The phrase small gods make a lot of people think of the Pratchett novel of the same name. I first encountered the idea in the Fritz Leiber short story Lean Times in Lankhmar, where barbarian Fafhrd becomes the shaven-headed devotee of a very peculiar God and his long-time companion Mouser tries to drink him out of it.
In our world probably the closest equivalent is Mecca, pre-Muhammad. Before the Prophet captured Mecca and turned it into the heart of Islam Mecca was a hotbed of paganism, home to all sorts of since-forgotten gods. This was probably a relic of Mecca's trading post past; where the world's peoples gather and worship, peculiar practices become the norm. You might walk down any street - in Lankhmar it would have been the Street of the Gods where deities rise and fall by their position on that ill-destined thoroughfare - and find a divine who predates Rome and is now all but erased from history.
Mind you, as Leiber put it:
... the gods have very sharp ears for boasts, or for declarations of happiness and self-satisfaction, or for assertions of a firm intention to do this or that, or for statements that this or that must surely happen, or any other words hinting that a man is in the slightest control of his own destiny. And the gods are jealous, easily angered, perverse, and swift to thwart ...
With all that in mind:
The Small God of Belluccia Bridge
Location: under the shadow of the Well of Tears, Ironcross. Some prisoners can see Belluccia Bridge from their cells. It's some distance from the Bridge of Tears, though those unfamiliar with Ironcross sometimes mistake the two.
Description (day): A crossing point between two busy streets and a narrow alley, used mainly by bureaucrats, lawyers, and relatives of those who might find themselves in the Well of Tears. A trick of architecture encourages chill breezes at unexpected moments, threatening the security of wigs and hats. A statue of some unnamed person looks out from the bridge across the waters, their face and features long worn smooth by the touch of unnumbered hands. Those who bother to notice it at all call it the Cheese, and there is a persistent rumor that the Cheese is a nickname of a long-forgotten judge in whose honor the statue was made. Legend has it that if the Cheese favors your case you cannot fail, which is why so many lawyers have caressed its worn face over the years.
Description (night): A lonely and unremembered stretch that seems longer, somehow, and narrower than it does during the day. There is no breeze at night, and the air is, if anything, unnaturally still. Without the bustle of lawyers and clerks Belluccia Bridge echoes at every footfall, and when there's no-one around the gentle lap-lap of the water below becomes oppressive, as if each watery caress is the tick of an eternal clock slowly winding down to nothing. There is a statue of a sharp-faced man here whose staring eyes seem to follow every visitor. In one hand he holds a dirk, in the other a key. The key, a symbol of knowledge, is in the left hand which some consider a sign of sorcery - knowledge of sorcerous techniques is called the left-hand path. The dirk, in art and sculpture, is sometimes called the martyr's point.
Rumor: if you seek knowledge or success in a legal cause, you must make your appeal to the Judge at the dead of night at Belluccia Bridge. If your appeal is heard and granted, your action cannot fail. If the Judge can be bribed, as so many earthly judges can, nobody knows what offering would find favor in his eyes.
Danger: At least three people claim to have met a shadowy duelist on Belluccia Bridge. Of those three, only one escaped without injury and there have been seven corpses found in the waters underneath the bridge, all run through the heart, that might be victims of this unknown assailant.
The Small God
all want to learn, but no one is willing to pay the price ...
It calls itself the Balance. When the Well of Tears was first built (and few remember when that was) it came here as the last resort of the unfortunate, the one who put its thumb on the scales of justice to release souls from confinement.
Not bodies. Souls.
The Balance considers itself a God of Law. However, it's not blind justice. This is the kind of law which, with a nudge and a wink, adjusts the scales in favor of one side or the other. The kind that uses rules of procedure and precedent to get what it wants.
The very first lawyers who came to the Well to see their clients were the first devotees of the Balance and they learned a great deal about their profession from the God. However, despite its blandishments it could never persuade any of these clerks and scriveners to become its champion, its proselytizer. They took; they did not give back.
In time the Balance soured. It forgot why it settled beneath the Well of Tears and began to obsess about the lost and damned inside the jail, the ones who never saw trial, who vanished inside its innards. It forgot the law. It forgot precedent and justice. It wanted revenge.
It whispered at night to the duelist Lorenzo Vasari, betrayed by his employer and left to rot in jail for an assassination disguised as a legitimate duel. Vasari wanted out; his lawyer kept promising freedom but never delivered. Lorenzo came to believe that the statue he could see from his cell was speaking to him at night, that it knew a way out of the Well and would help him - for a price.
It did know a way out. Now Lorenzo is the skeletal duelist, strong right hand of the Small God who will take vengeance on those who displease it. At its urging Lorenzo comes out of the water below, slime oozing from its ruined finery, its sword still gleaming bright.
The Balance still offers legal advice to those who know how to ask for it, and it will lend its supernatural support to those willing to work in its service. It can get souls out of the Well. It may even be able to get bodies out too; nobody can say for sure.
If it is displeased, it has its strong right hand. Vasari has the stats of a duelist (p47) and the weakness of a skeletal giant (p197). Vasari cannot be defeated unless its Health and Morale are both at 0, and Morale regenerates at the end of every round. Vasari cannot die so long as the Small God remains at Belluccia Bridge, but he can be defeated and if that happens he sinks beneath the water. He will be able to return the next night.
There is one special condition that will rid Eversink of Vasari for good. If it can be proven to the duelist that both its lawyer and its former employer are dead, Vasari will be released from the Balance's service and never be seen again.
That's it for this week. Enjoy!
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