Yalm

# Description

When Yalm was still a mortal creature, he was larger than the average kraken, covered in centuries worth of scars from fighting other kraken and large oceanic fauna.  He was also albino, giving him an otherworldly, detached appearance with crimson eyes.

Ascendency into full godhood has effected his outwards appearance in a variety of ways.  His size (while now far more malleable) is now even larger; sightings of him on Tehom and Deliverance give off the impression of well sized islands rather than that of a living creature.  His tentacles have also exponentially increased.

When Yalm elects to manifest in a humanoid form, it is often that of an albino human with a great deal of maritime flora attached to his person, constantly dripping salt water.

# Personality

Yalm’s experience as an albino marked him as a pariah amongst his kraken brethren; as a result, before his apotheosis, he had an almost pathological hatred of other kraken, going out of his way to hunt and kill them.  This isolation had the unintended but positive impact of not instilling the cruelty towards other races that krakens tend to have; as a result, Yalm had something of a reputation amongst several coastal regions of Salbus as a mysterious, yet non-malicious, sight.

A millennia of godhood has granted him intelligence and wisdom beyond his days as a simple sea dweller.  As such, unlike his contemporaries, Yalm does not concern himself with divine politics; he simply dedicates himself to watching over his faithful and working against his hated foe, Cander.

# Divine Realm

Yalm’s divine realm is known as the Depths: found straddling both sides of a naturally occurring portal between both Tehom and Deliverance.  Light is a valuable commodity in the Depths; lux stones and bioluminescence are the only sources of it to be found.  Massive maritime flora and fauna can be found in the Depths, as well as the remnants of several of Yalm’s kills, brought back to support the ecosystem here.

Yalm’s faithful find their spirits called to the Abyssal Cathedral: a massive, sprawling castle tended to by Yalm’s divine servants.

# Activities

Given Yalm’s complete disinterest in involving himself in any divine politicking, he instead focuses most of his effort towards fulfilling his godly portfolio.  This does have him run contrary to the god of destruction, Cander, who often attempts to destroy ships filled with Yalm’s followers.

# Relationships

Yalm and Gennan get along very well, which extends to the Tholon Duchy and the Holy State of Sabrene.  This is due to the fact they are both gods of bounty and food; Yalm provides from the ocean, and Gennan from the earth itself.

As mentioned throughout, Yalm and Cander *despise* each other; Cander represents destruction, especially through natural disasters, and Yalm represents calm seas.  The two have battled each other ever since Yalm’s apotheosis.

# History

Yalm himself doesn’t quite know how old he is; he was born in the inky blackness of the Shelcon Sea, and most kraken don’t worry themselves with things like years.  Regardless, he was born a freak amongst the kraken, ostracized due to his albinism.  Despite this, Yalm kept himself alive, forced to grow stronger to survive an already dangerous ecosystem made even more dangerous due to the nature of his birth.

The older he grew, the more he grew to despise other krakens; as they were considered the apex predators of the ocean, this served to place him on the side of the rest of marine and coastal life, setting the stage for what was to follow.  His hatred directed him to begin hunting other krakens for food, growing larger and more powerful by the year.

Around this time on the surface of Salbus, a considerable population of refugees were being pursued by the Sun Dogs, attempting to enslave them to serve as laborers.  They had been chased all the way to Salbus’ southwestern shores, where they were starting to make ships to escape.

As it would later be recorded, these refugees were saved from the pursuit of the Sun Dogs quite by accident: Yalm was hunting another kraken, chasing it to the surface, where their conflict completely destroyed the pursuing Sun Dog ships on accident.

These refugees made their way to a handful of neighboring islands, where they began to sacrifice and worship the great pale creature from the depths that saved them.  Yalm, nursing his wounds from the bout, accepted these sacrifices gladly, and began to communicate with these people.  A deal was struck; Yalm would continue to patrol around the waters of the islands, and in return would be given a steady diet of sacrifices by the people.

Yalm’s presence amongst the islands encouraged the population of fish and other edible fauna to grow several times over: he made an effort to haul up other kraken caracasses to serve as bait.

Eventually, this grew into a religious arrangement; Yalm discovered that this source of worship was beginning to change him, until he eventually crossed the threshold and became a full blown deity.  At this point, the people he had saved had formalized themselves into the Tholon Duchy: while their political leader was the Shore Duke, they intoned that full authority was ultimately derived from Yalm, whom they gave the title of the Tholon King.