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InsanityAbyss
I am going use male pronouns in this profile, just to make it easier to read. Note Mär will take pretty much any pronouns you give them.
~God/Goddess of Sea and Storm
Name: Mär
Age: Ancient
Gender: Fluid, predominantly male or female
Personality: Mär issss...an older god. One of the first because when you live on a series of islands people Tend to pick up a god of sea and storms rather quickly. He has an...inhuman temperament. While not fickle he’s rather proud and playful similar to how fae are. He Knows he is an established god, Knows he has power and he knows that humans can’t usually see threw his magic. So he’s....playful. He Richly enjoys watching the dabblings of the mortas. And does everything he can to up his following. Makes an appearance of some sort at every festival to him, heeds the call of his priestesses, works to remedy those that show doubt of him, puts fear into those that speak ill. He is Tolerant of other worship but generally holds the strongest faith where he is worshiped unless he’s only Recently begun being worshipped in that location. More worship means more power, more power means more reach, more reach means more worship and so on. It’s just Fun to have the world at your fingertips
-As an Actual God. He’s chaotic but probably chaotic good aligned. He’s more inclined to teach you a lesson then eat your livestock. He Always has a smile on his face and a song in his head. If he doesn’t there is something real serious a ‘calm before the storm’ if you will. He does have a tendency to enjoy seducing people. Depending on whom you are this may involve you getting rushed into the tides and eaten or turned into a fish. But only as a punishment for something you’ve done against him. He probably has more spawn then most gods but actually keeps tabs on his kids and tries to provide what he can for their mothers. For the children he has mothered, most were raised in the sea, it’s theorized he is the mother of all merfolk. Honestly not a bad theory could easily be correct.
-Overall? He’s Friendly, Flirty, One who loves a good party, mostly kind but he doesn’t think human so what he thinks is kind and what they think is kind can vary. He’s Violent when opposed, loves his freedom above all and his vices is lust and greed.
Appearance: Mär is a shape changer and comes in Many MANY forms and ALL sizes.
-When seen on land as a human, he will most often take the form of a man, average in height but built to swim, with either wispy ginger hair and sky blue eyes, or Long wavy black hair and eyes like the ocean at night. The former is always dressed Well and Clean as if for a nice day at the beach, the latter is always dressed in something heavier as if to fend off a chill at night. The former is most often male in appearance the latter varies fifty fifty in gender.
His holy symbol is a creature with the head of a horse, the torso of a man (more in the Atlantic or the torso of a woman, more in the Pacific) and twin scaled mertails. The horses head is always facing west and the twin tails are always spread to either side of the front facing body, hands fisted just under the flukes.
-People also claim to see Mär in wind, shells, horses, hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs and a long list of other things which may or may not have been an actual account sighting.
-Mär will occasionally appear as a woman with the head of a horse. And VERY rarely appear as a man with the head of horse.
Bio: Mär is a god of Many things, he is a Big God and an Old God thus has many domains. His Domains are:
Sea, Storm, Sky(lesser but noted for Storm), Horses, Earthquakes, Fertility(of everything from crops to livestock to people), Motherhood, War, Love and Travel.
-The last two are his most recent domains and not as widely prayed for as others.
-His favorite offerings are: Shells, Wheat, Flowers (except for daisies) and Blood of usually sheep's but some traditionalist will use horse.
Before all of that was used the very first of his worshipers sacrificed people. There are some very interesting legends about what happened to those sacrificed people. Let it be noted he will still except human blood as an offering. People just don't tend to offer it anymore. Except during on spring ritual and that is not so much a Person and more, cut your hand and bleed into this bowl if you are brave enough.
-Long ago people also would lead horses or livestock into the sea as an especially great offering. Though this is not Common practice anymore. Once a year towards during autumn's close a Mass festival is thrown where a litter of top notch goods carried by six or nine people is brought out into the surf and sent out on the tide. This will also include the leading of a horse or horses, sheep and sometimes cattle or a cow is out into the surf.
Most towns and villages in the Altaic region have a small alter to him near the center of them. It is not uncommon for people that live far from a town to have personal alter. And those places that can afford it will sometimes have a church though Mar is not one for great verse or life codes, these churches are used as a place of massive prayer and the passing down of his stories, as well as guidance to some degree.
At the alters you can get creative and offer him almost anything. The listed above are just his favorite/the most common/likely to get you want you want and not hurt.
How he takes your 'creative' offer will be interesting indeed, he likes to see creativity in his followers. Do not give him silver bells or anything made of iron. This is considered and insult. Rope or chain of any kind is also considered a direct offense. Salt is to ward against him.
-Prayers are formally given in the evening, during sunset. But of course one can pray anytime they truly wish.
-A chestnut horse born to not chestnut parents is seen as a sign of good luck. So are humans and horse born with blue eyes from seemingly not blue eyed roots. Blue eyes are generally a good sign across the board from the natives whom follow close worship.
Devoted women wear red horse hair braids in their hair before giving birth and ring their beds with fresh seashells as a sign of faith.
-On the other hand some concerned peoples will ring their beds with salt or place a holly with red berries under their pillows to keep them safe from his interests and advances against them or their loved ones.
Some parents toss a handful of salt under the beds of their adult children to keep Mär away from seducing them.
People Not of his faith will often salt their grounds or leave blocks of iron at the four corners of their houses when a storm approaches to ward away his wrath upon them.
Extras: He is Most prominent in the Atlantic and Far East, Pacific region with moderate growing foot hold in what would be the Mediterranean. The indian ocean region has Heard of him but I would not call him Prominent there with only a handful of scattered people making private prayers devoted to his faith. The Arctic will know of him but probably not care to hard, the Antarctic is probably the only region he really hasn’t touched. A description could perhaps ring a bell to some level but they certainly would not know any facts on him.
- If you dash a handful of salt at his feet he cannot walk past/threw it. He may go Around it though so be careful with your salt.
- To offer a branch, sprig or collection of red holly berries upon his alter is an act of war against him because it is to declare a death threat to him and his children.
If you were to force him to hold a branch of red holly berries his skin would blister and turn to jelly where they touched. They Are poisonous for him to eat but it would be very hard to get him to eat enough to Actually do him harm as he would know he had consumed the moment they touched his tongue.
-He is also a god sometimes worshiped by merfolk being their founding patron. However this worship is always given in tandem with worship to the Guardians whom keep their homes viable. A boon of this worship however is a rather fast network of communication between places that his reach has not claimed.
-There are actually several water creatures such as Kelpie that he may be the progenitor of.
-Four leviathans that live in the deep Trenches have a rather great respect for Mär. Though they surface next to never and possibly are in great hibernation. They were once four humans that were, in his judgment, wrongly scarified to him by angry followers. And so before their life could Bleed out into the ocean, he turned them each into a sea monster so they could live a longer life and take vengeance on their killers.
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Also, The rituals and descriptions of character are all mine. However some of the charms and Kelpie inspiration for this god has come from the book Scorpio Races. Exp, the salt is a direct translation from Maggie’s Keplies. She is an Amazing author.
Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater:
https://www.amazon.com/Scorpio-Races-Maggie-Stiefvater/dp/0545224918/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539406714&sr=8-1&keywords=Scorpio+races&dpID=51l3TFMwN6L&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srchBuy the book here!! Huge Shout out and note to her writing. It is an Excellent book if you like fantasy I Highly Recommend even if you aren’t usually into YA.
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