Fizzlethorpe Bristlebane

Mischief as sacrament

Fizzlethorpe Bristlebane’s faithful believe in having fun at the expense of almost everything else. Bards, rogues, jesters, gamblers and wanderers follow him, and they treat practical jokes as the highest of rituals; their doctrine, as the 2001 manual puts it, “disregards trust and honesty.” Very few of them are truly wicked. Still, keep an eye on your purse, and never let one of them deal you a hand of King’s Court.

The god of fun

He is the god of fun and mischief, discordant neutral, lord of the Plane of Mischief. He has no fixed appearance and usually turns up as an entertainer or a rogue, his weapon the dagger, and no orderly soul may follow him. He keeps no track of his enemies, trusting that most gods like a laugh enough to forgive him. Brell Serilis and Erollisi Marr count as his friends, and in gnomish Ak’Anon he and Brell share a temple.

The second pact and Rivervale

He came to Norrath late, with Cazic-Thule, after the first races had been made, and Brell met the two of them with a new pact. On the surface, away from the elves and the giants, Bristlebane made the halflings: short, agile, meddling folk with a habit of pilfering.

The halflings call themselves the luckiest people of all because of where he put them. Rivervale lies among soft hills where a river runs, with narrow clefts behind it to keep them safe, and it can be reached only through Kithicor Forest or the Misty Thicket, neither kind to the careless. Beyond the Thicket lay the goblins of Runnyeye: nasty folk in a nasty place, as the halflings tell it.

Rivervale’s chapel

Nearly every halfling is loyal to Beek Guinders, High Priest of Mischief, whose clerics keep the Chapel of Mischief. His blessing turns up in odd places. Hendi Mrubble asks for three bixie stingers before she will cure your poison, then sends you off with “May the swift and silent spirit of Fizzlethorpe Bristlebane smile upon your frail soul.”

The sword that split Meldrath

Not all his pranks ended in laughter. Meldrath was born joined at the chest to a twin, one pure-hearted and one dark, and their mother wanted two whole sons. Bristlebane, disguised as a healer, gave her a magic sword to separate them, and she plunged it between the sleeping boys. What followed is the story of Meldrath the Malignant.

The black unicorn

His mischief reached the planes as well. In the Plane of Growth, Prince Thirneg explains that the first black unicorn, Lithiniath, was cursed by Bristlebane to spread madness. Lithiniath is not evil; his lawful nature was simply replaced by a chaotic reflection of itself.

A twin brother

There was once another Bristlebane. Until the gods withdrew, an EverQuest II developer wrote, there was also a god of luck, Xev Bristlebane, the younger twin of Fizzlethorpe, and Xev built huge versions of games of chance throughout the Butcherblock Mountains to amuse the other gods.