Most people are familiar with at least one god of war. Every pantheon, and pretty much every culture, has one, be it Ares, Tyr, or Divast and his siblings. Their domains are distinct enough to be differentiated but similar enough you sometimes have to examine them closely.
Ares might focus on the aspects of individual courage and recklessness. Tyr might focus more on the individual honor of a warrior. Divast’s family divide the domain up intensely- despite Divast being the head of the family, his domain technically only focuses on the “squish” sound that brains make when the skull-cap is bludgeoned.
As gods, there is an intense amount of variability in them; they each have their own position in the great hierarchy of gods.
War gods tend to be very detached; they care about war as a whole, but there’s no certain guarantee that they’ll take an interest in any specific war, beyond a detached, almost-bored professional interest (exceptions abound of course, but you can hope). But they aren’t the only war gods running around, nor even the worse. The gods of war, and a war-god, are very different topics.
See, there many types and ways of becoming a god, but the simplest only requires three basic ingredients; the belief of mortals, the devotion of mortals, and the souls of mortals. All things a war provides in an ample bounty; massive amounts of emotion and belief, acts of devotion and often ultimate self-sacrifice, and a deluge of mortal souls.
Wars of sufficient length and intensity can grow a soul. As a conglomerate of emotion and sub-primal instincts transformed into a vaguely corporeal intelligence, applying human logic or motives to them is doomed.
Small border skirmishes than never really erupt but last for years at a time are emaciated, lanky beings that grows more ravenous with every years. Blood feuds and small clan wars take the form of tiny, goading spirits, like ravens where each new conflicts grows the flock. Large wars, wars in which kingdoms clash and duchies are made and broken, causes greater beings flushed with power, who may even retain some influence after the war ends.
Each is utterly different, as each war is different. World War 1 might be an unnaturally tall figure, with a face for each of the major powers of Europe, with clouds of dust and chlorine gas around its feat, each unseen footstep echoing with distant artillery. The Trojan War might take the form of an armored man, seemingly impregnable, leaking blood from each joint and crack in the armor, riding a wooden horse.
It is important to remember that a war-god can change with war itself.
War-gods are far less known, but far easier to contact then normal gods of war. They have (hopefully) short lives, and so they keep constantly busy, stoking fires of discord, inspiring heroic last stands that simply elongates the killing, and otherwise fueling the war however it can.
They almost never pick favorites; after all, if they help one side too much (and to be honest, they can rarely tell the difference) the war might be over far sooner. They are terrible at differentiating sides though, and may end up favoring a side accidentally, as they sometimes aid groups that share some feature or aspect (for instance, should a war-god of an elf/dwarf war decide it favors archers, the dwarves may be in for some significant difficulties). War-gods might help one side or another, but it’s based on incredibly arbitrary reasons, that have absolutely nothing to do with human morality.
Interacting with war-gods
A pretty good question from here is “what’s the point of this?” Unless the war-gods are somehow interacting with the players, all it makes for is an interesting point of set-dressing.
The first thing many players may think of is becoming its cleric; certainly possible, but after the war is over the cleric loses the powers they possess. Still, the rampant fighting allows for very quick XP progression, so despite not being clerics for long, war-god clerics tend to be a higher level than one would think; and since there is no body of theology associated with them, pretty much anyone could become a cleric of the war. They prefer soldiers, for obvious reasons.
A more likely option is a deal or pact; war-gods have no end of desires, and there domains have many gifts they offer to supplicants. They generally can’t communicate- at least verbally- but they are understood well enough regardless. Additionally, they are far more willing to directly, physically intervene.
Most gods refrain from direct intervention, distracted by the myriad prayers, requests, mortal entreaties, divine politics, and ageless eons. War-gods are focused on one time, now, and only on those involved in their war, so they’re rather focused. Summoning them is most effective when done by the lowest and most directly affected; they are a hundred times more likely to respond to the plea of a wounded soldier in a trench than fat general in a cushioned chair. Breaking a pact leads to an absolutely terrible, possibly/probably character-ruining, twilight-zone style curse.
Image by Greg Rutkowski
8 Things the war-god offers
| 1. | The resurrection of, or permission to resurrect, a soul that died in the war |
| 2. | The protection of a soldier or village from the ravages of war |
| 3. | The horrors of war; it can engulf a region, increasing the likelihood of conflict and battles |
| 4. | Poor fortune for your enemies; a misread map, a few poorly labeled-shipments of supplies |
| 5. | A boon, such as automatic misses from random weaponry, or instant knowledge of any ambush |
| 6. | A few more days of life |
| 7. | Aid, such as support from its many servants |
| 8. | The direct intervention from the war-god |
6 Things the war-god demands
| 1. | Spread word of the war- through news, poems, art, song, etc. You have advantage on any related skill check |
| 2. | Make a monument; something permanent to remember the war by, after it has ended. Scale of the monument is tied to the scale of the war |
| 3. | Devote yourself to the war; take no prisoner, accept no quarter, give no mercy for man, woman, or child. |
| 4. | Wear or carry a symbol of the war-god, constantly. A necklace of enemy teeth, a looted pocketwatch, a captured dagger. |
| 5. | Perpetuate the war- ruin one pure, simple moment of peace or understanding between sides. |
| 6. | Become a cleric (or warlock) of the war-god |
Cults of the war-gods
Of course, the war-gods have their cults and clerics, who (even by clerical standards) tend to be erratic zealots. Worshipping a literal war tends to not be a particularly healthy outlook on life. Sometimes these cults try to perpetuate the war eternally, falling in love with the very concept, but most they are made of people who are suffering extreme PTSD and feel absolutely powerless.
