Baal

Baal is the rebel son of Horakhty, created initially for the purpose of protecting and guarding the creatures of the mortal realm, and as lord of the storm. He was corrupted by the Serpent, becoming a rogue god, and led a war against the Old Gods, taking control of the Palace Behind the Sun and initiating the Second Kingdom, before being imprisoned in the Twelve Caves and tortured for centuries as punishment for his betrayal.

He does not have any particular symbols, and exists between the bounds of the Old and New Gods as an individual rogue deity. He takes the form of a humanoid with the face of a canine and small horns on his mouth, but is not represented by any individual animal. He primarily represents chaos, but is also a god of storms and inclement weather.

Created, like his siblings, from the mud of the river running through Abydos, Baal was a loyal protector of mortal kind for many centuries. However, he was drawn to the violence and bloodshed which began as the Elves became corrupted by the Serpent and rose up against the leaders of Abydos. It did not take long for him to become corrupted by the Serpent himself, and he revolted against his father and the other gods, renaming himself Baal the Red One. He imprisoned Bast first, trapping her in a special cage in the Duat after tricking her away from her father’s side by slaughtering her priestesses in Abydos. The Eye was swallowed by the Serpent, and Horakhty was weakened and became a mere mortal shell. When Baal’s brother Aser attempted to stop this usurpation, he was brutally killed and the pieces of his corpse scattered across the planes.

With this, Baal began his reign, forcing the other gods from their posts and taking advantage of the chaos in the now-darkened world to impose his own ways upon Abydos. The Dark Elves had claimed their own place in Abydos, enforcing The Red One’s whims upon the mortals and brutally suppressing those who resisted their rule. Soon, however, Baal and the Elves were overthrown by Anubis and his army of Khenra warriors, with the help of the escaped Bast and the vengeful Khonsu. He was locked in the cage which he had created for Bast, and once Horakhty was restored to his rightful place, imprisoned in a new realm created specifically for the torment of him and his followers.

This realm was known as the Twelve Caves. Governed by the brutal Cavern Fiend Lamius and guarded by holy Aasimar servants, Baal was trapped in this prison for a century, extended to a millennia within the walls of this hellscape. Lamius, its queen, became his personal torturer, exacting punishments beyond anything imaginable upon the rebel god. Even as a being incapable of dying, magical, horrific pain became the only thing he knew, and every passing day saw the deity losing himself more and more to the pure evil of The Twelve Caves.

At the beginning of the war between the Old and New Gods, Baal was released from his prison by Abraham, who replaced the Red One with Bast in the torture chamber of Lamius. Baal was free to roam the planes, but was by no means the same as when he was first caged. Having lost himself and his mind to the pits, he craves revenge upon Lamius, but does not know how to exact it, and instead spends his time causing chaos and creating mild torment on mortals seemingly at random with storm outbursts.

Upon his release, cults of Baal began re-emerging as the Elves received omens of the return of their God. Most worshipers of Baal remain within the far reaches of Abydos, specifically the wooded areas to the north inhabited by the Elves. He chooses oracles at random, sometimes speaking nonsense through the mouths of mortals on a whim, occasionally granting these ‘prophets’ with special gifts and guidance which often leads nowhere. He has little real influence within the mortal realm beyond what he randomly chooses, but is neither malevolent or benevolent to anyone in particular.