremonial wear, while on guard duty or travelling Bhaalists are to wear black chausses and a black cloak, plus whatever armour they use (typically leather or chain, probably also dyed black). They may also be wearing their robes over the armour.

While priests are to dedicate themselves to murder and sating Bhaal’s endless bloodlust above all else, Bhaal encourages his followers to pursue ‘personal wealth and hobbies’ and ingratiate themselves to the halls of power. Bhaalists spend a great chunk of their life on murder (planning crimes; debating the philosophy of death and violence; building weapons collections; finding and mastering new murder methods; getting enough training, rest and food to stay healthy and capable, etc), and Bhaal will reprimand flights of vanity and self-indulgence when they interfere too much with holy duties or his commands, but he is at worst indifferent to his gollower’s avaricious tendencies and whatever luxuries and indulgences they opt to spend their spare time and the clerical powers he gives them on. Something Bhaal will not tolerate is disobedience, and deathbringers spend a lot of time watching their own thoughts and apologising for having them if they feel too rebellious.

Bhaalists outside of their own faith communities maintain a daytime identity: in worship they are anonymous; their worship is always behind closed doors in the company of fellow Bhaalists, their identities obscured by veils and hoods; outside of the temples and shrines they live a perfectly normal life. On the lower end of the hierarchy they prefer to take jobs that allow them to move around unnoticed, gather information, and observe the public for potential victims assuming that the job doesn’t allow them easy access to victims. On the higher end of the hierarchy they like to take positions of power and control.

Funerary Customs

Bhaalists are buried with their daggers.

They practice mummification (although this may have become less popular over time since -100 DR-ish) transforming volunteers into mummy lords to protect holy sites and tombs (and presumably also using invaders to create lesser undead enslaved for the same purposes). It might or might not be part of a marriage-like thing, as one dude back in Ascore named Rethkan agreed to the process on behalf of his lover, the priestess Asharla-Rhil. Then again there were basically no details as to that situation, so maybe she tricked him to it. Idk the situation is up for interpretation.

Although in the Realms – especially where Bhaalists are involved – this is a… unique twist on a funeral in that the deceased begins the process alive and is slowly murdered and converted into undeath by keeping the soul and mind active and anchored even as the body dies, while removing their internal organs, embalming them, and cycling the positive energy that keeps them alive out for the negative energy that sustains the undead. As a side effect, the trauma and the ever-hungry void that is negative energy instils a murderous hatred of all that lives. Which, I suppose, is a bonus if you’re a Bhaalist.

To Bhaalists the only holy day worth celebrating is the Feast of the Moon. While the world honours the dead, the Bhaalists specifically revere their own fallen faithful now gone to Bhaal, by telling stories of their most impressive murders. A favourite is of Uthaedeol the Blood-Drenched, the model Bhaalist who – as he couldn’t simply teleport into his target (King Samyte of Tethyr)’s room due to wards, as the man had been forewarned of an assassination attempt – teleported onto a pegasus flying above the throne room, killed the rider, forced the horse into a lethal dive through the skylight and into the throne room to get around the wards (using a fly spell to survive the fall himself), killed the black dragon the king had bound into his service with one blow by punching it in the eye (using his own variation of the disintegrate spell that he never shared the secret to with anyone), used its acidic breath weapon to propel himself over to the other side of the room (he had acid resistance) and then caused all the arrows the guards had been firing at him (which missed) to fly backwards and kill the archers who fired them, and then killed the king in combat, effectively slicing him to pieces (along with any more soldiers that tried to interfere). He then cast a delayed meteor swarm on the throne room, to be activated the next time anybody tried to cast a spell in there (presumably insurance against divination spells), and a blade barrier by the doors that would activate when the next blood relatives of the king stepped through, and then he teleported away – he managed to assassinate the kings two heirs after leaving the scene when the two eldest sons next arrived in the throne room and triggered the blade barrier, as planned.

(This level of crazy-prepared overkill is an inspiration to Bhaalists everywhere.)

Duties

Bhaalists may not hope or pray to Bhaal be spared from death, to desire such seems to be blasphemy.

Bhaalists are obligated by their faith to teach combat skills – and possibly hunting – to all who ask, and are available for hire as tutors.

Work goes into infiltrating and controlling three areas; crime syndicates, law enforcement and the nobility, eliminating obstacles to their holy duty.

Take care to ‘let economically and socially important individuals live unharmed,’ unless they happen to be significant obstacles to the goals of the faith. Do not kill rich people. Do not upset the governing powers of the city. Do not upset the nobles. By being useful to those in power rather than upsetting them you get situations where Bhaalists may establish temples and enjoy freedom; like Thay, where the Red Wizards quite happily sponsored and financed the Tower of Swift Death in exchange for the assassins’ work on furthering ‘the Glory of Thay;’ and Baldur’s Gate, where the intrigues of the nobles and the violence of law enforcement and rebels makes praying to Bhaal ‘darkly popular,’ and Bhaalists can near enough do whatever they like ‘so long as the city's important citizens aren't harmed.’ That is to say, the ones in the Upper City.

They are encouraged to not target civilians too much, but to go after those who will not be missed (passing adventurers, vagrants, the homeless) and those whose deaths will more likely be celebrated (criminals and outlaws). In Baldur’s Gate this means most activity should happen in the Outer City, as the residents are not actually Baldurian by law, and there there’s so much murder there (a lot of it not even Bhaalist in origin) that there are entire ‘snuff streets’ where people dump the corpses.

Bhaalists are to found and be patrons to assassins and thieves guilds. Assassins and organisations that profit from killing people but do not pay homage to the Lord of Murder and his followers are to be routed and destroyed for their blasphemy.

50% of valuables taken from kills are owed to either the temple or to be handed over to the senior priest who serves as one’s ‘handler.’ The other 50% goes towards yourself and should be used to advance yourself in order to ‘continue [your] holy work.’ The likes of land deeds, buildings and holdings that can be stolen you are encouraged to keep and use to enrich and spread the influence of yourself and the church.

Killing one living being a day is mandatory, but not all of them must be people. Only once a tenday must a sapient being be offered as a tear, preferably using a member of one’s own race. Failing to deliver requires two kills per one missed.

In order to keep the kill ‘pure’ there is a list of conditions: - The kill cannot be sullied by emotion; you must commit the deed with a clear head and perfect awareness of what you do. - The kill must be for Bhaal alone; you may not take payment for this kill, and assassination jobs do not count towards your regular sacrifices. - The kill should least be capable of fighting back, if not stronger that you.- - The victim must be slain quickly and without torture; torture is not Bhaal’s way, but honours the ways of gods like Loviatar (to whom the pain leading into death is holy) and Bane (who feeds on the fear, and the power the torturer holds over their victim). Poison, while acceptable for assassination work, presumably doesn't count for sacrifices to Bhaal (Talona's domain) - The method and end result can be ‘grisly,’ but the kill itself must be a testament to your skill – swiftly and smoothly done. - You must take pleasure in the act – your joy and the skills you have honed and place on display for the Lord of Murder’s pleasure are a form of worship, and they empower him as much as the death itself. - The victim must be marked as an offering and informed for whom their life was taken before they die; they are to be told ‘Bhaal awaits thee, Bhaal embraces thee, none escape Bhaal.’

Once the victim is dead you are to smear your hands with the blood and draw the circle of tears near the body with it. If the offering is pure and Bhaal is pleased you will know due to the blood vanishing from your hands, and also by receiving a murder orgasm, apparently. Bhaalists are encouraged to strip the dead, and anything in their property should you be there, subject to the rules mentioned earlier. They are also to take a trophy from the body. This may be anything from a valuable like a piece of jewellery they’re wearing, a personal possession, to a body part (a hand, a heart, a finger, a severed head...). The trophy is to be offered up on an altar to Bhaal.

In their off time Bhaalists will generally dress in the same colours as their ceremonial regalia [black and deep purple], seeing as they are sacred to their faith. Though unlike some deities (Bane), I haven’t seen anything that says its mandatory religious wear. Taboos around dress for all faiths’ clergy revolve around hues and symbols, so I would imagine that those that are sacred to Bhaal’s enemies are also forbidden (which gets a tad awkward, as Cyric did steal Bhaal’s colours, but enemies can still overlap (something about specific hues)).

Assuming that’s the case: forbidden colours include: white, yellow, green, steel-grey, red (except for the ceremonial sash), orange, rose pink, blue. forbidden images are: seeds; song birds and passerines; red hens; sprites; trees; white doves; mice; most flowers, including daisies, white roses, aster, pansies…; butterflies; kittens and puppies; rainbows; bears; large cats; gold dragons; silver dragons; pegasi. forbidden gemstones: opals, agates, rhodochrosites, star rose quartzes, jasmals, fire opals, diamonds.

Places of Worship

Fortresses Hidden rural citadel-abbeys that house private Bhaalist communities: agents travel to nearby villages, towns and cities to solicit customers and worshippers to hire the assassins, who are trained in and operate from the fortress. May or may not overlap with temples. It seems like these are generally where you’ll find the ‘heart’ of the faith with the hierarchical structure; outside of them it’s mostly assassins at work, agents infiltrating and manipulating the local laws and rulers, and decentralised cults recruiting worshippers and servants and spreading fear of Bhaal.

Urban Temples Temples of Bhaal within non-Bhaalist settlements are rare. Those that exist are dark, subterranean structures beneath the city streets. Attached catacombs contain the bodies and trophies of victims offered to Bhaal (many of whom are ‘restless,’ and liable to be enlisted into the service of the priests and temples). Aside from the occasional morbid mosaic or sculpture displaying violent deaths (these also tend to be trapped in the event of intruders attempting to defile them), and any valuables that were taken from sacrificial victims as trophies, the structure is utterly spartan.

Urban Shrines The most common place to worship Bhaal outside of a Bhaalist citadel: lone Bhaalists in settlements where the faith is poorly established have private shrines hidden in their home. When they’re more organised these shrines are likely to be found in basements or in the private backrooms of fancy high-end establishments, where the previously described red rooms are held.

Rural Shrines Stone circles built on barren hilltops, consisting of a ring of teardrop shaped stones carved with skulls surrounding a bloody altar to form the Circle of Tears.

Hierarchy

The church historically has been split into two larger factions, the urban, temple-based Bhaalists and the Deathstalkers; Bhaal’s selected speciality priests who serve him directly, and whom the temple hierarchy is overseen by. Between the two they form something that roughly corresponds to a Catholic monastic hierarchy overseen by an Archbishop, sans pope or any other form of global centralisation. Obviously, as is stressed now and again, Toril is not Earth, and these aren’t perfect comparisons, but still give an idea of what the role is for.

The places of worship all operate independently of each other, having their internal hierarchy (Primate/Primistress > First Murder > the Council of Cowled Deaths > the Deathbringers (amongst whom one may find other, minor ranking systems)). Each of these temples, shrines, citadels and cults answers to the regional central authority: the High Primate or High Primistress, a high ranking Deathstalker and member of the Brethren of the Keen Strike.

One is promoted through the ranks of the temples by accomplishing being sent out on a mission to commit a ritualistic murder with nothing but ones’ bare hands. Going by how these things are usually described, and the personal closeness to a deity required for high level clerics, Bhaal is likely personally involved in the process of deciding who gets promoted and how (communicating via dreams rather than manifestations being the most likely for him). The rituals built around this are apparently ‘solemn’ affairs. On success one reports back to a higher ranking priest for a private interview. Bhaalists are known for their uncanny ability to spot when somebody is lying about these things, and also known for the horrific punishments they hand out for attempted deception. On a successful promotion, there is a full formal ceremony (marked by human sacrifice, naturally).

