Bertoxxulous, the Plaguebringer

The beauty of rot

His faithful believe the only truth is that everything dies, and they find the decay of flesh beautiful: the purple of a fresh bruise, the yellow-green of an infected sore. They are not suicidal. They want long, painful lives spent spreading their stain across Norrath, and many of them become necromancers. Oozes, undead and every manner of evil creature keep his company, and he is revered by necromancers “and few others, but these worshipers are enough for him.”

The Plaguebringer

He is the god of disease and death, discordant evil, and he usually appears as a hunchbacked human in tattered robes, a rotting corpse with a handsome face set in an otherwise grotesque head, carrying a scythe. He has no allies among the gods and a long roll of enemies: Tunare, Rodcet Nife, Karana, Mithaniel Marr and Rallos Zek.

Lxanvom and the Xulous

His house is older than most. The Crypt of Decay was first built on Antonica, long ago, to hold the dead kings of an ancient race who called it Lxanvom, “Kings Rest.” The in-game Necropolis of Lxanvon Vol. II remembers the royal priests of the Xulous kingdoms travelling out from their ivory cities to bring offerings to their dead kings, and Bertoxxulous appearing before them clothed in the decaying bodies of the Xulous nobles, demanding obedience, reverence and sacrifice. The Xulous became a race he cursed.

Raex and Vindor

His tomes are full of such bargains. One tells of two childhood friends in the kingdom of Skaxron who grew into the greatest knights of their generation. War swept their land, their good king was killed, and a dark emperor seized the throne. Surviving as mercenaries, Raex and Vindor swore vengeance.

Bertoxxulous heard them and offered his help in exchange for their eternal servitude, and they agreed at once. With a snap of his fingers he banished the dark emperor, who had been his own servant all along. He had conquered their world only to recruit them.

The last sanatorium

Another tome tells of a society of healers whose sanatoriums were famous across a kingdom, until a plague came that none of them could cure, and one by one the houses of healing became tombs.

The Bloodsabers of Qeynos

In Qeynos his cult hides beneath the city. Every evil guild summons there carries the same invitation: “Your fate lurks in disease and bile, the blood of Bertoxxulous. Beneath the Grounds of Fate Arena, the rotting bones of fallen warriors mark the entrance to the underworld,” where the Bloodsabers wait. A new convert writes home to Merona on a Torn Parchment: “I have foolishly given them my flesh. I was a weakling and cried while they stripped it from my bones.” Ages later, EverQuest II’s A Martyr’s Tale is told by a Bloodsaber put to death by Qeynos at the end of the War of Plagues.

The Plane of Disease

It was two Bloodsaber brothers of Qeynos, Milyk and Adler Fuirstel, who opened the way to his plane in the Planes of Power, seeking his wisdom. The portal spewed plague over them instead, and adventurers had to slay Grummus, the plane’s guardian, to win the ward that could save Milyk. Beyond it lies a land of rotting flesh where rivers of pus pool into a swamp of bile, and within it the Crypt of Decay where he dwells.

Defeated in Time

When mortals reached him at last in the Plane of Time, he greeted them in character: “Imagine every debilitating disease in the world stripping away your body and mind. Now prepare to experience that feeling by a hundred fold!” His last words held a promise: “Defeat by mortals… impossible. The power of decay still beckons for you… someday…”