Urgathoa

Urgathoa

(Deity)

Titles

The Pallid Princess,
Lady Despair

Adjective

Urgathoan

Realm

Bloodrot, Abaddon

Alignment

Neutral evil

Areas of Concern

Disease
Gluttony
Undeath

Edicts

Become undead upon death, create or protect the undead, sate your appetites

Anathema

Deny your appetites, destroy undead of no harm to you, sacrifice your life

Follower Alignments (1E)

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Domains (1E)

Death, Evil, Magic, Strength, War

Subdomains (1E)

Blood, Daemon, Divine, Ferocity, Murder, Plague, Undead

Follower Alignments (2E)

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Sanctification (2E)

Must choose unholy

Domains (2E)

Indulgence, magic, might, undeath
Alternate: Decay, plague, swarm

Favored Weapon

Scythe

Symbol

Skull-decorated fly

Sacred Animal

Fly

Sacred Colors

Red, green

Images of Urgathoa

Source: Inner Sea Gods, pg(s). 156–163 (1E)
Divine Mysteries, pg(s). 106–109 (2E)

Alignment details are sourced from Inner Sea Gods and Lost Omens Gods & Magic 48. In Gods & Magic, Urgathoa lacks the plague domain. Official errata retroactively replaces the anathema listed in Player Core with those from Divine Mysteries; see Meta:Urgathoa.

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Urgathoa (pronounced oor-gah-THO-ah) is the Varisian goddess of physical excess, disease, and the undead. She is mostly worshipped by hedonists, dark necromancers, the undead, and those wishing to become undead. Sometimes those who live gluttonous lifestyles make supplication to her, as do those suffering from a serious illness.

History

Urgathoa was once a hedonistic mortal woman. After her death, she rejected Pharasma's judgment, slew her psychopomp escort, fled the Boneyard, and returned to Golarion, making her the Great Beyond's first undead creature and elevating her to godhood. Her return to the mortal world is said to be the origin of the first diseases.

Home

Urgathoa's divine realm is Bloodrot, a necropolis located on the shore of the Sea of Lamentation in Abaddon inhabited by her undead followers. She originally received this realm in a deal with Charon and often discusses shared interests with the Apocalypse Riders, and the daemons largely leave her alone.

Relationships

Among her enemies are Erastil, Sarenrae, Pharasma, Gozreh, and their followers. She also comes into conflict with Abadar and Calistria. Calistria, in particular, is more of a friendly rival than an enemy, as she represents lust while Urgathoa champions carnal excess, and the two often fight over potential followers. She also hates followers of the Prophecies of Kalistrade, as their strict sexual and dietary restrictions go counter to her hedonism and gluttony; and she is annoyed by Irori's discipline and moderation. She had recently come into conflict with Gorum, who wanted his worshippers to die in battle and considered death by disease to be humiliating. Since her undead followers can quickly spread across the living world, Lamashtu sees Urgathoa as a rival.

Urgathoa and Shelyn both shared an interest in love, and long maintained a neutrality toward each other. However, due to their shared stance that love endures beyond death, Urgathoa has been trying to recruit Naderi, which in turn put her at odds with Shelyn, Naderi's former mistress. Shelyn has in turn run afoul of Urgathoa by intervening with one of the Pallid Princess's treasured generals, the vampire Petrescu, and Urgathoa has since targeted Shelyn's faithful with Reapings.

Zyphus, who keeps his divine realm inside hers, is loyal to Urgathoa and shares many interests with her. Urgathoa has been known to ally with the Apocalypse Riders from time to time, as many of their objectives are the same.

Her relationship with the demon lords Kabriri and Zura, patrons of ghouls and vampires, are inconsistent. Cults of Groetus often cooperate with cults of Urgathoa who share their hedonism, but the nihilistic Groetans scoff at an eternal existence as undead.

She is also considered an ally of the followers of the Whispering Way, though some of her followers impede the Way's more promising plans should they draw too close to turning all mortal life into undead beings, as that would leave those who consume the living without food.

Appearance

A depiction of Urgathoa.

Urgathoa is generally depicted as an attractive, pale-skinned, and ebony-haired woman. Unlike mortal women, her flesh begins to rot and wither away at her waist, leaving her as little more than a blood-soaked skeleton from the hips down. She is often similarly manifested, but wearing a loose fitting gown stained with black, brown, and red splotches.

Servants

Urgathoa's minions include powerful vampires, liches, and other intelligent, authoritative undead. Some clerics of Urgathoa are transformed after death into undead creatures known as the children of Urgathoa. One of the most famous of these terrifying creatures is Illcayna Alonnor, who leads an army of wights in the ruined Isgeri town of Finder's Gulch. Her divine servitor race are the sarcovalt, disgusting fly-like creatures that roam her realm feeding on the remains of devoured souls.