The four highest ranks are positions of eminence:

The highest rank in the entire hierarchy is the High Primate [PRIME-et, not pri-MATE like an ape or monkey], or High Primistress. Elected from the ranks of the Deathstalkers, as said. The High Primate is the ruler of an entire area or faction of Bhaalists, tasked with planning ‘proper strategies of manipulating nearby rulers, inhabitants and organisations into the deeds and behaviour that the Bhaalyn desired,’ which takes up most of their time. They presumably appoint individual primates and determine Bhaalist doctrine, the direction of the faith (and its temples and shrines), and ecclesial law – and in BG3 the equivalent of a synod appears to be a fight to the death where the winner gets the job and the right to make the rules.

Within the walls of temples and fortresses (walled and secluded rural Bhaalist communities) the rank and file answer to the Primate or Primistress, roughly equivalent to an abbot.

The First Murder is described as holding a rank equivalent to a prior, presumably a claustral prior, answering to the Primate. They serve as a personal assistant and technically have no power save by proxy when the Primate delegates a task to them.

The nine most senior clergy beneath them form the Cowled Deaths, chosen from those who hold office within their community, who answer directly to the First Murder. If the First Murder is a prior then these are presumably the sub-priors; their job is to do the rounds and ensure that nothing is amiss and the rank and file are behaving and being suitably pious. They likely don’t pass judgements or perform discipline themselves, instead simply passing it onto the First Murder, and then the higher ranks will decide what to do within the law defined by the High Primate.

Answering to Cowled Deaths are the Deathdealers – the common rank and file of the Bhaalist faith, who may be divided into further, lesser local hierarchies, but all of whom can be refered to with the title ‘Slaying Hand’.

As well as the hierarchy there are the cults operating outside of them, presumably founded by deathdealers or deathstalkers, these are decentralised and loosely organised, rarely gathering in one place. Within Baldur’s Gate in the 15th century the cults have three ranks: Night Blade, Reaper and Death’s Head. Comprised of a variety of people who worshippers of Bhaal varying from individual agents like freelance killers for hire, to the people who gather in the ‘back rooms’ - the angry and oppressed seeking bloody justice the law won’t deliver and those who simply get off on watching people die. Cults may share a base of operation but for the most part aren’t a larger organised force and don’t have anything to do with other Bhaalists in the city other than being able to recognise each other by the gash in their thumbs. The cultists are not clerics, but they do receive blessings in the form of powers from their god, and presumably some may be recruited to become Deathdealers.

The Brethren of the Keen Strike ‘Deathstalkers’

The Bretheren of the Keen Strike is the holy Bhaalist assassin order consisting of Bhaal’s most zealous followers, its members titled Deathstalkers.

To qualify for membership the candidate must meet Bhaal’s personal approval, either being selected by a priest who presents the idea to Bhaal or actively chosen by Bhaal. They exist outside the church hierarchy as independent agents answering only to their god, though the church hierarchy may answer to them (via the High Primate). They aren’t attached to a single church, fortress or shrine and instead usually wander the realm undertaking missions, doing Bhaal’s will and spreading death and fear wherever they go.

Candidates must know, or will be trained in prior to initiation, the basics of stealth and wilderness survival (emphasis on tracking and hunting) and must have spent some a decent degree of time in service to Bhaal amongst the regular clergy (level 5, meaning they probably held one of the higher ranks in the temple hierarchy). Clerics must have the death and destruction domains. The majority are clerics, and many are multi-classed as rangers, barbarians, fighters or rogues, though other classes may be seen.

They must kill sixteen victims – one for each Tear of Bhaal on the holy symbol – either with sixteen different methods, or sixteen different weapons. As usual these are sacrifices and cannot involve ‘accidents,’ falls or forced suicide, and the candidate must slay with a clear mind, no personal attachments, and take joy in the deeds.

Upon their initiation the Deathstalker receives the right to wield their sacred blade in combat and assassinations, and are trained to use it with ‘devestatingly potent in aim and effect (fatal or nearly fatal)’. A Deathstalker is capable of formulating and carrying out a plan to kill or incapacitate you within three minutes of setting eyes on you for the first time (three minutes is not a metaphor). Apparently you also get a snazzy invisibility cloak out of the deal nowadays… or maybe that’s just if you have a mothering imp butler who might’ve knitted it for you as a graduation present.

They wield the powers of the deity himself, albeit to much more limited and milder extents. Training includes: • Drawing weapons (and throwing them at targets) with alarming speed. • Sneak attacks, if you didn’t already have those. If you did then your sneak attacks become even more dangerous. • Many athletic abilities (climbing, sneaking around, moving silently) • Quickly assessing their surroundings using their senses and using that to their advantage. • Enough knowledge of anatomy to know how to instantaneously wreck a living body. • Crafting (presumably in the sense of making their own weaponry); • Subterfuge (gathering information, reading body language and subtle cues, intimidation, bluff, diplomacy) • Constructing false identities, forgeries and disguises • How to live off the land outside of civilisation and without aid. • How to fight in armour from padded through to chain-mail. Shields are forbidden. • Magic; those to the effect of charm, combat, summoning, attack spells and a touch of divination particularly stand out.

As Bhaal’s speciality priests, Members of the Brethren of the Keen strike are gifted with the gods own abilities. They are disciplined killers, and well organised (i.e. required to be Lawful Evil in alignment).

‘Attraction/Disdain’ The ability to turn an emotion or opinion inside out for 1-20 hours by touching a person: Those in the grip of panic relax and feel comfort. A loving couple despise each other. Disgust becomes lust. Technically it’s meant for forming alibis, diverting suspicion, and calming hostilities. As you can probably spot from the name, it also functions as a magical date rape drug, and Bhaalists have canonically used it for ‘recreational’ purposes.

‘Bloodlust’ Also known as ‘The Urge to Slay.’ Tapping into an individual’s hates and rages, dragging them out and stirring them into a blind homicidal rage that drives them to kill.

‘Decay’

‘Tristan filled another bucket, but suddenly gagged as a surprising stench assailed his nostrils. Gasping, he dropped the bucket and staggered backward. Maggots spilled from the container to slither about the hull. He struggled to voice his shock but no sound emerged. More maggots seethed from the hull of the boat, and he felt the wood grow spongy beneath his feet. The sickly white creatures, creeping from the Ducklings’ very planks, seemed to fill the boat. The horrible smell of rotting flesh rose from the hull with the maggots.’ - Black Wizards

Accelerating the ageing process of any inanimate object (spells generally consider dead bodies objects (not to be confused with undead/unliving bodies))

‘For every hour that passes the object decays a day. After an appropriate amount of time has passed, most objects break, rust or corrode, decay into powder, or otherwise become useless.’ [Faiths and Avatars]The ageing can be returned to its normal speed with counter magic, but the damage done is irreversible.

‘The Last Breath of Bhaal’ While Bhaal still desires it a Deathstalker does not die. After being slain, the corpse will lie dead for an hour before reviving. This isn’t a terribly pleasant process, as the priest will be restored clinging to life by the skin of their teeth with their soul mildly damaged (mechanically they come back at 1hp and lose a character level).

‘Wound’ They don’t need to make physical contact to inflict damage with cause serious wounds from a distance, they can just will your bones to spontaneously shatter, or your veins to rupture, or your skin to break apart in lacerations, or however you imagine the spell working. They can also just point at you and cast finger of death.

'Plane Skipping' A deathstalker may chose to, in a fashion, teleport, receiving ‘an understanding of the nature of the planar fabric, and an ability to use that fabric to suit his own ends.’ For example if one wanted to cross an ocean without taking a boat or other form of transport, one could simply slip through the planes – bringing companions if desired - into Bhaal’s realm on Gehenna, walking the same distance and then stepping back through the fabric into Toril. Direction is irrelevant, as Bhaal’s will and the priest’s own intent shapes the spell. Generally every 10ft walked on Gehenna is equivalent to 1 mile on Toril.

(How exactly his works is a little harder to grasp, since Gehenna and the Prime don’t overlap geographically, but presumably that’s why you need the knowledge of a god downloaded into your brain to do this).

Gehenna is a hazardous place (which will be described when I get to Bhaal’s domain further in), and Bhaal makes no effort to protect his followers while they are on his plane (reasoning that if they are powerful enough to wield the power they are powerful enough to protect themselves), but while there the residents apparently ignore the priest, recognising them as belonging to the plane as a servant of one of the resident deities. I’m not sure if that attitude extends to any guests brought along for the ride.

So long as the area you’re trying to access isn’t shielded with protective magics (or a dead magic zone), there is nowhere the assassin cannot enter and no obstacle that can keep them from their target.

Bhaal’s most favoured servants can, once a month, summon an aerial servant – an invisible air elemental which will serve them with unfailing loyalty and makes a very good personal assassin.

Like any divine spellcaster who crosses their deity, a deathstalker who severely displeases Bhaal by violating his commands and dogma will be stripped of all these abilities until they have atoned, usually by undergoing quests and trials set by the deity.

Chosen of Bhaal

The Chosen of Bhaal receives Bhaal’s own bloodlust (assuming they didn’t already have it from being a Bhaalspawn), and is liable to go on a killing spree the moment they receive Bhaal’s divine essence (again, already having it seems to help in this department). They are immune to all diseases, poisons and toxins. They gain a slight resistance to magic. Their strikes are imbued with death magic that paralyses on contact and leaves victims helpless.

The weirdest part to picture is that they can fluidly scale walls and parkour at the same speed and ease that they can run or walk with, and just go scuttling at high speeds up the wall. They become rather spring-heeled, able to simply leap into the air whenever, apparently at speeds that prevent anybody from striking at them, so they can just suddenly flip over your head and stab you in the back at any time, I guess.

History and Schisms

After the death of Bhaal and his replacement by Cyric in the Time of Troubles (1358 DR), the church entered a schism. Some Bhaalists, mostly the urbanites, believed that Bhaal had taken the portfolios of Bane and Myrkul and taken on a new name – the Banites had clearly erroneously mistaken him for their god, who was dead, so they called him Cyric-Bhaal to differentiate him from the Banite Cyric. Other Bhaalists, namely the Deathstalkers, saw Cyric as a different entity and refused to follow. They still received their unique powers and denied that Bhaal had died. Naturally this led to the two factions attempting to murder each other for heresy.

Eventually Cyric, having amused himself watching the schisms within his own faith, proclaimed that the various bickering Cyricist cults that were once followers of the Dead Three had to accept that they were all worshipping the same god and get over it. At roughly the same time the Deathstalkers lost their powers and were forced to accept their gods death. Some Bhaalists fully converted to Cyric; others converted to the worship of Iyachtu Xvim, son of Bane, seeking vengeance on Cyric for taking their god from them (and presumably ended up being part of the church of Bane in 1372 DR, after Bane’s resurrection); and the remainder stayed firmly loyal to Bhaal, retreating to their hidden citadels and continuing their traditions, although many of them also started to pick up veneration of darker non-human pantheons, such as the orcish pantheon.

In 1369 DR, after the Bhaalspawn Crisis, those loyal to Bhaal once again began to have their prayers answered and received their Deathstalker powers, although Bhaal never spoke to them directly (there were debates about whether this was because he wouldn’t, couldn’t, or if it was somebody else giving them their powers on his behalf which was the favoured answer). Instead of direct communication Bhaalists received nightmare-visions in their sleep.

