The Taker, Dekatia

Dekatia, The Taker, along with The Giver, Ligavo, is responsible for overseeing the life essence. The Taker is responsible for reclaiming the life essence from any living thing that dies and returning it to the source. The Taker is a greedy deity who wishes she could hoard the essence, thusly she does what she can to increase the amount of death in the world. Unfortunately for her, regardless of what she does, she cannot stop the essence from eventually returning to its source. She wasn't always this way. In the beginning, she thought of her job as protecting the cycle of life as well as protecting the life essence, but it was during the First Wars, when death ran rampant, that she began to feel the power of the essence. She felt stronger the more essence that she had at any one time, and as the First Wars dragged on, the more her greed grew until she had a real hunger for the essence. Now, she maintains the cycle of life simply because of her desire for the essence, all the while looking for a way to hold on to the life essence. The Taker created the Negative Energy Plane with The Blacklight, Nomalari.

Clerics of The Taker are expected to take as much life as possible, but only when such taking is not going to cause the church undo difficulties. It is for this reason that the church of The Taker tends to thrive in more primitive societies, though theocratic societies with the church of The Taker in the forefront are not unheard of. In societies where The Taker is prominent, ritual sacrifice is commonplace and the general populace lives in fear of the church. The Taker never grants spells of resurrection or spells that would return the life essence to a living being. A cleric of The Taker can cast such spells from scrolls and other magic items, but will suffer severe repercusions unless they have a very good reason for doing so. Simple healing spells and effects are not forbidden, though they are highly discouraged unless the cleric is using the spells upon themselves or companions with similar goals as the cleric.

Alignment and Status: LE greater goddess

Symbol: a small dagger, coated in dried blood (the dagger is usually re-bloodied at every opportunity)

Portfolio: death, murder, sacrifice

Home Plane: Negative Energy Plane

Favored Weapon: dagger

Favored Spell Focus: Negative Energy Magic

Worshipers:

Children: The Destined, Delffina, The Avenger, Tormalin, The Butcher, Amasud, The Dead Man, Cauldarrin