Lady Nanbyo

Lady Nanbyo

(Deity)

Titles

Widow of Suffering
Widow of Calamities

Adjective

Nanbyoan

Realm

Outer Rifts

Alignment

Chaotic evil

Areas of Concern

Earthquakes
Fire
Plague
Suffering

Edicts

Revel in destruction, make natural disasters worse, allow natural disasters to take their due

Anathema

Allow a natural disaster to completely destroy a community or leave a group with no survivors

Follower Alignments (1E)

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Domains (1E)

Chaos, Destruction, Evil, Fire, Plant

Subdomains (1E)

Ash, Catastrophe, Decay, Demon, Rage, Smoke

Follower Alignments (2E)

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Domains (2E)

Destruction, fire, plague, water
Alternate: Dust, earth, lightning, sorrow

Favored Weapon

Warhammer

Symbol

Flaming rift in the earth

Sacred Animal

Crow

Images of Lady Nanbyo

Source: Dragon Empires Gazetteer, pg(s). 60f. (1E)
Tian Xia World Guide, pg(s). 33 (2E)

Lady Nanbyo (pronounced nan-beeyoh) is the Tian Xia goddess of ill fate and calamity. She is often blamed for plagues, flash floods, tsunamis, and any other natural disaster that occurs.

Appearance

See also: Category:Images of Lady Nanbyo

Known as the Widow of Suffering and Widow of Calamities, Lady Nanbyo has two forms. She took the form of a beautiful human woman after falling in love with a mortal governor, but after he attempted to steal her immortality and bury her alive, she transformed into a black-scaled, fire-spewing sovereign dragon with more than a dozen legs, and set him and his lands on fire.

History

This pattern of jilted lovers from her origins has repeated over the ages, each followed by another vengeful conflagration until she became consumed by her grief and anger and gained power over natural disasters. She crept into the celestial court through a storm created by Hei Feng and cowed the deities with her chaotic strife, who attempted but often failed to distract her with novelties or beauty before empowering the natural forces of the other deities to turn them into disasters. Volcanic eruptions and tsunamis become deadly events that spread suffering through the influence of Lady Nanbyo.

Religious symbol and animal

Her religious symbol is a crack in the earth with flames erupting from it. Her sacred animal is the carrion-eating crow.

Church of Lady Nanbyo

Despite her role as a deity of calamity, many people still pray to Lady Nanbyo, normally for deliverance from the horrible events she unleashes upon the world. The unexpected appearance of yakshas often heralds her influence as they attempt to protect against the destruction she wreaks. However, she also attracts the worship of outcasts and the disenfranchised who seek to clean the slate of the world and start anew through destruction and anarchy.

Cults dedicated to Lady Nanbyo are a particular problem in metropolitan Goka, where they make the already free-wheeling city even more dangerous. She is also commonly worshipped amongst the flooded reaches of Wanshou, the desolate deserts of Shanguang, monster-haunted Shenmen, and the lawless isles of Minata.