They set about establishing small temples and shrines throughout Faerûn and re-establishing the faith, working towards their Lord’s inevitable return. Some even suspected that Bhaal was resurrected after the Bhaalspawn Crisis and simply decided not to make it an official announcement (this… wouldn’t be totally unimaginable for him?):

‘Several Deathbringers have managed to become city rulers or the heads of city law-keeping forces- and their minions now stalk the streets slaying undesirables [criminals or vagrants, for example] and rivals to increase their wealth and tighten their rule. Increasingly, Deathbringers seek positions where they can live comfortably, make lots of coin, and kill often with few consequences.’ - Elminster’s Forgotten Realms

The faith was officially back as of 1482 DR, when Bhaal’s rampage as the Slayer through the streets of Baldur’s Gate and the selection of temporary Chosen Torlin Silvershield, who Bhaal sent on a(nother) killing spree. Bhaalists have had a keen interest in the city since, and the Bhaalspawn still around apparently find themselves drawn to the location.

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Bhaal

Aliases: Bale (in the Farsea Marshes), Niynjushigampo (Hollow Crown Mountains) Titles: ‘The Lord of Death,’ ‘The Lord of Murder,’ ‘Reveller in Blood’ Alignment: Lawful Evil (1e-4e, 5e can’t decide what it thinks his alignment should be) Portfolios: Murder, Violence, Assassins, Death (formerly) Domains: Death, Destruction, Hatred, Evil, Law Groupings: The Faerûnian Pantheon; The Dark Gods; the Dead Three Rank: Greater (until 1346 DR), Lesser (1e), Intermediate (2e), Quasideity [Vestige] (3.5e and 4e), Quasideity [Demipower] (5e) Favoured Weapon: ‘Bone Blade’ (a dagger, made of bone) Usual Class: Multiclass Fighter(27)/Rogue(32)

Personality and Motivations

‘He thrilled at the sight of the dead army that was defiling Myrloch vale. They would be his mightiest achievement when he was done, creating a legion of death that would bring the entire land beneath his baneful rule.’

Bhaal exists in a perpetual state of violent rage and bloodlust – portrayed as literal bloodlust, the deity craves the blood of the living. He is usually capable of controlling it and experiencing other emotions at the same time. Occasionally he is forced to delay a plan to lash out in rage at a less important target when encountering particularly difficult obstacles. He also tends to swear a lot when frustrated, usually in Supernal, the language of the gods.

He has a spectacular talent for grudges and escalating them, going from ‘these individuals should die horribly for harming me/my minions’ to considering the larger web of people and things connected to them, and that they care about and developing that into ‘these mortals, everyone they know and love, the gods they serve and the land itself they live upon must all die for their offence against me/my minions.’

Like most gods he is also motivated to form schemes for the chance to gain status amongst the other gods, and also simply to amuse himself.

Somewhat paradoxically, while Bhaal delights in the crude force of violence and especially when he can personally partake in it, Bhaal also greatly favours subtlety and prefers not be perceived except through the ‘art’ (murder scenes) he leaves behind him. He has displayed no vanity in regards to human appearances he takes, and moves through the world in stealth except when engaging in violence; when forced to partake in a face-to-face conversation he becomes irritable and seems to prefer to remain as laconic as possible if required to speak, and very rarely manifests or takes avatar form. For all the wealth his followers seek, and are encouraged to seek, worship of Bhaal follows a monastic hierarchy and his temples are spartan and solely devoted to the emptiness of death itself.

On the other hand he has a household staff including butlers and crafters making fancy dining-ware and has been portrayed enjoying his little luxuries, like using Gehenna’s bloody lava flows as a jacuzzi while watching his murder soap opera. No, I’m not joking:

‘Bhaal wallowed in the fire pits of Gehenna, luxuriating in the sensual feel of lava fuelled with fresh blood. The god of death, lover of all murderous acts, was in fine fettle. His devotees, and even those opposed to him, were acting in concert to provide entertainment.’ - Black Wizards (I feel like pointing out to the author that blood would probably burn away in molten rock, but eh. It’s the Lower Planes, whatever.)

More than simply a storm of bloody murder, Bhaal is also noted for being ‘cold and calculating’ and has, somewhat surprisingly, been described as a patient long-term planner when his hungers don’t overwhelm him. (Although when the urge does strike, Bhaal will waylay a plan to sate it.) He also on rare occasions shows mild signs of possessing a dark sense of humour, nodding in greeting with mock politeness mid-attempted-murder when his would-be victims recognises him or making dad-tier jokes (‘how do I get to the world of the dead’ ‘by dying.’ :) )

Bhaal, by his very nature, despises life and the presence of living beings stirs an insatiable hunger for their destruction in him. The only tolerable living things are those that are beholden to him. He considers living beings to ‘mar’ the world, and his ideal planet is an apocalyptic wasteland that would be inhabited only by his children, the dead, the undead, and his loyal followers (who may also be undead in this scenario). Under Bhaal’s reign the plants wither, sources of water dry out or becomes hazardous to life, and all living beings slowly die of exposure in a dead world.

He despises the natural Balance of the cycles of life and death, and would see it tipped in favour of death with no return to life, despite the fact that his threat to Myrkul and Bane was that he has the power to play arbiter to this cycle and tip it in favour of life by refusing to allow mortals to die if he chooses.

I don’t know that Bhaal would go out of his way to do this to the whole planet (which would be difficult to pull off, set too many the other powers against him, and probably get him disciplined by Ao), but he certainly enjoys the notion of having a physical domain on Toril like this, even if not the whole planet.

He delights in beings that bring death and destruction, including ‘many species of tentacled monsters.’ I don’t know why he has such an interest in tentacles, and frankly I’m afraid to ask. Bhaal’s bloodlust has been portrayed as both a cannibalistic desire for blood, as well as ‘leering’ over corpses, which might account for/contribute to the inclinations seen in certain offspring.

He views his children and minions – all of them, down to the least – as extensions of himself and takes it extremely personally when they are harmed (Bhaalspawn killing each other as part of his plan notwithstanding; that’s apparently different). And Bhaal doesn’t handle people striking back at him well:

'Bhaal sought vengeance [...] Kazgoroth was neither Bhaal's most powerful servant, not his most favoured. But he was slain by a mortal, and the man who dared strike a minion of Bhaal's might as well strike at the god himself.' - Black Wizards

‘Lord Myrkul is the one who’s angry about the Black Lord’s death. After Bane destroyed my assassins, I was happy to see him die.’ - Waterdeep

Curiously Kazgoroth is as aspect of Malar, who at one time was subservient to Bhaal and could indicate that Bhaal’s wrath extends to people who insult or halm divinities who serve him, such as Loviatar and Talona (Loviatar making Talona’s life hell is fine though).

Despite his portfolio, several times Bhaal has been shown working to bring back his loyal followers, such as the monster Kazgoroth, the ability he bestows upon his Deathstalkers that allows them to resurrect when they die, and occasionally his Bhaalspawn (the Five – a handful of his strongest children, who sought to resurrect him and hoped to serve him as minor deities – have in a way been given their wish in death, their souls given form that they may serve on the Murder Tribunal. Sarevok too is unable to die, but this seems more of a punishment.)

That said, his temper still makes him a risky boss to work for:

‘Bhaal once drop hammer on big godly toe. Jump around and swear for days, he did. Kicked poor me all the way to Baator. Very bad week, that.’ - Cespenar, Bhaal’s personal butler and quartermaster

Ever since encountering the Earthmother (an aspect of Chauntea)’s divine children and realising that’s an option, Bhaal has had a… slight case of baby fever.

‘These children you speak of... the children of a god. The thought of them brings me pleasure. I, too, shall create children—the Children of Bhaal. They will stalk the land beside you and bring death to all the corners of the world!’

He tends to get mad when people kill those too.

‘Bhaal greeted the death of Thorax not with sorrow, but with an explosion of boiling hatred. The god thrashed within his oily medium, cursing his lack of physical form. Bhaal desired to smash objects, to strike solid blows, but his watery form denied him that power. As he raged, his will crystallized into actions. The perytons, gliding in eerie silence, flew from throughout the vale to gather at the Darkwell. His clerics, Hobarth and Ysalla, paused briefly in their own plotting as the stuff of their faith shook from the deep disturbance. Each recoiled before the rage of their deity, and each likewise felt immense relief that the rage was directed elsewhere. Instead, Bhaal's rage brought them a command, imperious and irresistible. Level the Iron Keep! Bhaal's intense anger needed slaying before it would cool, and at that fortress there would certainly be many humans gathered, seeking the imagined safety of its high walls. But those within were not reckoning on the mighty power of the god of murder and his minions. His clerics instantly set to work upon the plan. And then Bhaal gave another command, this to his flock of perytons. The monsters had gathered at the well and circled, a great cloud of corruption, above the center of their master's power. And they heard his command. Bhaal sent them soaring across the vale, silently gliding above the wasteland of death. He ordered them to find those who had slain Thorax and kill them.‘ - Darkwell (In Bhaal’s defence, I too would utterly lose my shit if my owlbear son died)

One can only assume that the Bhaalspawn don’t count when they’re dying by each others’ hands – and thus by his will. Or maybe Bhaal simply loves you less when you’re not an owlbear. Which is fair, I suppose. (Or because different writers, but I'm trying to get some coherency, so.) He also tends to get annoyed when said children get rebellious and display independence and act as anything but extensions of his will (by which he generally means ‘murder murder murder conquest murder’.)

Samples of ‘parenting’:

‘Don't be afraid. You are safe here… if you behave.’ ‘Special, yes, special, aren't you? Ssh, don't fight it.’ ‘You worry for your companions perhaps? Leave them, abandon them, and become what you must. There is great power in your heritage. Use it, and become closer to who you are… what you could be. Feel what is in the void. Use the tools that you are given. Become part of something greater. I am in you, and I know what is best.’ ‘You are to be given a gift. It is a valuable prize, one that you had better appreciate.’ ‘You will come to realize how little choice you have. You will do what you must, become what you must [...] You will accept the gifts offered to you.’ ‘See? You are worse than everyone else. Filthy hierophant of the broken and damned.’ ‘Such pride is undeserved, great predator, when your whole being is borrowed. Credit where it is due, and dues where payment is demanded.’ ‘You will learn to trust me.’

Domain:

‘The Throne of Blood’ Gehenna, Mt Khalas / Banehold: The Barrens of Doom and Despair

An exact description of the Throne of Blood has never been given, although it has been described as having a household. There is a household staff, overseen by Cespenar – Bhaal’s personal imp butler, quartermaster and smith who creates the arms and armour, as well as the cutlery and cooking utensils used by the household. (Why Bhaal or any of his undead/fiendish servants require those is beyond me.)

In BG2 it had a decidedly fleshy appearance with lava pits and eyes and teeth in the walls, however this was also because the divine realms shaping itself to Charname’s mind and ideas of what their father’s domain might look like, answering to the portion of Bhaal within them, and still being mostly mortal the Bhaalspawn could not comprehend or properly shape its true form.

The Throne of Blood has been connected to the first layer of Gehenna, on Mt Khalas.

