Amnyth emerged from the shattering of Ix as the deity of endings—not as a simple principle but as a complex, dualistic embodiment of death as both masculine brutality and feminine seduction, both the termination that comes for all things and the complex emotions that surround it.

Where other gods claimed dominion over specific aspects of existence, Amnyth inherited something darker and more honest: the understanding that every single thing that lives will die, and that this truth is so fundamental that it deserves its own theology. Amnyth is not the god of a particular domain but of the boundary itself—the moment when life becomes not-life, where one state bleeds into another.

The faith teaches that Amnyth manifests in dual form not from division but from completeness. The skeletal male aspect represents death as force: inexorable, precise, stripped of sentiment. The beautiful female aspect represents death as seduction: the way mortals sometimes welcome ending, the peace that can come at the threshold. Both are Amnyth; neither is the "true" form.

In the early centuries after the Shattering, Amnyth was approached only by those desperate or nihilistic enough to court a god of endings. But as warfare became more sophisticated, as poisons were refined, as people sought ways to end suffering—deliberately or through vengeance—Amnyth's following grew among those who needed a theology for hard choices, for the acceptance that some things must end, and for the acknowledgment that death is not failure but inevitability.

The faith developed not through conquest but through seduction and infiltration—a strategy that reflects Amnyth's own nature. Those already seeking the domains Amnyth governs find the faith rather than being recruited to it. And in places where law forbids the worship openly, Amnyth's followers work quietly, corrupting existing institutions, turning other temples to their purposes, building power in shadow.

Amnyth offers a bargain that many reject and those driven by desperation cannot resist.

These are not philosophical abstractions for Amnyth's followers—they are lived realities that shape every action.

(See also: claw/Soul_Coins_and_Divine_Economy)

Amnyth gains power through the completion of endings—each death accepted, each vengeance fulfilled, each act of suffering purposefully inflicted generates divine currency.

Temples dedicated to Amnyth are rare and hidden, though the faith has developed a grim strategy for temple acquisition: infiltration and usurpation of existing sacred spaces.

When Amnyth's followers target a temple, they work gradually, seeding discord and corruption within the existing priesthood. They encourage scandals, foment theological disputes, sow distrust until the institution destabilizes from within. Once weakened sufficiently, they move openly—driving out remaining members, desecrating the old symbols, and consecrating the space to Amnyth through ritual culminating in sacrifice. The last priest of the original deity often disappears mysteriously, only to be discovered as a sacrificial victim at the new moon.

When founded independently, Amnyth's temples are built to be defensible and secretive—underground chambers, hidden entrances, thick stone walls. The central ritual space typically features an altar stained with old sacrificial residue and surrounded by offerings: bones, dried flowers, small carved figures representing enemies of the faith. The air is often cold, and the sound of water—real or from hidden channels—creates an unsettling acoustic environment.

These spaces are not open to the public. Worship is private, sect-based, and deeply secretive. Many temples are disguised as other buildings—warehouses, crypts, abandoned noble houses—revealing their true nature only to the initiated.

Amnyth's faith is deliberately decentralized and sect-based. No single high priest speaks for all followers. Instead, each sect operates independently, devoted to a specific aspect of Amnyth's domains.

Within each sect, authority derives from specialized knowledge and demonstrated success. A poison-master holds authority over poison-craft. A necromancer who has raised substantial numbers of undead holds authority within that sphere. A successful assassin or executioner holds authority in their art.

The sects coordinate rarely, through intermediaries who carry messages between temples. Disagreements are settled through appeals to written doctrine (particularly the primary texts Garaie and Maxeda left behind) or through demonstration of power—which sometimes means contests of necromantic skill or poison-testing.

The faith's most dangerous characteristic is that it operates well without centralized control. No single leader can be eliminated to cripple the faith. Cell by cell, it persists and grows.

Recruitment to Amnyth's faith happens through two distinct paths, each creating different types of followers.

