Title: The Hollow Maw
Domains: Blight, Drought
Creators: Vorthar and Zoroth
Pantheon: The Nyx
Description
Drezzar, the God of Famine, is the creeping dread that withers harvests, drains rivers, and hollows out the bellies of all living things. Born of the cruel design of Vorthar, the Dark Weaver and the spiteful cunning of Zoroth, the Hollow Prince, Drezzar is known as The Hollow Maw, the devourer who brings slow death through rot, thirst, and ruin.
He is depicted as a skeletal figure cloaked in layers of dried, tattered fabrics that hang from his emaciated form like the skin of long-dead beasts. His face is sunken and masked with a desiccated skull, and his breath carries the reek of mildew and rot. In one hand, he drags a rusted sickle caked in dead vegetation; in the other, he holds a cracked, bone-dry urn, eternally empty. The ground around him is barren, withered, and lifeless wherever he walks.
Followers
Drezzar’s followers are desperate souls, warlords in desolate lands, cults born of starvation, and those who worship power through deprivation. They believe that suffering reveals truth, and that hunger strips the soul bare. His clergy, known as the Witherbound, are gaunt, sunken-eyed zealots who preach of cleansing the world through famine and decay.
In times of drought or poor harvest, Drezzar’s cults grow, offering dark bargains in exchange for survival. Villages once blessed with fertile land may turn to him in despair, only to find their salvation twisted into lifelong bondage.
Rituals and Offerings
-
The Rite of Withering: A forbidden ritual performed during the peak of drought or pestilence. A sacrificial offering—usually livestock, sometimes crops, sometimes people—is bound in thorns and left to decay at the edge of town. The Witherbound then burn what remains, calling for Drezzar to spare their land from worse affliction.
-
The Ash Cup: During times of lean harvest, followers drink from a blackened cup filled with ash and water, symbolizing their submission to Drezzar’s dominion and their rejection of worldly abundance.
-
Offerings: Withered stalks, decayed fruit, husks, dead insects, and broken tools are left at his altars. In desperate lands, people burn their last stores of grain in his name, praying for favor—or swift death.
Sigils and Symbols
Drezzar’s symbol is a withered stalk bent beneath a hollow sun, representing starvation and the absence of life-giving force. It is carved into parched earth, etched into ruined granaries, or worn as crude iron charms by the Witherbound. Farmers mark his sigil in secret to ward him away, while his priests mark it openly as a promise of coming blight.
Additional Details
Those called The Mawtouched are believed to have been marked by Drezzar from birth. They are often born during famines, their cries said to echo like wind through dead fields. The Mawtouched are rare but deeply feared, said to bring ruin wherever they stay too long. Some rise to lead Drezzar’s cults, others are exiled or sacrificed in a desperate attempt to appease the Hollow Maw.
Drezzar does not demand worship—he waits. All things decay. All life hungers. In the end, all things come to him.