Mount Khalas is an active volcano, hundreds of thousands of miles high with slopes of at 45° at their very flattest. The slope is generally more like a sheer cliff face, and falling may ‘completely shred’ the would-be climber. The mountain floats in an infinite void by the border of the Nine Hells. The ground is full of bottomless black chasms and magma flows fed by ‘waterfalls’ of the stuff, and the ground glows crimson from the heat of the molten rock. The air is clogged with pyroclastic ash and it's impossible to see further than a dozen feet in any direction. It also features the River Styx, a river polluted by all the filth and evil of existence that flows through all the Lower Planes, and is the only source of water on the entire plane. The next layer of Gehenna, Mount Chamada, is visible overhead, glowing faintly, ‘burning like a small, bloody moon.’ The spirits of the dead who are sentenced to this plane are those who were consumed by greed and a ruthless and insatiable lust for power in life; in death they are selfishness embodied. The domains of the deities who reside there are carved into ledges on the slopes.

The Throne of Blood also links to the Barrens of Doom and Despair, an ‘an inhospitable locale, filled with vast deserts of black sand and huge plains of dark granite’ also called Banehold, as Bane is the ruling power there. The sky is blood red and sunless.

Servants and related monsters:

A lot of which will be Bhaal’s offspring, or else created from the souls of his mortal worshippers in the afterlife.

The Haarla of Hate Invisible and incorporeal undead who feed on specific emotions. They pass unseen amongst the living, drawing out emotions and impulses. Bhaal, naturally, decided to invent the kinds that invoke hate and homicide, and in Faerûn it is believed that he directly guides their actions.

The Butlers Bhaal’s bizarre little sycophantic servants are imps – small Lawful Evil fiends that attach themselves to a mortal master, sometimes at the behest of a more powerful evil, in a servile position while manipulating their ‘master’ into doing evil.. As Cespenar and Cruor both use regular imp models, it’s hard to say whether they all have funky hats or if that’s just Sceleritas.

The head butler and quartermaster is Cespenar.

Tentacled Horrors That Should Not Be Bhaal likes all violent and murderous beings. For some reason he likes them even more when they have tentacles for reasons that have not been explained. Examples given include darktentacles; amphibious horrors the size of a cow with leathery black skin, 50 15ft tentacles covered in red eyes, and three mouths. They can detect the motion of creatures around them through the vibrations in the earth and water, have inbuilt charm person and use that to charm their victimsbefore grabbing them with their tentacles and killing the shit out of them (erecting a forcefield that prevents any allies from interfering.)

And grell, flying brains with a squid-like beak and barbed tentacles that inject paralytic venom. They remove the brain from their paralysed prey (maybe keeping it to trade with mind flayers) and then eat the rest of the body. Their priorities include; kill and eat anything that moves, and conquer world for the grell. They generally show no respect for anything except powerful murderous beings that eat everything in sight like the Tarrasque that they call Great Devourers. Apparently the Lord of Murder fits in with this category. Bhaal is apparently fond of philosopher grell, the wizards caste – and unofficial ruling caste - of the little oddballs.

The Undead Bhaal favours ‘skeletal undead of all kinds,’ though he is also capable of creating any form of undead. When using undead as messengers of his will he generally goes for skeletons, crawling claws, deathfangs (skeletal flying snakes) and dreads (a set of skeletal arms, with no body, wielding a weapon).

Perytons Abominations with the skeletal head of a deer (with a mouthfull of sharp teeth) and the body of an eagle.

The perytons of Toril are Bhaal’s godspawn, created from the life force of eagle and a deer and then twisted into abominations to spite the natural balance. Perytons hate being alive, and hate everything that lives. Like all of Bhaal’s spawn they have an insatiable bloodlust. They believe they can escape their miserable existences by finding the being with the ‘perfect heart’ and consuming it, thus ascending to a higher existence. To this end they even run breeding programmes using captured human/oids. They cast the shadow of the last being whose heart they ate and also have some kind of inexplicable hatred for elves, whose hearts they refuse to consume.

The Children of Bhaal Bhaal’s godspawn, created to bring death and chaos to the world.

An assortment of godlings, the first of whom were monstrous aberrations, including the Perytons, Thorax the Owlbear and Shantu the displacer beast (‘King of Bhaal’s Children’).

The younger, second set are the colloquially known as Bhaalspawn, conceived with the help of another parent (humanoid, dragon, fey, goblin, giant, a chinchilla… etc) for whom information is hard to pin down. Most do not deliberately serve their father, despite him guiding them in their dreams and whispering in their blood, but all are pawns in his schemes regardless. Sources even now disagree on whether or not they still exist, but the original generation is apparently extinct.

Gods are said to have the ability to ‘postpone’ pregnancies after conception, leading to ‘miracles’ years down the line, so it’s possible there are Bhaalspawn of dwarven, gnomish and elven stock who haven’t been born yet. (Or dragon, giant, fey...)

When Bhaalspawn conceive children, Bhaal can – from within them – chose to pass on more of his divine essence, creating another Bhaalspawn. Otherwise the child will simply be a mortal, carrying his blood and some homicidal quirks and powers and maybe a birthmark in the shape of the circle of tears.

It’s also possible, contrary to whatever BG3 is saying, that Bhaal has sired more Bhaalspawn in the past 14-ish years, and it has been said that Baldur’s Gate serves as something of a beacon to his children even now.

Relationships

Allies: Bane, Bhaal, Loviatar, Talona, Malar, Hoar, Mask (may have changed)Enemies: Cyric, Ilmater, Tyr, Torm, Lliira, Lathander, Chauntea, Solonor Thelandira, likely Mystra Offspring: Shaantu, Thorax, the Perytons, And a good few hundred half-mortals (including a chinchilla)

Bhaal’s original and long term allies are with Bane and Myrkul with whom he forms the Dead Three, originally adventurers who earned the nickname ‘the Dark Three’ for their evil shenanigans. It seems that when Bhaal lost almost all of his divine power after a failed attempt to conquer the Moonshaes as his own physical domain on Toril and was broken that Bane was the deity who took him on as a subservient deity – exchanging his protection for service. He seems to have gotten a fairly good deal out of it, as he served Bane directly where Loviatar, Malar and Talona were at the bottom of their little hierarchy, serving Bane through Bhaal. While his relationship with Bane has been severely strained due to the Black Lord once massacring almost all of Bhaal’s worshippers to empower himself during the Time of Troubles, Bhaal’s relationship with Myrkul is a genuine friendship which has been described as ‘symbiotic,’ and Myrkul grieved Bhaal’s death in the Time of Troubles. After Second Sundering when Myrkul and Bhaal were returned the three have resumed their alliance in the fashion of their mortal days, working together to seek higher power. As Kelemvor holds Myrkul’s former office as Lord of the Dead, Myrkul has taken half of Bhaal’s portfolio as god of death (specifically death by old age), while Bhaal remains god of violent and ritual death. Myrkulytes consider Bhaal’s domain of murder holy however (and one they do not intrude on for this reason) and it seems as though the deities have no bad blood between them over this so far. Myrkul and Bane are the only beings in existence who can control Bhaal when he’s in one of his Moods.

Alongside the other two, Shar, Loviatar, Malar and Talona, he belongs to a grouping of deities known as the Dark Gods; those deities amongst the Faerûnian pantheon who represent the worst fears of people and the darker side of the world

Like the rest of the Dead Three Bhaal despises Cyric and will actively target the Black Sun’s worshippers. (Every god hates Cyric, of course, it’s just personal here.)

He had an alliance with Mask, god of thieves, though whether that still stands after Mask killed him in the form of the sword Godsbane remains to be seen.

Another of his allies is Hoar, god of vengeance, who patronises vigilantes. As Bhaal encourages such vigilantism the two find overlap.

Bhaal has hostilities with: Chauntea, after his attempted conquest of the Moonshaes. Lathander, who as god of reknewal and new life is diametrically opposed to Bhaal. The Triad, Torm (champion of the people), Tyr (justice), Ilmater (who seeks to relieve the world’s suffering) all despise Bhaal and vice versa. As does Lliira, flowerchild goddess of joy who resents the grief and violence Bhaal causes.

Bhaal has made enemies of the elven god of hunters Solonor Thelandira, for reasons unknown, and is also enemies with Yondalla and the halfling protector god Arvoreen. Considering the events of Baldur’s Gate 2, Rillifane Rallathil and the rest of the Seldarine are probably also rather displeased with him.

Key Historical Notes

Bhaal was once mortal, and going off the most recent semi-offical lore, was man named Arabhal during the end period of Netheril who served the Crown-Sorcerers of Rdiuz as a spymaster and assassin while they attempted to claim divinity and war with the gods. He allied with the former slave warrior Bane, with whom he founded a relationship of mutual respect based on how much of a ruthless ambitious bastard the other was. The two caught the eye of Jergal, who thought they’d make good pawns and after the Karsus’ Folly sent them traumatic nightmare-visions in their sleep, directing them to gather god-killing daggers and slay Primordials with them that threatened his plans. Both of them were eventually joined by necromancer prince Myrkul Bey al-Kursi, and once Jergal was done with them the three set about looking for routes to godhood for themselves and generally brought death and chaos in their wake, eventually winning their portfoliio from them in a version of the story you can read here if you want because this is getting too long.

At some point – the canon date given is 1346 DR, which feels a bit weird timeline wise but ok – a monster who worshipped Bhaal, Kazgoroth was slain by soon-to-be High King Tristan after an attempt to conquer the Moonshaes. Bhaal retaliated against the isles seeking vengeance, planning to supplant the local nature goddess and reduce the entire area to a barren undead wasteland using his own power, an army of Sahuagin who worshipped him, and a zombie apocalypse. Bhaal is apparently a fan of the genre. This was also when he developed his first bout of baby fever:

By consuming the life force of animals he murdered he then used them to create aggressive amalgamate creatures from them; Perytons, the owlbear Thorax, and the displacer beast ‘Shantu, King of Bhaal’s Children.’ These were eventually slain by the heroes of the novel, and Bhaal himself was later defeated and lost a great deal of his divine power, being left broken and drained. Before this Bhaal was described as a very powerful and independent deity, likely a Greater Deity like the rest of the Dead Three. Afterwards he was – for whatever reason – taken on as a subservient Lesser Power by Bane, and working alongside Bane’s son Iyachtu Xvim (either a half-mortal demigod or a half-fiend Abomination (known as an Infernal)), who unwittingly existed as Bane’s contingency plan in the event of his death.

At some point between 1346 DR Bhaal decided his answer to his prophetised death was going to be more godspawn children, hundreds of them, but of the partially-mortal variety and most of them birthed by his own priests (...mostly. There was a chinchilla Bhaalspawn.)

Bhaal died in 1358 DR when Mask killed him during a battle on the Boarskyr Bridge north west of Baldur’s Gate. Yes, officially it always says Cyric, but Bhaal died because Mask in sword form pierced his avatar and if Mask hadn’t been holding Cyric together during the fight Cyric would’ve been a corpse. So Mask actually killed Bhaal wielding Cyric, really, although I imagine Mask is quite happy to let Cyric take the blame and the brunt of the Lord of Murder’s wrath.

Bhaal’s blood saturated the river known as the Winding Waters, which remain toxic to this day due to being saturated with his divine essence… which is still there.

Ten years after his death the eldest of the Bhaalspawn came of age, and thus began the Bhaalspawn Crisis as Bhaal started encouraging them to murder each other for various promises (‘accept the gifts offered in your blood great predator,’ etc etc). There was a lot of murders, witch hunting, wars and lynching and so on for a year or two before it died down and most of the Children were dead. Supposedly the resurrection failed, but it was after this point that Bhaal’s loyal followers began to receive their spells and commands again.

