Hi All.

I'm running another campaign in Terrinoth, where the villains are Death Cultists trying to recover an ancient "Tablet of Death" from an underground burial complex, i.e. I reskinned Barrowmaze.

In my previous campaigns where the BBEGs were necromancers, they were all agents of Waiqar, which sort of explained their motivation; however, for this campaign, I imagine the cultists to be worshippers of Nodros, whom I imagine to be a Death God who had been worshipped since prehistory.

My question is (and I should have come up with an answer before I started the campaign): why would people worship Nodros?

Assuming they joined for the promise of eternal life, seeing the necromancers raise the dead as skeletons and zombies would surely have turned them off the cult pretty quickly?

Thanks in advance.

In Realms of Terrinoth page 123 it says only few worship Nordros some to avoid his wrath and others to gain mastery over cold and death. These are common tropes in fantasy when it comes to dark gods. The promise of power or to appease the dark gods so you wont get targted by them.

So the most obvious answer to why worship Nordros would be power. But for any good villian think you could go abit further why they in particular want power. Maybe your BBEG wants to help Nordros cover the world in ice because they think it corrupt and want it pure again. Perhaps the master of death promise to bring back a loved one who has died long ago. Whatever you come up with dont over complicate it

Good luck with the campaign.

The new novel, Doom at Fallowhearth actually covers this a bit, and paints Nordros worshippers in a much better light....

“Nordros isn’t the god of necromancy,” Ulma said in an exasperated voice. “He’s the god of death and

winter. Plenty of people worship him in the north, especially in Upper Forthyn.”

I agree with Archellus though, power would certainly be another temptation. It was for Dezra the Vile (a character in the novel).