Taal

Taal is the god of nature in all its untamed majesty, lord of the deep forests, the mountains, the rivers, and every wild beast that walks or crawls beneath the open sky. He is one of the oldest powers venerated by the folk of the Empire of Man, a god as vast and indifferent as the wilderness itself, worshipped with awe by those who dwell beyond the safety of stone walls.

Where the cults of the cities look to order and civilisation, Taal reigns over all that lies outside them. His worship is strongest in the great forested provinces, among hunters, foresters, herdsmen, and villagers whose lives hang upon the moods of the land. Alongside his consort Rhya, goddess of the fertile earth and the turning seasons, he forms one half of the oldest divine marriage in the reckoning of men.

Taal is no gentle shepherd. The wild is cruel as often as it is bountiful, and the god's favour is as fickle as a flooding river or a failed harvest. To honour him is to respect the boundary between the tamed and the untamed, and to fear the dark heart of the forest where beastmen gather and older, hungrier things still stir.

To the country-folk of the Empire, Taal is the thunder in the mountains and the stag in the glade, a reminder that for all their walls and cannon, mankind holds only a few frail clearings in a world that remains, at its roots, savage and wild.