In 1482 DR, during the Second Sundering, the deaths of the two last (known) remaining Bhaalspawn via fratricide saw Bhaal announce his official return to the Realms by manifesting within one of his sons’ bodies and going on a rampage through Baldur’s Gate. He then proceeded to urge on the darker impulses within the minds of Rilsa Rael (high ranking member of the Thieves Guid), Torlin Silvershield (Patriar and member of Parliament), and Ulder Ravengard (head of the Flaming Fist), at the time being too weak to do anything but whisper in their ear and encourage them to give in to their own thoughts. Their respective positions of power were used to push the Gate deeper into violence, eventually coming to a head when Silvershield became a Chosen of Bhaal, his mind being overwhelmed by the urge to slay as Bhaal claimed his mind. (Torlin was left to become a footnote, eventually dying after being experimented on by a Red Wizard of They who had an interest in the rash of Chosen that were cropping up all over the course of the Sundering).

Bhaal, alongside Myrkul and Bane, currently walks amongst mortals, personally recruiting mortals face-to-face into following him for unknown purposes. It’s said that they are frequently sighted in Baldur’s Gate, and that there’s a temple beneath the city that he pays frequent visits to.

Avatars and Manifestations:

If he must manifest then Bhaal vastly prefers minor manifestations to using a full avatar. He can manifest within things of his sacred colour, and through his creatures. When fully manifesting within one of his Bhaalspawn he twists their mortal form, ‘cracking bone’ and ‘tearing flesh’ to form a ‘hulking,’ ‘corpse-like’ shape ‘drenched in blood’ (their own, soon to be others) that has been nicknamed the ‘Bhaalspawn-Slayer.’ Unlike the true Slayer its utility appears to be almost entirely physical, bar a spot of death magic.

Independent manifestations include a pair of skeletal human hands that float through the air, capable of communicating by pointing and wielding things, and a floating skull that weeps from its empty eye sockets and laughs.

Bhaal’s physical touch has a mildly corrosive effect on living flesh, causing blistering, blinding agony and giving a sensation of violation that may cause the person in contact to become nauseous or even vomit from the stress and revulsion. In contact with unliving flesh he can also immediately destroy the undead, reducing it to ash. Through this contact he may also cause the effects of the attraction/disdain spell.

Bhaal can also just appear as a normal person, and if so required, though it he will likely be doing so for a purpose and not for vanity.

The Urge to Slay

While manifesting within 90ft of people, Bhaal can tap into the hatreds and violence within their hearts, whispering to them and inflaming them. Hell, from a certain perspective Bhaal is the hatred and violence within the hearts of people. He cannot place desires in an individual’s mind however, only work with what he is given to draw a target further under his control. A target who truly falls under the urge to slay will ‘rush to attack whatever target Bhaal directed it to, striking [rapidly] with whatever weapon came to hand [] and moaning and sobbing uncontrollably with its need to take a life.’

Attraction/Disdain As with his followers, but worse, Bhaal is able to touch a person and reach into their emotions and poison love into blistering hate, or force those who fear and despise him to love him with unflinching loyalty and so forth. It is presumably still temporary, but will still last for about 59 hours and is significantly harder to resist.

The Slayer An exsanguinated, palid human corpse with a feral expression on its face, covered in lesions that weep black ichor. Bhaal has apparently recently modified it so that the flesh of the face is flayed off to reveal the skull underneath, and added a halo of blood. The slayer can levitate at will and summon six daggers of bone from thin air that cause living flesh to wither and die upon piercing it. Those slain will either rise as a zombie under Bhaal’s command, or their skeleton will shatter and explode violently, the shrapnel flying away to form even more bone daggers. (Mechanically, these daggers move with such speed that they can strike twice a go. They also leech the energy out of victims and leave them feeling cold.) Rather than wielding the bone shrapnel, Bhaal can also just have them form an ambient blade barrier which has the added bonus of trapping the souls of the slain so that they cannot leave, and the trap does not dissipate when Bhaal leaves.

Bhaal has the ability to cause any murder victim he touches to rise as a form of undead of his choice – sapient undead like liches and vampires will receive full free will after performing the service he created them for.

There’s also the Ravager, but that was presumably a single use thing limited to the Moonshaes, and I'm not writing any more.

#This is going in the main tags for a change why not #lore stuff #the idiot three #the dark urge #durge #edgelord hours #villainous nonsense #long post

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witch-hazels-musings · 1 month ago

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hello hazel !

can i request a curse ritual for diluc with graveyard dirt, black tourmaline, and hellebore?

Graveyard Dirt (loss, grief), Black Tourmaline (safety, shielding), Hellebore (anger, wrath) Diluc x gn anemo reader | Curse Ritual warning: physical fighting (battle scene), mentions of blood, Diluc uses a Delusion, mentions of bodies, lots of flame mentions (reader is injured)

"Where is he?" you asked but the eyes that stared back at you were hollow, empty. Another reaction was set off somewhere behind the wall you were using for coverage. "Hey, look at me." You cupped their dirty face and they met your gaze. "Where did he go?"

With a weak arm, they pointed to the right and you took no time waiting. Something cut the stone above you, shards of Geo raining down onto your head. You dropped to a knee, waited, listened, then ran again.

That bastard, you thought as you dashed through the swarm of engaged bodies all hoping to come out of the encounter alive. A member of your resistance slid across the ground in front of you, their head slamming into the worn dirt, eyes rolling into the darkness of their bloodied head. You cursed.

They weren't responsive when you reached them. Even with several slaps on their cheek, they continued to lay there, lifeless. Swift footsteps alerted you that someone was approaching - fast. You twisted and used the body of your comrade to stabilize yourself as a Fatui assailant brought their weapon down toward you.

The collision rattled your bones. You winced.

The skirmisher lept back and you capitalized on their retreat by sending a wave of Anemo toward them. It set them off balance which made it easy for you to craft slicing blades of wind at their tripping feet. The skirmisher retaliated with blasts of Pyro, and each one passed by you with violent heat.

Desperate to end this encounter, you called on your vision, and from nothing, daggers made of heated wind appeared around you in a vicious halo as you barreled toward them, sword positioned to strike.

The skirmisher crumbled at the onslaught, unprepared for the slew of biting slices that cut them to shreds. The wind died down and with it rose the cry of countless other battles. But one stood out among the rest - and you ran to it.

---

You stood at the top of a shallow cliff, frozen, petrified by the sight before you.

Where once lush, green fields stretched, now only charred earth and limp bodies remained. And before them was a lone fighter blanketed in flames.

Diluc.

He was nearly unrecognizable in the torrent. He moved like an unrestrained fireball. Bounced off one enemy, then another until nothing was left of them except dust and ash. From his back, black, crackling wings propelled him forward straight into booming Electro and biting Cryo. The world became scared while you watched on in horror.

Go.

Go -- Go -- GO!

Slipping on the loose stone, you pivoted and ran down the edge of the cliff. The fight raged on, consumed whatever got too close. The ground trembled as the Cryo skirmisher fell into the black while licking flames covered their body.

You called out to Diluc but he couldn't hear you. Not now.

The Electro skirmisher used his weapon as a shield but screeching wings sliced through their defenses. Even at this distance, you could feel the heat. It made your throat dry, burned your lungs with every inhale, stung your eyes, and seared your skin. But you pushed forward.

"Diluc!" you called but the walking barrage trudged forward, uninterested. It seemed nothing could rouse the man beneath red and rage. In the middle, somewhere faint, was a flicker of purple - a light so minuscule you wondered if it was a trick. And then you remembered -

He promised.

He promised not to use -

You ran faster.

Using your Anemo, you pried your way through the heat, letting it push you forward while Diluc's wrath shoved you back. You screamed for him but the blistering air dried the words on your tongue. The glove on your outstretched hand peeled away so you brought your Anemo closer to protect your skin.

The purple light flickered.

All you had to do was reach it.

With the last bit of strength you held, you grasped the Delusion with battered fingers, ripped it free, and tossed it behind you. The disconnection made Diluc rage. He screamed in a way so painful it took all your willpower not to run back to the device and press it against his chest. He writhed and pivoted with desperate, searching eyes for the power you stole from him. Flames leaked from every part of him, pushed outward in pyres of confusion, anger, and fear, but you held on. Coiling yourself around his neck, you hid his face in your chest and willed him to the ground.

"Come back," you begged, voice crackling like forgotten wood. "Don't let them win. Fight it - fight!" You called on your Anemo and let it swallow the two of you in its torrent. "Come back to me."

The air coiled around you and slowly expanded until, finally, the flames were quelled in a frenzied explosion.

Diluc's body felt limp and heavy, and you struggled to keep him upright. The two of you pitched to the right but before you landed on the ashen ground, his hand slammed into the grey soil keeping you both steady.

Diluc's arm wrapped around your back, his fingers dug into your muscles as he pressed his face into the crook of your neck.

"I have you," you whispered into his hair and he repositioned so he could hold you against him until he stopped trembling.

Thaumaturgy Anthology (October 11-13, 2024)

This event is based on spells and rituals. Inspiration does not equal understanding; liberties have been taken. All content is owned by Witch Hazels Musings, theft of these images and stories will result in immediate action.

#hazel events #thaumaturgy event #genshin impact #genshin impact event #diluc angst #diluc ragnvindr #diluc x reader #genshin diluc #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact angst

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munson-blurbs · 2 years ago

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I am thinking older Eddie? 🤔 he's not nearly as confident as he used to be but meets his dream gal at maybe a concert? Gets his groove back. Maybe he's a single dad who feels like he hasn't had time or energy to be himself anymore and she makes him feel like that again?

I just feel like you'll be able to really make it so good.

Warnings: none--all fluff :)

WC: 2.7k

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

“Okay, his bedtime is 7:30 PM, but if you get him down before 8:30, I’ll be amazed,” Eddie tells his uncle, grabbing his guitar case and slinging it over his shoulder. “He’s in that phase where he only wants to eat macaroni and cheese, so just go with that tonight. No need for you to fight with him over it.”

Wayne chuckles, bouncing the toddler on his hip. “And when will you be out of your ‘only eating macaroni and cheese’ phase?” he asks Eddie, who promptly flips him off in response. “Hey! Not in front of the impressionable kid!”

“Daddy will see you when you wake up tomorrow,” Eddie promises his son, pressing a quick kiss to his scalp. “Be good for Grandpa.”

“Oh, he’s always good for me,” Wayne says, making a funny face at the little boy. “Isn’t that right, Kirk?” He frowns as Kirk’s tiny bottom lip quivers and he reaches out for his dad. “C’mon, buddy; Dad has to go to his concert!”

“No!” Kirk whines, crocodile tears streaming down his chubby cheeks. Eddie’s heart pangs, and he second guesses his decision to go out.

As though he can read his nephew’s mind, Wayne tuts at Eddie’s hesitation. “Nuh-uh, absolutely not. You haven’t done anything for yourself since this troublemaker was born.” He wipes a tear from Kirk’s face and blows a raspberry into his belly. A mix of giggles and sobs leaves the boy’s throat. “We’re gonna be just fine. Now, go.” He practically shoves Eddie out the door.

It’s been ten years since Eddie graduated from Hawkins High. The day he crossed that stage, middle fingers aimed at his exasperated principal, he’d vowed never to return to this shithole town. And he’d kept that promise up until two years ago. Kirk was only five months old when Celeste had up and left, claiming that she couldn’t handle the stress of motherhood any longer. She’d left her key to their dingy apartment on the countertop, along with the engagement ring Eddie had saved so long to buy her. He’d pawned it a few weeks later, desperate to scrounge up some money for baby formula. And when that money ran out, he’d found himself back in his hometown, bunking with his uncle. Again.