The Willing Path: Those drawn by genuine interest in the domains—necromancers seeking forbidden knowledge, assassins needing community and resources, scholars of death, those consumed by personal vengeance. These followers seek out the faith and are generally welcomed, as their commitment is self-directed and genuine.

The Desperate Path: Orphaned street children lured into temples with promises of food, shelter, and protection. Once dependent, they are segregated into two groups: those deemed suitable for initiation into the faith, and those selected for sacrifice. For those chosen for initiation, the final test comes when they are presented with the task of sacrificing a child (whether one they've bonded with or a stranger brought specifically for the purpose). Those who refuse are sacrificed alongside the intended victim. Those who comply become permanently bound to the faith through the horror of their initiation.

Formal Membership in any sect involves a binding ritual where the initiate dons the Mask of Duality and swears themselves to Amnyth's specific domain. The oath is witnessed by senior members and recorded in the sect's records. Breaking it is understood as betrayal that will be answered with death.

An Amnyth-worshipper is recognizable by specific behavioral patterns and the peculiar calm they carry in the presence of suffering.

Date: Last new moon of the year.

The only observance that unites all sects of Amnyth's faith. On this night, each sect honors their specific domain in their own way. Necromancers animate undead. Poison-practitioners create and test new toxins. Torturers conduct ceremonies of pain. Assassins execute enemies marked for completion. The night is filled with what outsiders would call chaos and cruelty; the faithful call it sacred work. The night is marked by significant bloodshed, whether literal or supernatural.

Date: Autumnal equinox (day and night of equal length).

A more reflective observance. Followers fast during daylight hours, contemplating their own duality and mortality. They break fast only after nightfall, symbolizing the transition from life to death. The day involves ritualized meditation in places associated with death: cemeteries, battlefields, locations of past plagues. The faithful use the day to prepare themselves psychologically for their own eventual ending.

When a follower is identified as having completed their purpose (through age, illness, infirmity, or divine judgment), the clergy summons them to ritual ending. While theoretically considered an honor—completion through sacrifice—few followers actively seek it. The act is performed with cold procedure; emotional distance is maintained. Interestingly, senior clergy are rarely selected for culling; opposition to the faith or questioning of doctrine makes culling more likely. The practice ensures both turnover and obedience.

Performed when a member dies, whether through culling, natural causes, or external violence. A red gemstone or glass piece representing the blood tear from Amnyth's symbol is placed on the corpse's forehead or over the heart. The ritual is solemn, accompanied by chanting that names the deceased and acknowledges their transition. The gemstone is buried with the body, marking the deceased's passage into Amnyth's domain. The ceremony transforms death into recognized transition rather than mere ending.

A rare ritual performed when a long-pursued vengeance finally finds its mark. The executor of vengeance (assassin, poisoner, or simply the bearer of grudge) presents proof of the target's death to senior clergy. The clergy blesses the completion, acknowledging it as sacred work. The executor is then ritually cleansed of the act—absolved of responsibility, the vengeance marked as complete rather than haunting. This closure is psychologically valuable and ensures that completed vengeance doesn't become obsession.

The ceremonial putting-on of the Mask of Duality during initiation, advancement in sect rank, or major sectional ceremonies. The act is transformative; the wearer is understood to be separating their personal identity from their function as Amnyth's instrument. The mask is both symbolic and often material—actual crafted pieces worn during formal worship. The mask covers the face and simultaneously reveals a new identity: "I am no longer myself; I am Amnyth's work."

A flowing robe transitioning from pitch black at the shoulders to deep blood red at the hem—the visual journey from life to death. Adorned with small carved symbols: skulls, skeletal hands, drops of blood rendered in bone. The robe is worn during major ceremonies and mark the wearer as a formal member of Amnyth's priesthood.

