Talona

Talona
Game background
Title(s) Lady of Poison,
Mistress of Disease,
Mother of All Plagues
Home plane 2E: Palace of Poison Tears (Carceri)
3E: The Barrens of Doom and Despair
Power level Lesser
Alignment Chaotic Evil
Portfolio Disease, poison
Domains Chaos, Destruction, Evil, Suffering[1]
Superior None
Design details

Talona (/təˈloʊnə/ tə-LOH-nə),[2] (The Lady of Poison, Mistress of Disease and Mother of All Plagues) is the fictional goddess of poison and disease in the Forgotten Realms fictional universe of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.

Publication history

Ed Greenwood created Talona for his home Dungeons & Dragons game, which Greenwood states the version of the Finnish deity Kiputytto taken from the Deities & Demigods book and renamed.[3]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition (1977-1988)

Talona first appeared within Dungeons & Dragons as one of the deities featured in Ed Greenwood's article "Down-to-earth Divinity" in Dragon #54 (October 1981). Talona is introduced as Lady of Poisons, Mistress of Disease, the goddess of disease and poisoning, a chaotic evil demigoddess from the plane of Tarterus. Talona is described as one of “The Dark Gods” of evil alignment: "Loviatar, Talona, and Malar serve Bane through Bhaal (although Loviatar and Talona are rivals)." Talona is commonly worshipped by chaotic evil magic-users, assassins, and clerics.[3]

Talona later officially appeared as one of the major deities for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set's "Cyclopedia of the Realms" booklet (1987).[2]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (1989-1999)

Talona was described in the hardback Forgotten Realms Adventures (1990),[4] the revised Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (1993) in the "Running the Realms" booklet,[5] and Faiths & Avatars (1996).[6]

Her role in the cosmology of the Planescape campaign setting was described in On Hallowed Ground (1996).[7]

Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 edition (2000-2002)

Talona appears as one of the major deities of the Forgotten Realms setting again, in Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001),[8] and is further detailed in Faiths and Pantheons (2002).[9]

Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition (2003-2007)

Talona, also known as Sss'thasine'ss, was detailed as a goddess worshipped by poisonous reptilian races in Serpent Kingdoms (2004).[10]

Description

Talona is depicted as an old crone who walks bringing misfortune and death. Talona is the goddess of plague and disease, her followers are expected to go about quietly and seek out new diseases.

Relationships

Talona allies with Loviatar and Shar, despises Chauntea, Mielikki, Kelemvor, and Tyr, and dislikes Ilmater for the cures he finds.[11]

Dogma

Scripture

Let pain be as pleasure, for life and death are in balance, but death is the more powerful and should be paid proper homage and respect. Death is the true power, the great equalizer, and the lesson that waits for all. If it falls to you to drive home the point with the tip of a dagger, so be it. The Mother of All Plagues works upon you from within, and weakness and wasting is her strength. Talona's breath is forever and always with you, whomever you or the rest of the world believes in or serves. Let all living things learn respect from Talona and pay homage to her in goods and in fervent worship. If they do so, intercede for them so that Talona will not claim them - this time. Go and work in Talona's name and let your doings be subtle or spectacular, but make them known as the will of the Mistress of Disease.[11]

Worshippers

Clergy

Priests of Talona carry daggers dipped in poison. In the R.A. Salvatore series The Cleric Quintet, the formula to the concoction known as the "Chaos Curse" was given to Aballister Bonaduce by an imp which the avatar of Talona had told Aballister about.

Churches

Creative origins

In the Second Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Talona was an interloper deity - one of several deities who originally came from Earth. This was omitted from the Third Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Rinschler, Thomas E. "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting: Deities Supplement" (Wizards of the Coast, 2001).
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb and Karen S. Martin (1987). Forgotten Realms Campaign Set. Wizard of the Coast. ISBN 0-88038-472-7.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ed Greenwood, Dragon magazine #54 - "Down-to-earth divinity" (October 1981)
  4. ↑ Grubb, Jeff and Ed Greenwood. Forgotten Realms Adventures (TSR, 1990)
  5. ↑ Ed Greenwood (1993). Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. ASIN B000K06S2E.
  6. ↑ Martin, Julia, and Eric L Boyd. Faiths & Avatars (TSR, 1996)
  7. ↑ McComb, Colin. On Hallowed Ground (TSR, 1996)
  8. ↑ Ed Greenwood et al. (2001). Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Wizard of the Coast. ISBN 0-7869-1836-5.
  9. ↑ Boyd, Eric L, and Erik Mona. Faiths and Pantheons (Wizards of the Coast, 2002)
  10. ↑ Greenwood, Ed, Eric L Boyd, and Darrin Drader. Serpent Kingdoms (Wizards of the Coast, 2004)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Boyd, Eric L, and Erik Mona. Faiths and Pantheons (Wizards of the Coast, 2002).