Norol

Lord of the Vine, Lord of the Wild, He Who Comes In Music

As bards throughout the ages have known, music has power. It can inspire courage, bring the deepest despair, and inflame passions that the listeners never thought they had in them. And the deity that is Norol lurks within all those emotions. Not all bards revere Norol, but all respect his power.

But Norol is not only the lord of unbridled music, but of all passions unrestrained. He is called the Lord of the Wild not because of any great affinity of nature (though his worshipers do tend to gather in remote places where they can hold their bacchanalian revels without disturbance), but because "wildness" is his very nature. There is no restraining his emotions, whatever the outcome of his actions. It is said that he sometimes takes the form of a large satyr and participates in the revels of his worshipers who have particularly pleased him. Alas, life in modern cities is rarely conductive to a life of inhibited passions, and those priests of Norol who have to live there have learned to be calm and cautious for much of the time. But from time to time, usually at least once a month but more often if possible, they must engage in some activity where they can let their passions flow over. Whether it is playing a music instrument for hours at an end, going on a drinking binge, holding an orgy in a brothel or similar activity is more or less irrelevant to Norol - all that matters is that the passions are strong and unrestrained.

Some priests have greater trouble adapting to this kind of dual lifestyle, and begin to develop split personalities of sorts. In the more harmless cases, some personality trait might change under certain circumstances - for example, a normally shy and reclusive person might become confident, boisterous, and even lecherous when wearing a special costume. In the more extreme cases, one personality is completely unaware of the other, and there have been cases of apparently harmless, upstanding citizens becoming avengers of the poor at nights when the moon is full - or the most sadistic serial killers imaginable.

The cult of Norol holds these among its central tenets:

Do not deny release to your passions, even if you delay it. Respect music of all kinds, for it is the key to the soul. Cloak your true self when among unbelievers. Norol's symbol is a set of pan flutes.

Designer's Notes

Norol represents a mixture of the Greek gods Dionysius and Pan.