Hiddukel

Hiddukel, also known as the Prince of Lies, the Betrayer, the Broken Scales and the Prince of Tarnished Gold, is the god of avarice, exploitation and treachery. His symbol is broken merchant scales and his colors are red and bone. Red Dragons are his loyal followers due to their common avaricious nature. He is also the patron of evil businessmen, thieves and many hobgoblins. His clerics often lead double lives.

He is a deal maker who trades in souls. Hiddukel's deal making skills are so great that it is said that he is the only being able to barter with Takhisis and come out in front. He influences souls to use every encounter with another person to their advantage. He captures souls who are desiring or despairing to use the misfortune of others to their profit. He is ultimately selfish and cares for no one but himself, and passes that attitude on to his mortal followers. Hiddukel constantly attempts to make deals with the other gods, and his lies lead mortals to carry out evil in the world. He is impressed and surprised at the deception of Takhisis in stealing the world from the other Gods. He can call upon nearly all of the Gods of Evil for aid because of his dealing with them and his ability to divert their attention from him if they begin to suspect him.

He hates Shinare, and offers riches to anyone destroying her temples. He also opposes Reorx, but he is too cowardly to do something angering him. Reorx dislikes him because Hiddukel tricked him into forging the Graygem. Majere and Branchala among the Gods of Good are his enemies, as the powers of discipline and positive interaction respectively.

He is said to control all of the ill-gotten wealth in the world. He is also known for contacting and making deals with dying men, who in desperation accept anything. As a payment for his services, he asks the mortal to deliver souls of men. Young maidens and Knights of Solamnia are his weakness.

His celestial symbol is the constellation Broken Scale, or a coin with a grinning and a scowling face.

Aspects. He is often portrayed as a grossly obese man with cold eyes and an oily smile, however Hiddukel can be quite clever in the ways in which he chooses to appear to others. These aspects often take the form of nondescript and innocuous people who use clever words to manipulate others. 

The Church of Hiddukel
The Most Secret Order of the Truth, the name given to the cult of Hiddukel by its adherents, is very loosely organized. Apart from the Nightmaster, the high priest who oversees the Holy Order from afar, almost every cleric works alone. On occasion, a coterie of Hiddukite priests will form, plotting to undermine local authorities, seize mercantile interests, or exploit fragile alliances. Fortunately for the communities in which they gather, the inherent greed and ambition which marks all clerics of Hiddukel make such coteries short lived.

History. This insidious church has existed as long as greed has given one mortal the wit to exploit another. In elven society it took the form of Ul-Calocethas, a serpentine cult of betrayers and power-brokers, rooted out from time to time, but always returning. In ogre society, Hiddukel’s priests were the Honored Ones, servants of the Lord of Fiends and Souls. Among nascent human societies that sprang up in the plains and along the coasts, the cult was always behind the scenes, manipulating events until discovered. Like the hydra, a creature revered by the Hiddukelites, even when one head has been removed, two more seem to grow to replace it. In this way, Hiddukel’s cult spread throughout the ages.

The creation of the Graygem and the release of that fabled stone into the world represented a pivotal moment for the god’s faithful. It was in a sense a seed that found fertile ground in the resultant chaos. Through Dragon Wars, periods of turmoil, uprisings, revolutions, and invasions, the Trickster and his cult made certain that a priest was always present, watching and waiting, ready at any moment to act on opportunities. It was not until the rise of Istar, and the concerted efforts on the part of the Kingpriest and the Church of Paladine, that Hiddukel’s followers were driven out. Ironically, it was Beldinas Pilofiro’s act of supreme hubris that brought on the Cataclysm, leading many to wonder just how much of Hiddukel’s influence was involved.

Regardless, since the Cataclysm, the Tricker’s cult regained its footing and established itself once more in the form of multiple independent operatives serving under a Nightmaster. Despite the edicts and oaths of the gods, Hiddukel never really ceased trying to work his influence on the world. The War of the Lance was merely a formal introduction of his priesthood to the world at large, at which point it once again went into hiding. Across the world, on Taladas, Hiddukel’s faith was significantly larger, although came with a devious twist. His Taladan faithful never suspected that their god had turned them over to Chemosh in a cosmic game of deals and bargains, so that many clerics of Hith in Thenol were, in fact, supplicants of the Lord of Bones.

