ASTENDAR

Typical Appearance: Astendar commonly manifests as a powerfully built male or female of any race, wearing few garments and carrying a musical instrument.

Common Elements: Light rain, music, beautiful clothing of intricate textures

Powers: Astendar can entrance listeners with music, instill lust or love, restore youth, and transform into the sound of a song and float through the air, leaving the melody in her wake.

Questors: Many questors of Astendar are artists. Sensual pleasures, such as gourmet food, comfortable clothing, or a lingering kiss, fascinate them. Their tendencies to indulge their desires often get them into trouble; regarding their actions as inspired by their Passion, they wrongly assume everyone sees those actions in the same light. However, others frequently view their indulgences as mere decadent enjoyment unchecked by self-control or common sense.

Commentary: Astendar is the living muse of romance and the arts. Tales abound of artists paid a visit by Astendar who spent a feverish night alternately working at the easel and making love with the Passion. Such a gift of inspiration is not lightly given, and a visit from Astendar usually marks an individual for greatness.

Astendar also takes an interest in lovers, both young and old. One well-known incident involved a widow and widower who wanted to marry. Their children, however, believed their respective parents too old for romance and discouraged the courtship. Kept locked in their houses by their children, the couple appealed to Astendar for help. The Passion heard their pleas and agreed to aid them if they created a painting together. At first, the couple had no idea how they might do this, for they could not meet or see each other. Driven by their longing to marry, they finally came up with a plan.

The couple hired a Thief Adept they knew to carry a canvas back and forth between their two houses. Every night for many weeks, one of them added to the painting, and the thief carried it off to the other house just before dawn. As the painting neared completion, the lovers found themselves waiting more and more anxiously every night to see the other’s handiwork. Slowly but surely, Astendar’s painting turned a solid friendship and gentle affection into excitement, anticipation, and deepening love. At long last they finished the picture, astounded by the beauty of their work.

The exquisite painting so pleased Astendar that she made the couple young once more. Bolstered by their renewed strength, they broke free of their prisoning homes and ran away together. As for the Thief, he was rewarded with the painting, which he sold for a handsome price.

CHORROLIS

Typical Appearance: Chorrolis often appears as a corpulent male of any race, either jovial or bitter and depressed. He wears fine clothes, and often carries silver and gold or beautiful and expensive objects around with him.

Common Elements: Bags of treasure, caravans, goods for sale, food

Powers: Chorrolis can incite greed, encourage cooperation in matters of trade, and travel instantaneously along any road or waterway used as a trade route.

Questors: The questors of Chorrolis are capable, if greedy, merchants. Some work in markets, and others travel across Barsaive in trade caravans. Chorrolis frequently sends them to acquire some bauble or treasure he desires for his collection. Known for their bargaining skills, the questors of Chorrolis often try to hide their affiliation with the Passion by wearing nondescript clothing, in the hope of snagging bargains from the unwary.

Commentary: Chorrolis wanders the world, aiding those who want to strike a clever bargain or long for more wealth than they have. He inspires people to rise at dawn and work to improve their lot, and leaves them despairing if they go to bed at night without having succeeded. Despite his status as a Passion and the extraordinary powers he possesses, Chorrolis brims over with jealousy and avarice. He covets anything of value or beauty that someone else owns, and his desire to possess such items often drives him to distraction. Because he scorns simple stealing as the act of a coward, Chorrolis must resort to other methods of acquisition.

Bargaining is his method of choice. He has been known to hound the owner of a desired piece of merchandise for weeks at a time, turning up and offering a deal when the owner least expects it. Because he subtly disguises his appearance, most people do not recognize Chorrolis and eventually take the price he offers, desperate to be rid of the obsessive merchant following them around. Those who do recognize Chorrolis bide their time before selling, knowing that he will drive up his price to ridiculous heights. The patient trader can make a staggering profit by playing on Chorrolis’ desperate desire.

DIS(MAD PASSION)

Typical Appearance: Dis manifests as a thin, sickly male or female of any race, who seems to have been deprived of sunlight and exercise for far too long.

Common Elements: Papers, papers and more papers, contracts, tomes of ritual, slaves, chains

Powers: Dis can remove fervor from those around her and cause confusion in their minds, make people obey her will, and teleport instantaneously to any place she has visited before.

Questors: The questors of Dis wear heavy, gray robes and often affect the gaunt, pale face of their patron deity with make-up or illusion spells. Many of them, especially those controlling a mercantile bureaucracy or slaver operation, live comfortably off the fruits of their labor. Others are miserable people who aspire to nothing more than becoming so bored that they cease to feel.

Commentary: Dis is a popular Passion among the Therans and those Barsaivians who make their living from the Theran slave trade. Unlike the other Passions, Dis takes her greatest pleasure in destroying people’s passion for life, rather than inspiring it. She bleeds away her worshippers’ zest for living and they in turn demoralize those they subjugate. Eventually, the slaves and bureaucrats influenced by this Mad Passion become empty husks, devoid of dreams and feelings. Dis wants to extend this death of the soul throughout the world.

In addition to the slavers, Dis also inspires bureaucrats who create paperwork merely to look busy, rather than out of a need for the records or fondness for their work. Few activities spread boredom more effectively than generating useless records and information, and Dis spends a great deal of her time encouraging people to do just that.

FLORANUUS

Typical Appearance: Floranuus usually manifests as a humanoid shape composed of fire. However, the manifestation neither gives off heat nor burns any objects it touches.

Common Elements: Fire, parties, cheers, swift ships of both air and sea, wine, roads

Powers: Floranuus inspires stamina, alters moods from depression to exhilaration, and can travel at breathtaking speed anywhere in the world as a ball of fire.

Questors: Wildly optimistic, the questors of Floranuus strive to infuse everyone around them with their enthusiasm. These men and women see the positive side of every situation, no matter how dire or depressing. These questors see victory even in the most resounding defeat. “Next time we’ll win with the knowledge we have gained,” they often say. The questors of Floranuus wear colorful clothes, particularly favoring bright reds, and travel across the countryside looking for those who have lost hope. They do all they can to revive the spark of joy in souls without hope, often growing reckless in their efforts to light up the world around them as brightly as the flames of their Passion. Though many people consider these questors busybodies, none question their benevolent motives or sincerity.

Commentary: Floranuus is the perpetual optimist and the motivator of all Name-givers. He burns in the hearts of all who rise eagerly from their beds each morn to meet the new day. He inspires all people toward victory, and stands at the center of all celebrations. As the embodiment of joy, mirth, and excitement, he lacks understanding of despair. He sends his questors to help the deeply depressed, knowing that they may empathize with such feelings in a way that he cannot.