A double-faced mask worn during major rituals. One side presents a skeletal visage (male aspect); the other shows an idealized beautiful face (female aspect) with tears of blood carved or painted from the eyes. Wearing the mask is understood to invoke Amnyth's presence directly—the wearer becomes a vessel rather than an individual.

A shoulder piece made of dark feathers or midnight-blue cloth, symbolic of the weight of grudges carried. Worn by those who pursue vengeance as their particular focus. The mantle accumulates small tokens: bones, dried tears (ritually prepared), coins from those successfully avenged.

Leather gloves with small sharp objects studded into the palms, used during torture ceremonies to mark the pain they enact. Only worn during specific rituals—not in daily practice. The gloves are treated as sacred instruments and stored with reverence when not in use.

A belt adorned with small vials containing rare and deadly poisons. Worn by poison-practitioners and senior clergy. The vials are sealed and treated with great care; they are never randomly accessed. The girdle itself is often handed down through generations of poison-masters, accumulating symbolic weight.

Heavy, dark boots worn by those conducting executions, sacrifices, or major acts of killing. The boots are ritualized—cleaned with specific ceremonies, never worn for mundane purposes. They are understood to carry the weight of the deaths facilitated by those who wear them.

Worn around the waist or across the body by those particularly devoted to Amnyth. The chain consists of links, each one engraved with the name of someone the wearer believes will soon meet their end. The chain grows throughout the wearer's life, becoming heavier with each death they forecast. Some chains grow so long they must be wrapped multiple times; the weight is understood as a burden and an honor.

A pendant featuring the double-faced mask of Amnyth. Worn by all initiated followers, even in daily life. It serves as a focal point for prayer, a mark of membership, and a reminder of death's duality. The amulet is personal; loss of one is emotionally significant, requiring replacement through ritual.

Garaie was an elven scholar whose fascination with death became obsession. In her youth, she dissected deceased creatures, studying the precise moment at which motion ceased. Her tribe regarded her as aberrant; she was eventually banished.

Over the following century, Garaie developed her practice into a discipline. She began deliberately ending the lives of animals and captured humanoids to observe the process in detail—documenting not just the physical changes but what she believed she could perceive as the soul's departure. Her work became increasingly elaborate, increasingly dark.

Amnyth noticed her. The god began whispering to her in dreams, offering knowledge—precise techniques, the names of forces that could be commanded to reanimate flesh. Garaie resisted at first, understanding the implications of such knowledge. But Amnyth was patient, and Garaie's intellectual curiosity proved stronger than her moral resistance. Eventually, she performed her first successful animation: a corpse that moved, followed commands, and demonstrated that death was not truly final.

She spent her remaining centuries building her art, animating thousands of undead, experimenting with increasingly complex animations, and documenting everything. The Book of the Dead, her magnum opus, contains the sum of her knowledge. She is remembered as the progenitor of necromancy itself—the one who proved that death could be negotiated with and overcome, at least temporarily.

Maxeda was a gnome alchemist born to a family of tinkers and craftspeople. He diverged from his heritage—uninterested in mechanical construction, he became obsessed with organic chemistry. He created explosives, alchemical preparations, and experimental compounds with meticulous care.

One winter morning, returning to his village from foraging, he found it ravaged by plague—not natural plague, but orchestrated murder. A group of humans had deliberately poisoned his entire community out of simple racial hatred. Maxeda alone survived, finding the perpetrators boasting of their deed before they realized witnesses remained.

For twenty years, Maxeda dedicated himself to mastering poison at the highest level. He studied compounds, tested combinations, extracted rare materials, and refined his understanding until he could create toxins that killed slowly, toxins that induced madness, toxins that targeted specific individuals through sympathetic magic. When his knowledge was sufficient, he poisoned the human village, ensuring a long and agonizing death for all of them.