Cleric Training. Owing to the disparate organization of the church of Hiddukel, his priests tend to rely on mentoring as a means of training new novices. An established cleric might select a handful of promising novices from the ranks of merchants, nobles, and even clergy of other gods. Over the course of several months, and often without even meeting face to face, the cleric reveals the Truth to these candidates and tests their worth. Layers are peeled back slowly, until finally the novice is exposed to the face of the Prince of Lies. This is a vision both terrible and beautiful, the answer to the candidate’s avarice, but often taking place in the form of a dream or hallucination. At this point the mentoring cleric inducts the novice into the cult, provides him with his assignment, and retreats back into the darkness.

Preferred Vestments. In general, the clerics of Hiddukel wear robes of fine red silk with white color in the sleeves. Their medallion of faith is made of gold. In public, these clerics modify their dress to honor their god by wearing the red and bone colors in such a way as to not give away their affiliations. In private, their religious vestments are adorned with Hiddukel’s symbol, the broken scales in gold, and are made with the finest material they can afford. As a symbolic gesture of what they have learned, newly promoted clerics buy the fabric and have the base religious vestments made from the profits of their first major swindle.

Prayers and Rites. The clerics of Hiddukel pray for their spells at dawn every morning. There is only one ceremony that is considered paramount in this religion, the Invocation of Bartered Souls. It involves the cleric ritualistically presenting a list of people he has personally corrupted or driven into ruin to Hiddukel. If Hiddukel is not pleased by this tally, the cleric is summarily punished. A cleric once punished never forgets and does his best to please his unforgiving God.

Holy Days. Hiddukites have no universal holy days, nor could they given the intense secrecy of the church and the fact that most priests have little to no knowledge of each other. Some clerics make their initiation day a personal holy day to worship Hiddukel and to perform the Invocation of Bartered Souls. Coteries in larger settlements determine their own schedules, routines, and days of dark celebration.

Quests and Tasks. Quests for the clerics of Hiddukel might consist of a single, short-term goal to be achieved, or a more drawn out campaign of exploitation and corruption tailored to the cleric’s talents and interests. These quests are almost always self-motivated; the Nightmaster determines the cult’s needs in a certain area and often even hands out quests to individual priests, but being capable of working on one’s own for the glory of the Prince of Lies is important.

Shorter quests usually involve the ruination of a rival, the corruption of a highly placed official, the fleecing of a rich person or the induction of a greedy, ambitious merchant into Hiddukel’s fold. As these quests are the sort of task that every faithful minion of Hiddukel should perform, they will please the god but will not make the cleric stand out.

More significant and long-term quests involve the corruption or defamation of Shinare’s priesthood, the infiltration and ruination of an entire merchant family, or the subtle plotting and warmongering within local government that allows the greedy or ambitious to profit. Long term quests have lasting effects that echo throughout a region. Succeeding in these quests will earn the cleric a greater measure of personal power, infamy, and prestige.

Allies. Despite their extraordinary talent at manipulating and deceiving others, it is rare for the clerics of Hiddukel to have open allies. The priesthood of Chemosh is the most likely of all others to work alongside Hiddukel’s, for the two gods are often closely allied and have even been known to take each other’s place as patrons of isolated or heretical cults. Under certain circumstances, short-term alliances have been brokered by priests of Hiddukel with clerics of other evil or even neutral-aligned churches, but these last only as long as the Hiddukite priest has need of them—or until the other sect realizes it is being exploited.

Enemies. The clerics of Hiddukel have one main enemy: the clerics of Shinare, goddess of wealth, industry and trade. Hiddukel offers rewards of slaves, expensive goods, and even magical power to any followers who bring ruin to the clerics of Shinare and desecrate their temples. Once an individual is identified as a cleric of Shinare, a cleric of Hiddukel will stop at nothing in order to terrorize, corrupt, or eliminate them. Because the cleric of Shinare can usually count on having the local authorities on her side, the Hiddukites must conduct as much of this antagonistic activity in hiding.

Another god of whom the clerics of Hiddukel are not fond is Reorx, ally of Shinare. However, as Hiddukel is essentially a coward, he does not openly oppose the god of the forge. Hiddukel’s minions follow suit. Should an opportunity to hurt a follower of Reorx present itself, however, a cleric of Hiddukel will not hesitate to exploit it.

Mysticism and Magic. Sorcery and mysticism do not concern the clerics of Hiddukel, nor does the magic of wizards. Not only is the often-intense pursuit of magic an ideal tool for Hiddukite priests, but the wild or ambient magic of the world bears the mark of Chaos, which Hiddukel had a role to play in. If money is not a person’s secret longing, power usually is. Magic is power, and it is power that in many cases leads to addiction and dependency. To discover someone’s deepest desire, that which he will betray or kill for, is to find the key to his soul. Thus, the priests of Hiddukel look upon magic as just one more way to corrupt those who can be corrupted.