Malius

## Malius, God of Death

Malius is the son of Daesus and Histria. He is curious in the field of gods as while he is known of and acknowledged of his power, he is not worshiped by anyone.

It is common for gods to have physical forms and to resemble that of humanoid beings. This is a grey area with Malius as, with his lack of worship, no one in history has committed his appearance to text.

The other gods of the human pantheon all appear human so it is likely he too has human features, we can only guess. The one idea we can speculate is that he has a hand, this is believed due to the appearance of a bloody hand print at many mysterious murders. While it may be said that its just some murderer leaving these prints, the appearance of them in heavily fortified or guarded areas has raised suspicions to supernatural levels.

As previously stated, no one worships Malius. Strictly speaking that isn't exactly true. There have been many incidents in which people have been known to offer worship upon him. However every such case has led to the almost immediate deaths of the worshiper as well as any witnesses to the event. The phrase should read "no one worships Malius TWICE" but the poets and the singers will have it their way.

There is however one instance where Malius had a human worshiper who lived. He is our only source of information on the god of death. His name is lost to history but his worldly possessions are not. Deep below the ruins of Taurol, hidden away in a maze of tunnels a temple to Malius was discovered. Although it only consisted of three rooms; a bedroom, a study and a shrine, this chasm held more dark truths about the godly son of Daesus than all the worlds temples combined.

Inside the shrine room explorers found every inch of every wall, floor and ceiling covered in blood and hand prints. In the center of the room lay a slab of simple stone that "was so clean and devoid of blood that we swore it had to be an illusion". They believed it had to be imaginary, they couldn't fathom how something could be so clean and spotless in such gore. A jagged hole in the wall led through to the bedroom, it was little more than a hovel with a pile of straw serving as a bed but it glimmered and sparkled with the myriad of gold coins and trinkets scattered around it. The explorers never divulged the exact value of everything they took afterwards, one can only imagine the haul they fell upon. The final room was by far the most furnished. Inside there was a fine table, a sturdy chair, a quill, an empty ink pot, several sconces on the walls and what was once the original entrance, which had since caved in it seemed.

On the floor of the study they found the man, thin and sickly the young man had no hair, simple clothes, a shard of glass in his hand and a gash across his neck. He laid in what was clearly once a pool of his own blood that'd since dried. Beside him was found a smashed lantern, a severely burnt blanket and a half burnt book with a bone white cover and thick canvas pages. It is this book that contains all our knowledge on Malius. Assuming the dead man was the author we can say he was surely mad, half the book had burnt away but of what remained almost none of it was legible, written in some nonsense language never seen before, penned in blood that had somehow stayed red rather than fade to brown. Several illustrations and descriptions written in common were enough to understand parts but nothing worthy on noting here. Nothing but praise and delight around the figure of "Malius, son of fury, father of purge". Most illustrations were of different figures dying in some way or another, the rest were just blooded hand prints.

From what little we could discern from illustrations and descriptions we cam to understand that Malius was the son of Daesus and Histria. There appeared to be some family dispute and Malius was disowned and cast out by his parents. We know he is the god of death, we know he was born before Cassia and from the lack of her name probably never knew her. We know he wasn't chaotic but definitely wouldn't be considered good natured.

Of the worshiper we know nothing other than he was the only being to have survived so long, he was of pure human descent, and curiously among other cases it would seem he took his own life rather than die of natural or supernatural causes. The exact location of the cave was never revealed and the book was placed under heavy security somewhere in the city of Siph.

His symbol is that of a bloody hand upon a bone white field.