Generals and heroes do not join these cults; the villagers who home is wiped out by careless or callous armies, the young solder drafted from the fringes of the kingdom, the weeping widow whose lost her husband and sons, the women caught in the path of the invading army- these are the true members of this cult. The people who have no agency, who have been swept up into the tides of war with no choice or though, are the core. They serve, and trade freedom for the certainty of survival, or the vindication of revenge.
Art by Zitro Nabetse
The greatest of the war-gods can even summon servants, lesser spirits of the war, to aid their chosen… or they can directly intervene. Small wars might be able to be defeated by the greatest heroes, but for larger wars, direct confrontation is pointless. How can a man kill a war with a sword?
No, the only way to kill a war-god is tranquility. Not necessarily peace, but silence. Many wars end in the silence of the grave, or in a return to peaceful meadows. Tranquility, stagnation, is the opposite of war, and to kill a war-god you need to trap it with these concepts. Killing a war-god with kindness is possible, but inordinately difficult.
Despite their ridiculous durability, war-gods often times isn’t as opposing as other deities; their weapons are impersonal, and curses follow the tragedies typical of war. A war-god in combat may not slay you with spells or blows, but through a lucky arrow shot by a random archer a day later, or an unfortunate ordinance explosion. Impersonal, abstracted, and seemingly random. No grand heroic last stand, but meaningless tragedy; a person reduced to a statistic.
Two Specific War-Gods
It walks like a cripple. Tall, but hunched and miserable. Shackles, broken and bloody, dig into its skin around its wrists and ankles. It’s armor a miserable patchwork of crude and broken armor, but roughly stylized, as if it were a famous and holy warrior. It’s teeth are broken, and it looks beaten. It drags an axe; not a handax or a battleax, but a headman’s axe, the last axe a murderer or traitor sees. You don’t know how you know it’s a headman’s axe, but you do. A dozen six-inch iron nails sink into its weeping body. Each nail leaves a blood trail of the brightest crimson. On its belt, a half-dozen blood soaked skull sleep.
The war between the Muskegee Men and Rupert’s Land was long and blood soaked. Once one people, the Muskegee were established by slaves who rose in rebellion against Rupert’s Land. The conflict lasted a generation of violent killings and execution. The Muskegee fled, taking the fringes of the kingdom, establishing their own peculiar form of democracy there, and the conflict simmered, separated by the Black Swamp, where the war-dead rose in unending number, until the Muskegee, finding powerful allies, invaded there once-captors, taking the land with a savage fury, winning the war.
The Muskegee war-god is blood-thirsty, and greatly desirous of the suffering of the innocent. All wars are like this, but civil wars more so. Now that the war is over, it has slowly dwindled. The duration and intensity of the conflict, and the great cultural rift, is sustaining it for now, but everyday it dwindles. Where it walks, strife and riots against the new-found occupiers springs up. Monuments to it are made, in form of great towers of human skulls (the Muskegee being occasional head-hunters). Supplicants who please it may be granted one of its many skulls. Favored supplicants may even be allowed to pick one.
War-Dead Skull
The war-god claims all abandoned skulls of the war; those skulls which were collected by the Muskegee as trophies but later abandoned in favor of more illustrious skulls. It’s prized skull is that of Princess Lestia, the last halfway-intelligent noble in the decadent Rupert’s land court. It’s willing to give skulls to its supplicants.
The skulls retain their personality and memories, and while they can refuse to answer, they cannot lie to one blessed by the war-god (they can lie like crazy to everyone else). They don’t really comprehend what the god is, but they can potentially offer the help action for certain lore-based checks. They are excellent watchmen, but make sure you get them to promise to warn you about danger before you go to sleep.
Stats for the skulls are AC as chain, HP 3d6, and pick an appropriate NPC statblock for mental stats (you could add a background for more flavor). Alternatively, just roll 3d6 for CHA/INT/WIS.
If it needs to be said, they react extremely poorly to anything reminiscent of the Muskegee.
The Chrysalis
It sits, quivering and soaked with the newborn blood of the dead. An embryo, growing in a cocoon of gold, silk, and shredded armor. It lives in the silence after a battle, in the empty silos picked clean by starving children. And it grows, and grows, and soon it shall surely be free.
The conflict between the Iron Empire and the Chrysanthemum People is, by all accounts, pointless and stupid, a conflict born more of general arrogance and the violent diplomacy of dictators. It’s been slow at first; teleportation strike teams destroying infrastructure and removing key targets, rather than fully engaged wide-scale conflict, but war has been a constant these last several years, and as both sides prepare to fully engage with each other, a new god begins to kick in its Chrysalis.
The Chrysalis wants to be born, to take this fledging conflict of skirmishes and transform it into a grinding war of attrition, in which kingdoms are trampled and empires fall. The first step is in engaging the population; no war-god can grow fat on a reluctant war. It wants eager warriors, hungry for combat and unprepared for the horror that will result.
The Chrysalis doesn’t have cultists or followers. It has hunters. The Chrysalis’s interior is the deepest black, because its blood is made of ink. Spell-ink, the ink used to write spellbooks. Ink that, when spilled over blank pages, will leave spells of devastating power. Spells designed to wage wars.