Thursday, February 17, 2011

Petty Goddess: Dozentit, Goddess of Perfunctory Inquiry

[Spawns says: I had a couple of Petty Gods candidates I couldn't get together for the Dec. 31 deadline, but I figured there's no point in letting them languish. Here's one. If anyone is inspired to illustrate it for kicks, be my guest!]

In former times, Dozentit was a goddess of fecundity and abundance revered by the hill pastoralists of Oblendis, before they were overrun and brutally disenfranchised by the Horkandian poppy lords during the Great Upset. In fragmentary sculptures that survive, Dozentit is depicted as a nubile, healthy young adult female with a slightly stern aspect, bearing a milk pail in each outstretched arm, and 6 pairs of burgeoning breasts distributed in all directions around her torso. The Oblendian herdsmen offered regular sacrifices and wailing prayers to secure the blessings of Dozentit, who would assure the prodigious flow of milk in all manner of dairy cattle, as well as in new Oblendian mothers and nursemaids.

Dozentit languished unworshipped for centuries during the Horkandian period, but was inadvertently recalled from her gradual dissipation beneath the Oblendis hills when the area was annexed by the Kiryen Empire. The urbane new colonists, noted for their highly refined social graces and fear of impolite interactions, unknowingly invoked the holy name of Dozentit hundreds of times a day in the course of incidental banter:

“Philadora’s hat looks delightful, dozentit?”

“This Nydirian wine tastes a bit off, dozentit?”

“Making an issue of Ylliria’s flatulence seems a tad indelicate, dozentit?”

Harkening to these myriad calls, Dozentit occasionally materializes at dinner parties, coffee dates, and nail salons where her unknowing beckoners uncomfortably attempt to act as if she isn’t there, and continue their conversation as if nothing were out of the ordinary. This causes the goddess a consternation she has yet to resolve, but she prefers it to endless slumber.

When invoked, she can answer questions as for Commune at will, but only for questions the PC already knows the answer to.

4 comments:

  1. Ok, that's great. Way better than my petty god!

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  2. Nice! An illustration definitely seems in order. Does her temple look anything like the Korova Milk bar in A Clockwork Orange?

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  3. Hmm, interesting. Yes, I'd say Korova Milk Bar, but ruined and dungeony since she's a goddess on the wane. But the statues would definitely still have the big hair.

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  4. A real shame Dozentit was not given in to James M. She's a beauty, especially because I was so stupid I read to near the end before I got the joke. The great big smile it brought me convinces me Dozentit is a Petty God winner. Maybe send it to him anyway.

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