Title: The Slow Hunger
Domains: Withering
Creators: Vorthar and Zoroth
Pantheon: The Nyx
Description
Ralos, the God of Decay, is the patient force that claims all things in time, the whisper of rust on iron, and the gentle surrender of wood to rot. Born from Vorthar, the Dark Weaver’s understanding of endings and Zoroth, the Hollow Prince’s mastery over the inevitable, Ralos is known as The Slow Hunger, a deity who embodies not the violent destruction of flame or blade, but the quiet, inexorable process by which all things return to dust.
He appears as a figure caught in eternal, gradual dissolution—sometimes a once-noble lord whose finery slowly unravels thread by thread, other times an ancient tree whose bark peels away to reveal the slow death beneath. His form is never static; parts of him constantly crumble to ash only to reform slightly changed, as if he exists in a state of perpetual, gentle collapse. His eyes are the color of autumn leaves just before they fall, and his touch leaves behind the faintest traces of rust, mold, or the sweet scent of things returning to earth.
His voice is the sigh of settling foundations, the soft crack of aging wood, and the whisper of sand wearing away stone grain by grain.
Followers
Ralos draws to him those who have witnessed the slow victory of time over all mortal endeavors. His followers are often solitary figures: The Patient Watchers—archivists who tend to crumbling libraries, groundskeepers of abandoned estates, and archaeologists who study fallen civilizations. Unlike other dark gods, many who serve Ralos do so with a strange peace, finding comfort in the certainty that all struggles eventually end.
Undertakers and embalmers sometimes unknowingly serve him, as do those who tend ruins and forgotten places. The Rust Touched are his most devoted servants—individuals who have learned to accelerate decay through careful neglect, hastening the return of “temporary” things to their natural state of dissolution.
Some of his followers are scholars who have grown weary of trying to preserve knowledge against time’s passage, choosing instead to document the beautiful process of entropy itself.
Rituals and Offerings
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The Willing Rust: Followers expose treasured objects—weapons, jewelry, books—to the elements for a full season, allowing them to naturally decay while meditating on the temporary nature of all things. The resulting rust, mold, or rot is carefully collected as an offering.
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The Feast of Endings: A ritual meal prepared entirely from foods on the verge of spoilage—overripe fruit, aged cheese near turning, bread just beginning to mold. Participants consume these offerings while reciting the names of fallen kingdoms and dead heroes.
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Offerings: The final pages of books eaten by insects, keys that no longer fit their locks, the last stones from crumbling walls, and flowers pressed until they become dust.
Sigils and Symbols
Ralos’s symbol is a perfect circle slowly being consumed from the edges, leaving only fragmentary curves that suggest what once was whole. Sometimes it appears as an hourglass with sand that falls upward, or as a tree whose roots and branches mirror each other in a cycle of growth and decay. His sigils are carved into weathered stone that will eventually erode them away, painted with pigments that fade in sunlight, or worked into textiles that will naturally unravel over time.
Additional Details
The Time-Worn, those touched by Ralos’s influence, age more gracefully than others but also seem to carry an aura of gentle melancholy. They often become masterful at predicting when things will break, spoil, or fail, developing an almost supernatural sense for the hidden weaknesses in all structures and systems.
Ralos teaches that decay is not destruction but transformation—a return to the fundamental elements from which all things are made. To him, the fear of aging, of endings, of things falling apart is a denial of the natural order. He whispers to the grieving that loss is inevitable and therefore beautiful, to the proud that their monuments will crumble like all others, and to the ambitious that empires are merely elaborate sandcastles built on time’s endless shore.
His greatest sermon is written in every ruined city, every fallen tree, every forgotten grave—a testament to the patient truth that all things, in their time, come home to dust.