The goal was to move out, get a little place for himself and Kirk, and give Wayne his trailer—and his freedom—back. After years of raising his brother’s kid, the last thing he probably wanted was to help raise his nephew’s. For the most part, Eddie’s able to balance his job as a telemarketer and fatherhood, especially since he mostly works from home. But on the days where he has to schlep into the office, he relies on Wayne for child care. His salary is decent, and he has medical coverage for himself and his kid, but he hates working a nine-to-five desk job.

He tunes the radio to a classic rock station, bypassing whatever saccharine pop songs repeat on the Top 40 channels. A smile tugs at his lips when he hears the familiar bridge.

Master, master

Where’s the dreams that I’ve been after?

Master, master

You promised only lies

It takes him back to a time where his only worries were passing O’Donnell’s class and planning sadistic Hellfire campaigns. Now, his life revolves around potty training and quelling temper tantrums. But even on his most exhausting days, like when he makes Kirk exactly what he wants for lunch, and the kid flips the plate onto the floor, he would do anything for him. He’d choose his son one thousand times over.

Did I leave the number to the club in case of an emergency? he thinks, slamming on the brakes and nearly causing a collision before remembering that he’d jotted it down on a notepad and given it to Wayne.

It’s been too long since he’s played in front of anyone, save for lullabies to get Kirk to sleep. But Gareth was coming back to Indiana for a weekend, and he’d damn near begged the guys for a one-night only Corroded Coffin reunion. Eddie didn’t have the heart to turn him down.

He looks over his shoulder into the backseat, catching a glimpse of Kirk’s car seat. Who would’ve thought that the teenager who used to try to hook up with girls in the back of the van–emphasis on try–would now spend his time cleaning out Cheerio crumbs between the seats?

Pulling into the parking lot, Eddie breathes out a nervous sigh. He’s been practicing every day, all the covers they used to play back in the mid-80s, but he doesn’t have the same confidence he did back when they jammed out at the Hideout. Being a parent certainly knocks you down a few pegs, has you questioning yourself all too often.

“Here goes nothing,” he mutters to himself, pulling his guitar from the trunk and heading into the club.

“Hey, man! Long time no see!” Jeff claps him on the back, and Gareth pulls him in for a hug. “Jesus, it’s been years.”

“You didn’t bring the kid?” Gareth asks, peering around.

Eddie just laughs. “Nah, ‘s a little past his bedtime. Plus,” he adds, “I don’t want him starting school and singing ‘Hot for Teacher.’” The rest of the band shares a chuckle and starts warming up.

“Did you guys check out the bartender?” Trevor asks, tuning his bass. “She’s a cutie, if any of you wanna chat her up later.”

Gareth snorts. “Eddie’s the only single one out of us; and we all know how he is with the ladies.” He turns to his friend. “Seriously, when’s the last time you got any, dude?”

Too long, Eddie thinks, but just gives Gareth a friendly shove. “Your mom gave it to me good last night.” He grins as Jeff and Trevor chime in with a chorus of oohs. But he’s curious about this bartender, so he peeks around the curtain.

And there you are.

“Holy shit,” he breathes. You’re wearing a black tank top that frames your chest perfectly, paired with a denim miniskirt. Your eyes crinkle as you giggle at something a patron says, and Eddie feels himself melt. “She’s, like, really fuckin’ pretty.” His eyes widen. “Should I talk to her?”

“Let’s play our set first, all right Casanova?” Jeff jokes. “Impress her with your kickass vocals and guitar skills, if you’ve still got ‘em.”

Eddie gives him the middle finger, but he’s wondering the same thing. He doesn’t have time to explore it further before the emcee is announcing Corroded Coffin. “Showtime, boys!” Eddie calls out, hoping no one catches the warble in his voice.

Forty minutes later, the four guys jog off the stage, drenched in sweat and filled with adrenaline.

“That…was…awesome!” Trevor shouts, high-fiving the rest of them. “We can still rock after all these years!”

Eddie’s grinning so wide, his lips could stretch off of his face. “Hell yeah, we do! Woooo!” He grabs a towel and wipes his forehead and back of his neck. He feels like he’s on top of the world; nothing he’d bought from Reefer Rick ever gave him this type of high. He clenches the guitar pick that hangs around his neck; it’s just like the one he wore in high school, except this one has a photo of Kirk on it. Wayne had it custom made for Kirk’s first Christmas. Your old man was a rockstar tonight, little buddy, he thinks, hopefully, you’ll be able to watch me in action someday.

His thoughts are interrupted by a light knocking. He turns around to see you standing in the doorway, holding a tray with four ice-cold glasses of water. “You boys thirsty?” you ask, flashing a smile that could knock him right off of his feet.

“Eddie sure is,” Jeff mutters with a smirk, which disappears as soon as Eddie shoots him a glare. If looks could kill, Jeff would be six feet under right about now.

You cock your brow with a confused expression, but Eddie just shoves his hands in his pockets and meanders over. “Thanks,” he mumbles, plucking a glass from the tray.

“Are you…Eddie?” You look up at him through your lashes, gazing into his chocolate brown eyes.

“Thas’ me,” he says with a small laugh. “Did you like the show?” He could smack himself; you probably tuned out the music at this point. Especially loud metal covers by a bunch of late twenty-somethings.

He’s surprised by your enthusiastic nod. “Yeah, you guys are amazing! It was a nice change from the grunge bands that usually play.” You wrinkle your nose. “The other day, we had someone come in who only sang Spice Girls songs. That was interesting.”

Eddie laughs, despite his nerves. “Was she any good, at least?”

“No,” you reply pointedly, “he was not.” You motion towards his empty cup. “Want a refill? Or maybe something stronger?”

“Maybe just a Shirley Temple; he’s gotta get up in the morning with his kid,” Gareth pipes up, and Eddie whips his dirty towel at his head.

Your eyes soften. “You have a kid?” It’s not an accusation, nor is it said with disgust, which Eddie is all-too used to.

“Y-Yeah, a two-year-old,” he stammers, leaning forward slightly to show the guitar pick necklace with his son’s photo on it. “His name’s Kirk.”

“As in Hammett, or as in Captain?” you tease. “Or both?”

Eddie runs a hand through his tangled curls. “Hammett; definitely Hammett,” he answers with a chuckle. “Kid’s probably cooler than him, too.”

“Well, his dad is a total rockstar, so I’m not surprised,” you shrug. “C’mon back to the bar with me, and I’ll get you that Shirley Temple. On the house,” you add.

Jeff waggles his eyebrows and Trevor lets out a low wolf-whistle as Eddie follows you. Gareth is still traumatized from the towel incident to mess with him.

He used to flirt with bartenders all the time; the more out of his league they were, the more fun it was to shoot his shot. But he’s out of practice now, and it doesn’t help that he’s completely intimidated by you.

Think, Munson, think, he wills himself. “So, uh, what’s your name?” You give him your name, and he smiles. “That’s a kickass name, yeah.” A ‘kickass name’? That’s the best you could come up with?

You only laugh at his response. “I mean, I’m not named after Kirk Hammett, but it’s not half bad.”

“Nah, it’s a good name.” Okay, enough with the name, Jesus. “How long have you been a bartender?”

“Feels like forever,” you muse. “It’s my night gig; just a way to make money while I’m working on my novel.” You drop some maraschino cherries into a clean glass. “Fun fact: thinking about publishing a book pays zero dollars.”

“You’re an author?” Eddie asks incredulously. “What kinda book are you writing?”

A blush creeps into your cheeks. “An aspiring author, I guess,” you say shyly, “but it’s a fantasy novel, like a Lord of the Rings type of thing.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You’ve read Tolkien?” Duh; she literally just compared her work to his. Why else would she do that?

“He’s one of my favorite authors,” you admit, pouring the sweet grenadine and ginger ale before sliding the glass to him. “Him, Stephen King, Mary Shelley…”

“No fuckin’ way,” he breathes, and you look at him quizzically. “I mean, I’ve never met someone so pretty who was also into fantasy.”

You giggle at the compliment. “Well, maybe we could talk more about it sometime? Like, when I’m not on the clock?”

Eddie’s head spins at the offer. “You drink coffee?” he blurts out. He couldn’t stand the stuff when he was younger, but after far too many sleepless nights with a colicky infant, he’d acquired a taste for it.

“I do,” you nod, grabbing the pen from behind your right ear and snatching the nearest unused napkin you can find. “Let me give you my phone number, if you wanna call me.”

They’re the most beautiful ten digits Eddie’s ever seen. “If I wanna…of course, yeah, that sounds great.” He folds the napkin carefully before putting it in his pocket, not wanting to smudge the ink. “I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon?”

“I’ll be at home, writing,” you laugh. “See you around, Eddie.”

“Yeah, see ya…thanks for your number,” he manages before darting back to the band, beaming like a kid who just woke up to a pile of presents on Christmas morning. “Oh, shit,” he says suddenly, reaching into his wallet and fumbling for some cash, pulling out a crumpled five-dollar bill.

“I told you,” you remind him with the smile that makes him swoon, “I’ll cover this one. Use the money you’re saving to buy something awesome for Kirk.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Gotta at least leave a tip for excellent service. And for managing not to tell those idiots back there to shut the fuck up.” Although he wouldn’t have been mad if you had. At this point, he didn’t think there was anything you could do that would turn him off.

“Nah, they’re harmless,” you wave off his statement. “Trust me, that’s nothing compared to some of the things guys say to me.” You shudder at the memory of the perverted statements leaving their whiskey-soaked lips.

Eddie sits up straighter. “Like what?” he asks, voice brimming with concern.

“Oh, you know.” You try to sound casual. “Commenting on my body, grabbing my ass, asking to take me home–even when I can see that they’re wearing a wedding ring.”

“Sounds like you need a bodyguard,” he muses, taking a sip of his drink, rings clinking against the glass. The sugar perks him up as soon as it hits his tongue.

“You offering?” It comes out more salacious than you’d anticipated, but you’re not about to take it back. The look on his face is priceless; he’s clearly not used to people flirting with him so brazenly.

You watch as Eddie gives a shy smile, caught off-guard yet again. He toys with his necklace before answering. “Gotta earn my free drinks somehow. Otherwise, I’m just a mooch.”

“Yeah, but you’re a really cute mooch, so…” you giggle, wiping down the bar with a nearby towel. “I’d call it even.”

He nearly chokes on his drink. You think he’s cute? Really cute? He wants to ask if it’s a joke, or a prank that the guys put you up to. But you seem so genuine, and it’s been years since anyone has made him feel this special, so he swallows his insecurities. “Th-thanks,” he stutters. “I think it’s mostly the guitar; makes me look like a big shot.”

“I think it’s your eyes. Or your smile,” you counter, placing your hand on top of his. “But the guitar certainly doesn’t hurt.” You glance down at his ringed fingers. “None of these symbolize an everlasting union, do they?”

“Nope,” he replies, popping the p dramatically. “Just my commitment to tacky jewelry.”

You laugh, leaning in a bit closer to him. “I think I can handle that.” And for a moment, the world stops as Eddie’s breath hitches. He’s desperate to kiss you, but he’s sticky with sweat and doesn’t want to do anything in the dingy bar where you work. No, you deserve a nice date at a fancy restaurant with a freshly-showered Eddie Munson.

“Hey, Romeo!” Jeff calls out, walking towards the two of you with the rest of the band. “Wanna grab some pizza before your carriage turns back into a pumpkin?”

