Frenzy

Old version of Frenzy

Frenzy
Mad One; She of the Red Talons; Unbribled

Symbol: A pair of bloodstained claws
Home Plane: Pandemonium
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Cleric Alignments: CN, NE, CE
Portfolio: Uncontrolled nature, unchecked growth, cancers and diseases, aberrations, evil wild creatures, base instincts of intelligent creatures
Worshipers: Evil fey and magical beasts, corrupted formerly-good wild beings, dark druids, many peasants, lycanthropes
Domains: Air, Animal, Chaos, Earth, Fire (Ash), Madness, Plant (Decay), Water
Favored Weapon: Spear or natural weapons

Physical Description:
Frenzy appears as a hideous creature that most resembles a red-furred unicorn. However, instead of hooves, the goddess has terrible rending claws, and the beast’s teeth are long and razor-sharp. Both claws and teeth are perpetually stained in the gore of freshly-killed victims.

Description of Nature, Personality, and Dogma:
Let it loose! That is the rallying cry of Frenzy to all who will listen. Frenzy is a creature of the wilds, of unchecked nature, red in tooth and claw. She is absolutely insane, obsessed with sating her instincts in the most immediate and messy way possible, no thought of consequences or of proper forethought ever crossing her frenzied mind.

Where Matra is a goddess of life and growth and fertility, Frenzy, the half-formed mistake that Matra was made to replace, embodies these qualities, but in an uncontrolled form, espousing total anarchy, and utter absolution of all things even remotely civilized. The acceptance of instinct over all else in Frenzy’s doctrine of destruction is very appealing to intelligent magical beasts with an evil bent, such as worgs, and to many who revel in the absolute freedom that comes with anarchy.

Clergy, Places of Worship, Important Rituals, and Servitor Races:
Frenzy’s clergy are usually druids who have given themselves over to evil, or fey who have been corrupted by the wild maliciousness of nature and have taken class levels. There are a few cultists of other races as well, those who have given themselves over to their base urges, and now stalk the night and hold wild, orgiastic ceremonies beneath the blood moon. Very frequently the leader of a peasant village that worships the Mad One will also be a clandestine cleric of Frenzy. Frenzy regularly marks her clerics, those who demonstrate sufficient calm madness to serve her without revealing themselves, with bestial features that grow steadily more pronounced as they grow in power and devotion to her, until eventually they are no longer able to conceal their true nature from civilized folk, and must live in the wilds like beasts themselves.

While there are plenty of creatures who worship Frenzy, because of the large number of evil creatures in the wild, such as fey and worgs and other such monstrosities, there are also a great many more covert worshipers of She of the Red Talons. These are often simple peasant folk who at first start out trying to placate Frenzy, so that attacks from wild animals and plagues on their crops and on themselves will stop. Eventually, however, what is at first placation turns to veneration as Frenzy whispers madness and the lure of power and unshackled instinct into the ears of these unsuspecting souls. Her places of worship are most often stone circles from ancient date, erected by long-forgotten hands or thrust up from the bones of the earth itself by powerful magic or titanic, primordial upheavals. These circles may also be barren clearings in the woods, the earth beneath blighted beyond recovery by some terrible curse of ages past. They are almost always above ground, with an excellent view of the open sky. Villages that are built near these sites are almost always populated by Frenzy's cultists, who regularly do their best to maintain a perfectly normal exterior, so as not to arouse suspicion from travelers which might bring swift and lethal retribution. Lone travelers and others who might not be missed, however, are in grave danger of being sacrificed in the old stone circle on the hill.

While many peaceful-seeming remote hamlets have Red Sabbaths (the name of the major worship ceremonies of Frenzy) in the woods and hills around their isolated townships, the true nature of their religion is seldom realized until it is far too late for the idle traveler. Red Sabbaths are generally held after any successful endeavor that enriches the group (be it a pack of worgs, a village of peasants, or a coterie of evil fey). In a Red Sabbath, the worshipers of Frenzy will meet in their dark circles and engage in orgiastic rites, which have the sacrifice of an intelligent creature (who can be of any age, though younger victims are prefered) as their climax, followed by wild and unfettered celebration.

As has been mentioned, evil fey and other evil-aligned creatures of nature regularly serve Frenzy. Evil elementals, including taint elementals, also serve her on the planes.

History and Relations:
In that time when all things were in their infancy, the new world of Therafim had, like many worlds, a collective spirit, the essence of all things that live on and in the world and draw life therefrom. Therafim is a living world, constantly bursting with unfettered growth and life, and it was inevitable that this vital essence would eventually gain a consciousness of its own. However, for each positive there is also a negative, and while Matra was the great Mother Goddess who eventually ascended to power over Therafim, the embodiment of life in the world, another, darker essence also gained divine status in Matra's shadow. This was Frenzy, the embodiment of all that stagnates and is corrupt in the living world. Where Matra was a being of living things, sharing her power freely with all of Therafim's creatures, Frenzy was a creature of life without limits, growth without check. Where she turned, growth took place, but soon grew out of control, choking off all other life, before eventually starving itself into oblivion. Matra, seeing the danger her dark shadow posed, called upon the other gods, and waged war against Frenzy. Frenzy was beaten in this conflict, but she escaped into the Outer Planes, and lurks there to this day, waiting for her chance to usurp power from Matra, whispering madness to all who will listen.

Favored Offerings and Justifications for Direct Intervention:
Blood sacrifices are the only offerings that Frenzy even acknowledges. Sacrifices of infants and virgins are especially prized.

Because followers of most of the other deities of Therafim are constantly on the lookout for Frenzy and her followers, she seldom has an opportunity to make her presence directly known on the Prime Material Plane. However, she will occasionally risk exposing herself so as to make especially great and terrible bargains with mortals. These bargains must include truly massive acts of slaughter, which can result in the razing of whole towns, or the deaths of several great heroes, just to get her attention. When approaching Frenzy in this fashion, it is possible to extract from her promises of immense power; in fact, almost anything that the one petitioning her could possibly desire, including the (apparent) true resurrection of the dead and the forming of empires, so long as these wishes are not so obvious that even the Mad One can see that they would alert the other gods to her act. However, without exeption, the end result of these great gifts, which seldom have a cost beyond the initial bloodletting to get Frenzy's attention in the first place, is madness and corruption. The strain of ruling an empire will eventually drive the ruler mad, and all his works will be torn asunder before his eyes shortly before his death; a true love brought back from the dead will turn out to have actually been a malignant spirit that took on her form, corrupting the one who had sacrificed all to save her, before finally revealing her true nature at the last, when it is far too late. Each of these great gifts will be, at first, exactly what the petitioner wants. In the end, no good will ever come of asking Frenzy's help, leading many to believe that the only ones who would approach her in the first place must have been at least partially mad to begin with.