Unique servants

Barasthangas

This servant of Urgathoa is a devourer, a powerful, extremely emaciated-looking undead. Her white skin is so thin and tight that the creature's bones and connective tissue can be seen through it. She can occasionally be called on by powerful magic to perform tasks, but requires the soul of an important creature in return.

Fjarn

Once a Linnorm King, Fjarn is now a burly corpse-grey undead in the service of the Pallid Princess.

Mother's Maw

Mother's Maw, a gigantic, fanged, and flying skull clouded by carrion flies, is her herald.

Olix

This minion is a vampiric priest that possesses strong shadow powers.

Church of Urgathoa

Followers of Urgathoa often spread disease.

The churches of Urgathoa are dispersed across Golarion in cell-based cults, with individual groups rarely working together. Activities are usually done under the cover of night, except in lands such as Geb, where she is worshiped quite openly. She is most often followed in the Darklands, Osirion, Ustalav, and Varisia, and among twisted Garundi and Varisians throughout the Inner Sea region. Urgathoa is one of the Three Feasters, the deities worshipped by the Koboto tribe of the Sodden Lands.

Obedience

Certain dedicated worshipers of the Pallid Princess perform daily obediences in order to receive divine blessings known as a boons from their goddess. The obedience takes the form of a ritual in which the worshiper spreads the most sumptuous feast she can find on a flat surface covered with a black velvet cloth. While consuming the food, the penitent must drink wine and say prayers to Urgathoa until she is painfully full. After a full hour of this, the worshiper must consume a piece of rotten or rancid food, trusting in the goddess to protect her from any illness that might follow. If the ritual is performed correctly and the goddess approves, the worshiper's ability to cast necromantic spells is increased for the day.

Clergy

Urgathoa's priests are primarily composed of clerics and necromancers. They have few responsibilities to uphold, other than helping those who desire undeath, and protection of their own. Understandably, they often are secretive of their religious inclinations in public. The priests have been known to compel their enemies to eat their own fallen comrades.

The ceremonial clothes of Urgathoa's worshipers are a loose, floor-length, gray tunic, with a bone-white or dark gray cape clasped at the front. The lower half of the tunic is usually shredded, alluding to the goddess' own physical decay. Most ceremonies involve consuming great amounts of food and drink, which means that most raiments are covered by numerous stains.

Church structure

Each church is led by a Matriarch, who is typically female. If the priestess is a child of Urgathoa, the entire temple is considered especially blessed. Priests who can create undead, either through magic or through the passing of their undead taint, are called Necro-Lords, and receive extra privileges.

Congregants are divided into two castes. The higher caste is known as the Ghula, which consists of privileged members who may or may not be members of the priesthood. They are served by the Famished, initiate members attempting to prove themselves worthy of recognition by the church.

Rank inside the congregation might sometimes be an inversion of rank outside it, and if one of the Famished is of higher social status outside the church than a Ghula, the Ghula treats the Famished respectfully in public to preserve the church's secrecy. Like most evil cults, the secret church is scattered and cell-based, and contact between congregations is infrequent.

Reaping

Senior priests of Urgathoa sometimes practice a ritual known as the Reaping, in which they don grey robes and arm themselves with vorpal scythe. The priests then venture into the world to cause as much death and destruction to Urgathoa's enemies as they can, covering themselves in as much gore as possible before being driven back to their sanctuary. The most stained robes are then hung from the temple's ceiling for Urgathoa's approval, believing that if Urgathoa is pleased by the outcome of the Reaping, she will grant a boon to the priest.

Priests also offer Urgathoa's mercy to victims during a Reaping, by offering to raise them as undead and adding the victims to their numbers.

Antipaladins of Urgathoa

Antipaladins dedicated to Urgathoa are creatures of the night who bring disease and leave only death in their wake. They hope to emulate their patroness by hastening all to their unavoidable graves, and see undead as the ultimate expression of existence, as they have transcended both life and death. If not undead themselves, her antipaladins strive to emulate them and destroy all who oppose them. Unrepentant gluttons, they seek to feed their hunger and base desires whenever possible.

Temples and shrines

Urgathoa's temples are modeled after feast-halls, with a large table serving as an altar, surrounded by numerous chairs. Usually temples are near a graveyard or a crypt, frequently inhabited by ghouls. Her greatest temples are often guarded by daemonic servants. Her largest temple in Geb, and it being a nation of undead, perhaps the largest in the world, is the Cathedral of Epiphenomena in the city of Mechitar.

Religious texts

Urgathoa's sacred text is entitled Serving Your Hunger, and written by Dason, her first antipaladin.

Favored animals

Gods are often associated with certain animals, either because they possess a quality favored by the god, or because the god's faithful feel a special kinship to them. Urgathoa's favored animals include death's-head moths, flies and maggots, vultures and other carrion eaters.

References

Paizo published major articles about Urgathoa in Ashes at Dawn, Inner Sea Gods, Lost Omens Gods & Magic, and Divine Mysteries.

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.