No, Eddie thinks crossly, I want to stay here and talk to the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen until closing time.

“I’ve gotta get back to work anyway,” you reassure him. “But we can continue this conversation over that coffee date.”

Eddie visibly relaxes at the mention of your next meeting. “Abso-fuckin-lutely,” he agrees. And before he can wimp out, he presses his lips to your cheek, watching as your cheeks tinge a delicious shade of pink.

Look at you, Munson. Back in the game.

#eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie munson fluff #eddie x you #eddie x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #fanfic #eddie munson stranger things #stranger things #requests

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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Content warning: This story includes references to death by suicide.

Evan Hansen was born to play football. A strong, rambunctious kid, he started playing sports year-round as early as he could. “He was very selfless, always willing to sacrifice himself for the betterment of the team,” says his father, Chuck Hansen. As a fearless linebacker at Wabash College in Indiana, the young player made 209 tackles in his first three seasons, and was hit far more than that during games and practices. Two days after winning the second game of his senior year, Evan died by suicide.

Searching for an explanation, Chuck Hansen pored through his son’s internet search history. One query popped out: “CTE.”

CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative brain disease that causes symptoms like memory loss, depression, and emotional dysregulation. Since 2005, it has been linked to head trauma and to contact sports like football, where brains can get knocked around during tackles and collisions. In 2016, the National Football League acknowledged that the sport was linked to CTE after many retired players were diagnosed posthumously by researchers at the Boston University CTE Center.

Given the NFL-centered media coverage throughout the mid-aughts, “people have this impression that CTE is a disease of former NFL players,” says Julie Stamm, a clinical assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But it’s not just a disease for professional athletes.”

Yet until recently, few studies focused on athletes like Evan, who never played professionally and died before developing age-related brain changes. (In older players, it can be challenging to separate signs of CTE from other kinds of neurodegeneration.) The Hansen family knew that Evan had only been diagnosed with one concussion in his 14 years of football—none since starting college. And although they knew that he’d had trouble doing schoolwork and experienced a bout of depression his junior year, his mental health seemed to have stabilized with therapy and medication.

While Evan’s search history suggests he suspected that these issues were signs of CTE, the disease can’t be diagnosed without examining the brain posthumously. So, like many other families seeking answers for unexplained changes in their loved ones’ behavior, the Hansens donated Evan’s brain to the Understanding Neurologic Injury and Traumatic Encephalopathy (UNITE) Brain Bank, run by the Boston University CTE Center.

Ann McKee, the center’s director, chose 152 of them to study. All were contact sports athletes who died under the age of 30, many by suicide or unintentional drug overdose. And as McKee’s team reported in August in JAMA Neurology, 41 percent of them already had CTE. One of them was Evan. Like him, of those diagnosed, most had only played sports at a high school or college level.

This study reveals that young, amateur athletes aren’t spared from the brain damage that comes with contact sports, even if they quit before going pro. And studying early-stage CTE in young, otherwise healthy brains, McKee says, “may give us clues as to how the disease is triggered.” To her, the takeaway is clear: “We need to reduce the number and the strength of head impacts in contact sports. If we don’t, we’re going to face consequences like this.”

McKee, who is also the director of neuropathology for Veterans Affairs Boston, began studying the brains of former NFL players 15 years ago. She couldn’t believe what she saw: big lesions in the crevices of the brain, dotted with abnormal protein clusters. A huge Packers fan, McKee has watched a lot of football games. But, she recalls, until then, “it never occurred to me that they were damaging their brains, because you don’t see it on the field. They’ve got the helmets. They look invincible.”

Researchers now know more about what is happening to the brain beneath the helmet. The jostling of the brain tugs at neural tissue, placing cells and blood vessels under stress. Tau proteins, which stabilize the scaffolding that gives neurons their structure, fall off when a cell is stressed. These fallen proteins pile up inside the cell, “a sort of toxic clump,” as McKee describes it. Eventually, the pileup overwhelms and kills the cell, leaving neurofibrillary tangles, which appear as ominous dark smears under a microscope. These tangles, which also appear in Alzheimer’s disease, make it harder for neurons to communicate with each other, causing memory problems.

Meanwhile, injured blood vessels compromise the sacred blood-brain barrier that normally protects sensitive neural tissue from irritating molecules flowing through the rest of the body. The resulting irritation causes inflammation, which induces more tau clumping, initiating a downward spiral of neurodegeneration.

To screen the donated young athletes’ brains for CTE, the researchers looked for tau, as well as signs of larger-scale problems like inflammation, hardening or deterioration of blood vessels, and changes to white matter, which contains the connections between neurons. They also interviewed the donors’ loved ones to learn more about their behavior and cognitive symptoms while they were alive. All of them had experienced issues like memory loss, depression, and impulsive behavior.

Of the 152 brains examined, 63 were posthumously diagnosed with CTE. The vast majority were still in early stages of neurodegeneration, but three of them—one belonging to a former NFL player, one to a college football player, and one to a professional rugby player—had reached the third of CTE’s four stages. Notably, another brain with CTE belonged to a 28-year-old women’s collegiate soccer player—the first case of its kind.

The youth of these players also allowed the research team to rule out aging as the cause of the damage. Aging, as well as high blood pressure, cardiac disease, and other neurodegenerative problems, can all damage brain tissue. But in the sample used for the new study, all of the athletes died between the ages of 13 and 29. “These are pristine, beautiful brains,” McKee says.

The fact that so many of the donors’ families had noticed mood and memory changes—regardless of whether their child was ultimately diagnosed with CTE—might be an artifact of the study’s sample pool. Families were simply more likely to donate to the brain bank if they had noticed unusual behavior in their child. But McKee says this also suggests that some of the symptoms experienced by these young athletes are not always caused by CTE, but may still reflect the aftermath of head trauma. Chris Nowinski, a study coauthor and CEO of the nonprofit Concussion Legacy Foundation, remembers struggling with chronic symptoms after the concussion that ended his pro wrestling career in his twenties. In cases like his, concussion-related problems like sleep impairments, or the difficulties of coming to terms with life as an injured or retired athlete, are likely the root cause of the mental health issues—not necessarily tau pathology.

The new study’s results build upon a mountain of evidence connecting contact sports to CTE. One 2017 study of 202 deceased football players found that 87 percent had CTE, including 110 of the 111 brains belonging to retired NFL players. Other studies revealed that CTE is more prevalent in athletes than non-athletes, and is specifically tied to experience playing contact sports, not one-off traumatic brain injuries. Ongoing studies are developing ways to diagnose CTE while people are alive, in the hopes of finding ways to intervene while the disease is still in its earliest stages.

A common misconception is that a one-time impact can lead to neurodegeneration. The real problem is getting hit in the head over and over, for years and years. “A tennis player who had five concussions is not going to get CTE,” says Nowinski. “There’s something about getting hundreds or thousands of head impacts a year. That’s what triggers it, whether you have concussion symptoms or not.”

Like many kids in the United States, Evan Hansen started playing tackle football in third grade. “He was in his 14th year of football, a senior in college, when he died,” says his dad. The number of years he played, and the age he was when he started facing regular blows to the head, likely contributed to developing CTE, according to McKee’s findings. When he signed his son up for football, Hansen recalls, “It was just pure ignorance. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”

While his son’s diagnosis wasn’t made until after his death, Chuck Hansen suspects that Evan’s fear of the disorder, and what it meant for his future, weighed on him heavily. “I believe that he thought he had CTE, and had never talked about it,” Hansen says. “Maybe he thought it was a terminal thing that would only get worse, and that there was no hope.”

While there is no medical treatment for CTE yet, McKee and Nowinski recommend that young athletes focus on seeking treatment for individual mental health symptoms, like insomnia or depression. The Concussion Legacy Foundation runs a HelpLine for those who are struggling with post-concussion symptoms, or who are worried about CTE. The Hansen family also started a foundation to promote mental health awareness and CTE research, and to fund scholarships for medical students.

But CTE is preventable. Small changes to practice drills and gameplay could make a huge difference for young athletes, says Nowinski. The playbook for prevention is simple: Reduce the number of hits to the head, and reduce the strength of those hits. Most happen during practice, so by reducing the number of drills involving head impacts and choosing ones that are less likely to cause high-magnitude blows, coaches can spare their players unnecessary danger. “You can’t get rid of CTE in tackling sports,” adds Nowinski, “but you can get rid of most cases of CTE.”

Reducing the length of each game and the number of games per season can minimize the likelihood of head injuries, and banning brain-jostling events, like fighting in hockey or heading in soccer, can make games safer, he continues. Perhaps most importantly, youth sports leagues can raise the age at which kids are first exposed to preventable head impacts. “With tackle football before 14, the risks are not worth the benefits,” Nowinski says. “You don’t become a better football player from playing young.” In one case study reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, transitioning from tackle to flag football would reduce a young athlete’s median number of head impacts per season from 378 to eight.

But, Nowinski points out, there is no central governing body in charge of youth sports leagues, leaving it largely up to individual coaches to make changes to their practice drills and recruitment strategies. “The opportunity is right in front of our faces,” says Nowinski. “I remember being told how much football makes you a leader. But right now, on this issue, there’s a black hole of leadership.”

McKee doesn’t think that parents should take their kids out of sports—far from it. “We just need to change the rules and our thinking about these games, so that CTE isn’t a consequence of playing contact sports,” McKee says.

And for young athletes concerned about CTE, she urges them to seek help for mental health symptoms, build personal support systems, and keep moving forward with their lives. “Individuals like Evan need to be seen, because in all likelihood, we can treat their symptoms and help them feel less hopeless,” she says. “It’s not a time to despair. It’s a time to come in, be evaluated, and be treated.”

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for free, 24-hour support from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for the Crisis Text Line. Outside the US, visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for crisis centers around the world.

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bonanoinsurance · 2 years ago

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vera-keller · 8 months ago

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switchblade | masters of the air | taster

Coming here is functionally a grounding. That much is clear. The B-17 is a metal coffin that, by some aeronautical miracle, has managed to attain the gift of flight despite everything – poor defensive coverage, inadequate range, weak nose structure – that suggests this should not have been the case.

Olivia Mariner looks up at the B-17s sitting obliviously in the hangar at Thorpe Abbotts and thinks about what it might be like to shoot one of them down.

It would be an easy target. B-17s are not intended for aerial combat, and their one singular, solitary tactic is apparently to fly continuously in formation even when being shot at, because performing evasive manoeuvres runs the risk of disrupting the formation and causing collisions. Mariner imagines herself in her P-51, armed with its two fifty-calibre nose-mounted machine guns and four thirty-calibre wing-mounted machine guns, the only conceivable match for the Luftwaffe’s fire-spitting death machines that she isn’t afraid of as long as she’s facing them down in her Mustang. She imagines herself as the enemy. How would she approach a Flying Fortress? How would she bounce it? It wouldn’t be difficult at all: she could outmanoeuvre a B-17 without breaking a sweat. She would move into its blind spot and break into a steep spiralling dive downward so the B-17’s Brownings – for which they do not carry sufficient supplies of ammunition that could last them over a minute of continuous gunfire – wouldn’t be able to maintain a target lock on her. Then she would pull her aircraft back up, sharply, abruptly, until she’s below the body of the B-17, where she has the perfect vantage point to shoot out the unprotected fuel tanks within the wings.