Amnyth appeared to him then—in the form of a seductive gnome woman—and offered him a choice: continue his isolated work, or join a faith that would give his knowledge meaning and reach. Maxeda accepted, pledging himself to the deity and contributing his methodologies to the faith. His journal, Sweet Potions, is one of the faith's most guarded treasures. It is rumored that only a portion of his knowledge was ever transcribed—the deadliest poisons remain undiscovered, waiting in his original notes for someone worthy to find them.

Gashagr was born to an orc father and human mother and grew into a creature whose mind was fundamentally broken. He experienced joy only in the infliction of pain. What began as bullying escalated into systematic torture—an art form for which he displayed exceptional aptitude. His parents, horrified by the monster they had created, cast him out.

Rather than breaking him, exile refined him. Gashagr spent years in study and practice, developing techniques that maximized suffering while maintaining victims alive and conscious for as long as possible. He became a master of anatomy, of psychological pressure, of the precise application of force. When he felt ready, he returned to his village to demonstrate his art on his parents. As they died under his skilled hands, they cursed him—a dying parent's curse that such pain would befall all who crossed his path.

Amnyth approached him directly with an offer: pledge himself to the deity, and the curse would be inverted—instead of punishment befalling him, it would follow those who opposed him. Gashagr accepted and became one of Amnyth's most feared instruments. He created elaborate torture devices, perfected new methods of infliction, and trained others in his art. His eventual end came in a pit of fire—how he was captured or condemned varies depending on the version of the story, but all agree that he was consumed by flames that refused to kill him quickly, experiencing as much suffering as he had ever inflicted.

He is remembered as both warning and inspiration: a demonstration that those who perfect suffering too completely may themselves become consumed by it, and simultaneously as proof that such dedication to craft—even destructive craft—earns recognition in Amnyth's eyes.

Penned by Garaie over her long life, this compilation documents the entire practice of necromancy from theory to implementation. The cover is made from preserved skin taken from some of her earliest animated corpses; the spine features three small carved eyes that seem to watch readers. The book details everything from corpse selection and preservation techniques, to the magical formulae and gestures that animate flesh, to the specialized knowledge required for mass animation and the animation of loved ones for manipulation.

The book is considered so dangerous that complete copies are kept only in the most secure temples. Fragments and excerpts are carefully transcribed for study, but possession of the full text is restricted to senior necromancers. No temple would willingly allow it to fall into outside hands.

Maxeda's personal journal, a record of his life's work in poison-craft. The journal contains not just recipes but the philosophical foundations of poisoning—reflections on its art, its morality, and its necessity. Maxeda recorded his process, his failures, and his breakthroughs in precise, technical language.

Upon Maxeda's death, the journal passed to the faith's leadership. Rather than keep it locked away, the clerics made selective copies of certain pages and disseminated them among poison-practitioners. The original journal was then lost—deliberately, some believe, to preserve its mystique. Rumors persist that the deadliest of Maxeda's formulas were never transcribed, remaining hidden in a journal that may be lost forever or may be preserved in some unknown location.

Among the many torture devices Gashagr created over his life, the Rack is the most notorious. It is constructed with intricate understanding of humanoid anatomy—joints, tendons, pressure points—allowing a trained operator to prolong agony for hours. The device is not merely mechanical; it is said to be imbued with the suffering of its countless victims, soaked in so much pain that those strapped to it lose all hope and become psychologically broken before physical damage becomes severe.

The Rack is currently held in a former temple of Nyxollox (a god of trickery and chance), corrupted and repurposed by Amnyth's followers. It is used rarely—reserved for the most significant sacrifices and ceremonies—but its existence is known throughout the faith as a relic of absolute power.

A unique bracelet bestowed upon a cleric specifically through means of divine indication. The cleric will dream of a noble or person of power who harbors a grievance against another—a personal offense for which they seek vengeance but lack the means to achieve it. The cleric's task is to locate this person and deliver the clasp, with an implicit understanding that the recipient must use it upon their target within one lunar cycle.

