MYRKUL: TO SERVE THE LORD OF BONES

TO SERVE THE LORD OF BONES

Myrkulyte Clergy In 1499 DR

Since Myrkul’s return in 1488 DR, his church has becoming a functioning faith across Faerûn once more. His priests remain rare and few, but have acquired a new nickname: they are now more often referred to by others as “Reapers” (short for “Lesser Reapers who serve THE Reaper”) than by their traditional name of the Gray Ones (or the disparaging alternative “the Fingerbones”).

Regardless of rank, they wear ankle-length, cowled black robes (though wear and tear may make these both tattered and a mottled dark gray), gathered at the waist with a white sash or cord, and black helms or half-masks (upper half of the face) painted and/or sculpted to look like a white human skull. In public, they often wear full armor under their robes, whereas inside temples dedicated to Myrkul, they may go barefoot, and bare their faces.

On rare occasions of high holy formality, or when dressing to impress non-faithful, certain Reapers may wear black ankle-length vestments adorned with sewn-on bones or bone fragments intended to simulate ribcages, the major bones of arms and legs, pelvises and shoulder-blades and the like.

Temples of the Reaper

The holy symbol of Myrkul is a white, face-on, empty-sockets-for-eyes human skull (intact with jawbone) inset into a black equilateral triangle, point at top and one side horizontal “along the bottom.” The triangle is a stylized representation of a black cowl. (Some of the oldest temples also display an older symbol: a black cloth tightly stretched over a human skull beneath, so its staring shape can clearly be seen through the cowl; in such representations, the jaw of the skull is always wide open as if it is shouting or screaming, not “closed and grinning.”)

Any draperies on or around an altar will be black or a very deep, dark blue or purple.

An altar of Myrkul always takes the form of a black table, longer than it is wide and placed crosswise to supplicants, or a stone block (of the same dimensions and location). A black bowl, or raised bowl on a pedestal, may be placed at the midpoint of the altar, but this is optional and is always empty unless fingerbones are cast into it (like rolling dice) for divination purposes. An altar consecrated to Myrkul is always strewn with human bones, from more than one creature but otherwise a random array that never includes a skull.

Shrines to Myrkul may be set up anywhere, and may come and go, though they must be consecrated with a special prayer and the...

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