That’s all well and good, a strategic manufacturing error that could be fixed, without a doubt, throughout the Flying Fortress’s production run that will last until the end of the war. Until Mariner remembers that, in this scenario, she will no longer be the one in the fighter plane but rather the one getting burned to a crisp in the B-17 because the fuel tanks just exploded and eviscerated the fuselage before anyone even had the chance to bail.

Perhaps the situation would be less grim if she knew how to fly a B-17 at all.

How did she even end up here?

Fighter squadrons come before bombers. That is the standard principle of air warfare. Once air supremacy has been gained by more aerodynamic single-engined high-speed fighters – P-51s and P-40s and P-47s that require only a light touch to manoeuvre, the deft hand of a skilled pilot who knows their plane and its operational mechanisms as though it is an extension of their own body – that is when larger, long-range bombers come in to deliver their payloads of air-to-ground weaponry to strategic targets. Bombing raids cannot take place without the prerequisite of air supremacy as bombers, sufficiently implied in their name itself, are not themselves intended for aerial combat against enemy aircraft.

And therein lies the problem. To Mariner, it’s difficult to see the B-17 as little more than a large and defenceless flying flak-magnet. A warplane that cannot roll on its longitudinal axis, cannot pull into vertical climbs, cannot dive or loop or fly at steep angles or allow for aerobatics without disembowelling itself, is hardly a warplane at all, at least not in the sense that she defines what should constitute a warplane. She understands that heavy bombers are an entirely different grade of aircraft, one that requires a different series of skills that are no less demanding than that of a fighter pilot, one requiring the ability to work with a team, first and foremost, the idea of which she finds herself thinking of with a pit of tension in her lower stomach. She understands that this is necessary because a war cannot be won with fighter planes alone, as much as she would like to think that is a possibility. What she does not understand, however, is why she has been presently chosen to fly a bomber.

So that was what she told her squadron leader, word for word, when she first learned of her reassignment.

“I understand your concerns, Mariner,” was what her squadron leader, Tillotson – a thirty-something USAAF officer who had been in the Eagle Squadrons with her, primarily because he knew her father for some reason or another that she never bothered to find out – said in answer. “But it is an operational need. The 100th has a shortage of pilots and they can’t continue flying missions at the volume they’re expected to if this shortage continues. We’ve reached a point in the war where our strategic focus must shift toward bombing campaigns. You have the relevant flying experience that qualifies you for retraining and reassignment toward where the war effort needs you most. Repurposing you as a bomber pilot now, of all times, makes every sense to me.”

Mariner blinked in disbelief. She didn’t like the suffix makes every sense to me, the finality of it, the implication that this was now a non-negotiable and non-retractable decision already made by her superiors, a decision that centrally concerned her yet one she had no part in making.

“Sir,” she began, “heavy bombers require escort fighters. Our squadron can do that. I’ve been asking for it in my sitreps since we first started strategic bombing. Wouldn’t it be more practical to keep me here and deploy us as escorts as I recommended, rather than retrain me from the ground up?”

“It is something we thought of, yes. But having enough pilots is crucial for whether the 100th can remain operational. If they can’t fly missions, you’ll have nothing to escort. Now is when we need our best and brightest to step up and fill in for the shortage of pilots capable of flying those missions that a complete novice coming out of flight school cannot.”

Best and brightest. The sudden compliment took Mariner by surprise, filled her momentarily with a glow of pride radiating from that little hollow at the base of her throat that warms up every time she receives some kind of validation. She cleared her throat self-consciously.

“Who else is getting reassigned? Smith? Heppell?”

Tillotson paused briefly. “We decided that you alone would be the best fit for the transition.”

Apart from the fact that it made no sense to single out one member of a squadron for a reassignment, there was almost no chance that she would be the best natural candidate. Mariner thought for a brief half-second that she would not pick herself to be reassigned to a bomber unit if she had the choice of other members in her squadron, members who would indubitably be more patient and longsuffering when it came to flying a heavy bomber, both of which she was not.

And then the realisation dawned on her, like the awful downward shudder of the blade of a guillotine. The previous glow of pride disappeared, replaced immediately by a simmering indignant rage that bubbles to the surface. “You’re bumping me out of the squadron!”

“Mariner—”

“That is exactly what you’re doing! Best and brightest my ass. You think I don’t fit in with the rest of your squad because of how I fly. Because you think I’m going to collide with my wingman every time when I so much as move my aircraft a centimetre to the left. Because that one time on patrol, when I was guarding your tail, I said your call sign when I wasn’t supposed to and broke formation, and that was because I saw three 109s above us on our six about to pulverise us and you hadn’t even seen them yet!”

Another thought came to her then, one that sent a fresh wave of anger coursing through her as though her dam of restraint – which admittedly was never a particularly robust structure – had broken. She was aware that she was losing her temper. She was aware that she was not to lose her temper around her superior officers under any circumstances. But that awareness was purely academic now, and at any rate it was disappearing quickly out the window.

“You can’t trust me in a single-seat fighter, is that it? You think I need a whole team of people behind me to make sure I don’t fuck up?”

It was less of a question and more of an accusation, and the very idea of it was absurd to Mariner. Saying it out loud only cemented its absurdity. Who in their right mind wouldn’t trust her in a fighter? She’d been in combat with Bf 109s since before Pearl Harbour and America’s formal entrance into the war. It was indubitable fact – one that seemed to be obvious to all except Tillotson and the others responsible for making this ill-conceived decision – that she was one of the most competent fighters in the squadron. Three years of flight experience with the No. 71. Seven aircraft destroyed. An ace by the end of the Battle of Britain. Such accomplishments were not coincidental. Mariner knew it. And unless you have some kind of malfunction, she thought bitterly, then you don’t transfer a pilot with those accomplishments under their belt out of your squadron as petty punishment. You’re supposed to keep them and hold onto them and deploy them on high-risk missions that accurately reflect the value of their skill set!

“Lieutenant Mariner,” Tillotson said, raising his voice now, in a way that brooked no argument. “I was hoping to save both of us from this conversation and let you accept your reassignment amicably, but it appears you’re determined to have this conversation, in which case I’ll be clear with you. You’re not a good fit in my squadron. You take unnecessary and ill-calculated risks that endanger not only yourself but also your wingmen and the outcome of the mission as a whole. On our last sortie, you completely disregarded formation and went off on that solo chase of yours after an enemy fighter, leaving your leader’s tail vulnerable to attack. And what is most alarming is the fact that this incident is not an isolated one, nor is it the first time you’ve flagrantly disregarded orders to do what you think is clever. We’re lucky nothing catastrophic has happened so far, but luck won't always be on our side, as you seem to believe it will always be on yours.”

He paused for a moment, his brow low and creased, his eyes fixed upon Mariner’s, as though examining her closely for her reaction.

“You’re rough on the stick, Olivia, but I’ve seen potential in you. Even so, talent alone won’t cut it and your consistent lack of discipline is compromising the overall effectiveness of our unit. I’ve seen pilots like you – good pilots capable of exercising mathematically precise command of their aircraft – shot down for less. You should know better than anyone that, up in the air, in a Mustang, split-second decisions can mean the difference between life and death. I need to be able to trust every member of my squadron to make those decisions, and make them correctly. And right now I can’t trust you to do that.”

There was a long agonising pause. Mariner’s expression remained unchanged, though she thought her stomach had vanished. She was suddenly conscious of how she was standing up very straight with her body held up at her sternum, and of the tachycardic rhythm of her heartbeat that for a brief moment she irrationally feared Tillotson might hear it.

It is a rare thing for words from a superior officer to cut so deep, though Mariner doesn’t like the idea that any words might be able to cut her at all. She has gone through flight training like everyone else and made her share of mistakes in every plane she has learned to pilot – Mustangs and Warhawks and Thunderbolts alike – and she has grown accustomed to the stony visages of instructors, their crushing expectations and the feeling where you irrevocably begin to question your own strength of character and purpose and worth whenever you fail to meet them. Yet she came through with top marks and everyone who has ever been disappointed by her has eventually been proven wrong. She would have thought that, by now, her skin has already thickened into something comparable to steel.

Yet, when she stood there in Tillotson’s office, being told that she could not be trusted to fly, Mariner felt utterly reduced. It was a humiliating kind of reduction. And humiliation made her angry, a unique cornered anger of its own kind that seethed all the way down to the bone.

Tillotson seemed to sense this. His voice softened slightly, becoming conciliatory, in the way only a victor acutely aware of his own impending victory could afford to do.

“This is not an exile, Mariner,” was what he said. “This is when you prove yourself. Maybe a change of perspective will help you understand the gravity of your actions and teach you some restraint. It is an opportunity. Don’t squander it.”

“It’s an opportunity?” Mariner’s jaw clenched. She knew now the reassignment was inevitable. She knew that the decision had indeed been made on her behalf without any of her input and she had, somehow, been played so well that she happened to be the last to figure it out. And if she was to start learning restraint on her reassignment, she supposed that she didn’t need to begin now. “It’s not a goddamn opportunity, and you know it. It’s punishing me for something I haven’t even done. Yeah, I went after that enemy fighter on my own. And you know what? I shot it down. I saw an opportunity and I seized it instead of waiting around for the 109s to regroup. Isn’t that what we’re trained to do? Adapt, improvise, overcome, all that?”

“There’s a stark difference between adapting, improvising and overcoming, Olivia, and putting the rest of your squadron at risk,” Tillotson replied firmly. And then, what really pissed her off: “You have to learn, one way or another, that the USAAF is an ecosystem where every element, down to the individual fighter, must depend upon command structure to function. It’s not a place for young Turks wanting to prove themselves and be a hero. Don’t worry. I’'ll make sure no one else takes up the Switchblade call sign when you’re gone.”

At this Mariner felt her blunt fingernails digging pink crescent moons into her palms. That was an extraordinarily low blow. It was not merely the complete misconstruction of her character – as a willful contrarian who thinks only of their own glory, apparently – that incensed her, but beyond that it was the fear that thrummed at a deeper sub-cellular level, a fear that this may be how she was truly seen by her superiors, how her efforts and achievements were being interpreted by those who disregard her as little more than an ordinary pilot who likes to think of herself as extraordinary. And the placement of the command structure meant that she could not rectify this mistake or defend herself against this obvious besmirching of her name and reputation without risking a dishonourable discharge from the military altogether.

So she did what she does best.

“Fine. You want discipline?” she said, her voice lowering into something hard and cold and stubborn. “I can do that. I’ll get into a bomber. I’ll drop a few bombs. But mark my words, sir, you’re making a mistake. Both you and I know exactly what I can do and what I should be out there doing, whether I’m in a Mustang or a tin can with wings. And when the time comes, when you need someone with enough balls to fly through hell and back under twenty-millimetres and flak, don’t be surprised when you come back to me because there’s no one else up for the job.”

She did not resign herself to waiting around for Tillotson’s reaction. Instead she saluted him sharply in a way that suggested an obvious grudge, pivoted on her heels and marched out of the room. She refused to even attempt to try and understand Tillotson’s reasoning as there could be no possible reasoning on God’s green earth that could justify this decision. Perhaps an attempt at figuring out his reasoning, however unfounded it may be, could come later, when she has spent enough aimless months with the 100th to supposedly have learned her lesson and earned a place back on her former fighter squadron. But the embers of rage were still very much scorching hot in her hands, hissing and spitting and burning wherever they touched her skin, and she refused out of pure spite to put them down, so she carried them with her all the way until she reached Norfolk, England.

#series: switchblade #oc: olivia mariner #masters of the air #meet your local cocky flyboy #or flygirl #olivia mariner is an unreliable narrator

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