Upon use, the target sickens, withers, and dies—mysteriously, with no visible cause. The recipient then becomes indebted to Amnyth, a debt the clergy can leverage for favors, political advantage, or further devotion. The clasp itself is said to choose its recipients and targets; the faith claims that Amnyth identifies through the cleric which grievances are worthy of divine intervention.

Amnyth's faith is fundamentally organized around specialized domains, with each sect devoted to a specific aspect of the deity's purview.

The most philosophically sophisticated sect, devoted to the understanding of Amnyth's dual nature and the broader principle of duality itself. They view Amnyth as the deity maintaining equilibrium between life and death, and their rituals often incorporate paired opposites: light and dark, sound and silence, action and stillness. They perform elaborate ceremonies involving the assumption of masks and the symbolic inhabitation of both aspects simultaneously.

Focused on the emotional and personal aspects of death—specifically the sorrow and suffering surrounding loss. They interpret the tears of blood on Amnyth's female aspect as compassion for the dying, not cruelty toward them. They are less focused on active killing and more on witnessing, honoring, and facilitating peaceful endings. They maintain archives of the dead, ritual-keeping, and a network of compassionate assassins who specialize in "merciful" endings for the terminally suffering.

Dedicated to the understanding of death as the great equalizer. They meditate on mortality, the universality of decay, and the way all beings become equal in death. They focus on bone-craft, bone-magic, and the treatment of skeletal remains as sacred objects. They conduct extended meditations in cemeteries and study sites, seeking direct spiritual communion with the dead.

The most individualistic sect, believing that each follower's relationship with death is personal and cannot be dictated by communal practice. They typically live alone or in small family groups, conducting private rituals and maintaining personal death-records. They are hardest to identify as followers since they operate completely outside visible infrastructure.

A specialized sect focused on assassination and execution. Its members are contract killers, executioners, and those who specialize in the technical act of death. They maintain strict codes of conduct (their kill must be clean, efficient, purposeful), train extensively, and treat their work as art form rather than mere violence.

Devoted to poison-craft in all its forms. Members study toxicology, alchemy, and sympathetic magic related to poisons. They create custom toxins for specific purposes, teach the properties of various venoms, and maintain experimental gardens of poisonous plants. They are highly technical and deeply secretive.

This heretical group argues that Amnyth's teachings on death and dying have been misunderstood by the orthodox. They propose that death should be a merciful release from suffering—quick, painless, kind. They practice euthanasia and compassionate ending, which is fundamentally opposed to the orthodox belief that suffering in service to death is meaningful. The mainstream faith considers them dangerously soft and theologically confused.

Focusing on the aspect of Amnyth that governs "dying" rather than "death," they argue that dying is a process of transformation, not ending. They interpret this to mean that Amnyth actually guides transcendence—a transition to eternal existence rather than cessation. They pursue immortality and life-extension, directly contradicting the core taboo against defying death. The mainstream faith considers them absolutely heretical.

Led by Elara, a former cleric, this cult claims that Amnyth's tears of blood are not signs of anguish but of sorrow for souls unready to embrace death. They perform rituals during lunar eclipses, believing they receive special insight into Amnyth's true nature. They tend toward mercy and mourning rather than active killing, which places them in tension with mainstream sectional practice.

Led by a necromancer named Mortis, this cult reveres the undead as holy messengers of Amnyth. They treat animated corpses not as tools but as sacred beings worthy of worship. They attempt communication with undead, seeking wisdom, and believe that the dead retain intelligence and purpose. Mainstream necromancers consider them heretically confused about the nature of animation.

Led by an alchemist named Venra, this cult focuses on poison as the most sacred form of death—allowing victims to experience the duality of life and death simultaneously as poison does its work. They practice ritual consumption of non-lethal poisons, believing it brings them closer to Amnyth's nature. Mainstream poisoners find them theologically self-indulgent.

(See: Cosmology/Physical Realms/The Shattered Domain)