Tag: Mark Tygart

Mace of Mog (Weight 1)

This enchanted mace blessed by the Newhon god Mog allows the character to double their damage roll only against corporeal monsters and hit incorporeal monsters for normal damage. Any bearer of the mace will find their eyes will change to resemble a spider’s eight eyes. This will cost the player four points of charisma as long as the character owns the mace. Should the player lose the mace the effect will fade in a few days. It in no way actually impacts the player’s vision.

Mog

“If there is a God he’s a great loathsome spider in the darkness.”

― John Fowles, The Collector

Lesser God

Symbol: Silver medallion with the image of Mog

Home Plane: Newhon

Colors: Black and Silver

Alignment: Neutral (Chaotic Neutral)

Portfolio: Secrets, Arachnids, Underworld, Wealth

Worshipers: Thieves, Explorers, Scholars, Criminals, Assassins, Seers

Cleric Alignments: Neutral

Domains: Spiders, Secrets, Fate and Wealth

Favored Weapons: Mace, Dagger

The Lord of Newhon’s Arachnids rules over creatures both eight-legged and two-, dwelling in the paradisiacal environs of Godsland on Nehwon’s southern continent. Mog’s physical form is that of a four-legged spider with a handsome, but not yet all-together human face. Some say there is a passing resemblance between Mog and “that mongrel and long-suspected cutpurse, burglar, and assassin, the Gray Mouser.”

The Gray Mouser worshipped Mog the Spider God for a time (and also robbed his temple, but Mog was happy for the few worshippers he still has and forgave his wayward son), and by the end of his adventures was one of the god’s few surviving worshippers. This god is a human-sized spider with a man’s head. His worshippers claim that he sits in the middle of a vast web which contains the fates of all humans. Some say that a human can survive only so long as he or she can evade Mog’s grasp. Mog’s worship is now rare. Those few who still worship him usually do so in private in order to avoid the scorn of others. For his part, Mog would like to attract new worshippers, but all his attempts have failed. He does not have a temple on the infamous Street of the Gods in Lankhmar. He is considerably less evil (he is amoral) than often portrayed and sometimes confused with Newhon’s voracious and evil Demon Spider Deity of Ilthmar. He is more like the Anansi, the trickster spider god of African folklore than Lolth.

Mog enjoys hanging out with the Newhon barbarian war god Kos and Death (Newhon).

Mog is always eager to acquire new servants and the players will do nicely. Characters that bear his mace can expect Mog to begin contacting them in their dreams offering rewards for quests and promising curses if ignored. He would like to see the artifact the Mace of Mog recovered so that he can expand his influence further on this Dungeon World…

Anansi is the trickster spider god of West African. He often takes the shape of a spider and is considered to be the god of all knowledge. He is also one of the most important characters of West African and Caribbean folklore.

He is also known as Ananse, Kwaku Ananse, and Anancy; and in the southern United States he has evolved into the “Aunt Nancy” of folklore. He is a spider, but often acts and appears as a man.

The Anansi tales are believed to have originated in the Ashanti people in Ghana. (The word Anansi is Akan and means, simply, spider.) They later spread to other Akan groups and then to the West Indies, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles. On Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire he is known as Nanzi, and his wife as Shi Maria.

Anansi is depicted in many different ways. Sometimes he looks like an ordinary spider, sometimes he is a spider wearing clothes or with a human face and sometimes he looks much more like a human with spider elements, such as eight legs.

Orlando Jones plays a version of Anansi on the Showtime cable television series American Gods.