Kurtulmak

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The Horned Sorcerer, Steelscale, Stingtail, Watcher
Kurtulmak
General information
Portfolio:Kobolds, trapmaking, mining, war
Home:Nine Hells of Baator
Alignment:Lawful Evil
Gender:male
Class:Fighter 16/Cleric 8/Rogue 8/Sorcerer 8
Superior:Io
Rules items
Domains:Evil, Law, Luck, Trickery

Kurtulmak is the chief deity worshiped by the kobold race.


Description

Kurtulmak appears as a 5-foot tall kobold with steel scales. His tail has a poisoned stinger on its tip, and he also wields a spear. He exudes an aura of fear, causing foes to flee in panic.

Relationships

Kurtulmak is primarily the god of war and mining. The other main god worshiped by the kobolds is Gaknulak the god of protection, stealth, trickery, and traps. A lesser-known kobold demigod is Dakarnok. He has been allied with Gruumsh in the past, but dislikes Bahgtru. Kuraulyek, the patron of the urds, is said to be a servant of Kurtulmak who stole a pair of magical wings from his master and escaped to the Gray Waste. Kurtulmak hates Garl Glittergold above all other beings.

Kurtulmak is often linked to the draconic pantheon. Some myths hold that he is a son of Tiamat, queen of evil dragons, while others claim he was raised to divinity by Io, the draconic god of creation.

Realm

His realm in Avernus, Draukari, is a warren of caverns, its tunnels narrow and short-ceilinged. Warped, spectral forests grow on the surface. The twisting tunnels of Draukari are filled with blood and reek of death, and they twist so maddeningly that a body's sure to get lost in them. Anything larger than a halfling has to crawl through the mud, which is filled with traps and other nasty surprises.

Towns in Draukari include Frekstavik, Nibellin, and Snjarll.

While he is no great threat to the safety of the Hells, various baatezu archdukes curry his favor as one more ally in the continual power struggle between factions. Kurtulmak smiles graciously, takes any and all aid, and proceeds to rob the archdevils blind while maintaining his front as an ally against other powers.

Dogma

Kurtulmak tirelessly drives kobolds to make war upon gnomes in retaliation for a prank the gnomish deity Garl Glittergold pulled on him. Kurtulmak is known to have neither compassion nor a sense of humor.

Worshippers

Clergy

Kurtulmak's priests wear orange scale mail and iron helms. His sacred animal is the rook.

Priests of Kurtulmak begin their careers as miners. Those who regularly sustain injuries in their work are trained under rigorous military discipline to become clerics or adepts of the faith.

Rituals

At births, kobolds celebrate the return of the souls of those kobolds who have fallen in the service of their tribe, which they believe return to their original lairs for reincarnation. Those who die as cowards or traitors are reincarnated as giant beetles, who are hunted by kobolds for armor.

The enemies of kobolds are sacrificed to Kurtulmak monthly (under the light of Luna's crescent) in a gory ceremony.

Prayers to Kurtulmak have a rhythmic quality to them that can easily be recited while swinging a pickaxe. Prayers can also take the form of battle cries and promises of revenge. "By the point of Kurtulmak's spear and the tip of his poisonous tail, I will see every member of your family perish."

Coming-of-age rituals involve finding and defeating traps.

Temples

Kurtulmak is worshiped at the crescent moon in cave temples. His temples are carved out of earth and used to house adepts, clerics, and the tribes's most valuable treasures. These temples are protected with small, twisting tunnels and a staggering array of deadly traps.

Holy Days

Kurtulmak's holiest times are the nights of the crescent moon.

Relics

  • The Enveloping Pit is akin to a Portable Hole, but 50 feet deep. It is used as a convenient trap.
  • Skewer-of-Gnomes is a semi-sentient spear sacred to the faith.

Myths and legends

The Violation of Tiamat's Lair

In the kobold creation myth, Kurtulmak--and all kobolds by extension--owes his existence to an assault launched on Tiamat by an army of thieves shortly after she had laid a clutch of eggs. Badly injured and with her lair heavily damaged, she caused one of her eggs to hatch, thus creating Kurtulmak. The newly-hatched godling quickly began creating a defensive perimeter of traps and restoring the caverns. During the process, Kurtulmak found an egg of Tiamat's that had fallen away from the nest and, deeming it had been away for too long to ever hatch naturally, used his magic to cause it to hatch, thus producing miniature versions of himself: the first kobolds.

The Collapse of Kurtulmak's Hall

Several versions of this myth exist. In the first, described in Monster Mythology, Garl Glittergold is said to have willingly allowed himself to be captured by the scheming Kurtulmak in order to play a prank on him. Garl, bound and seemingly rendered harmless, suffered Kurtulmak's tedious bragging all the way down to his lair in Avernus before launching into a bizarre and humorous story about Bahgtru, the notoriously stupid son of the orcish god Gruumsh. Kurtulmak had recently had a disagreement with Bahgtru and, despite himself, began to laugh. While thus distracted, Garl slipped free of his bonds, retrieved his axe Arumdina from a portable hole, and sliced through the central pillar supporting the ceiling of Kurtulmak's lair. Kurtulmak, being a deity, was not seriously hurt, but had to expend a great deal of effort restoring his home to its former glory. Garl tweaked the kobold deity's nose and skipped merrily back to the Twin Paradises.

In a second version of the myth, from Dragon #332, Kurtulmak decided to carve out a beautiful cavern and rig it to collapse, whereupon he would then play a great jest; he would invite all of the other deities to the cavern for a feast, and tell them the tale of "The Violation of Tiamat's Lair." At the tale's end, he would pull out an ornate stone trigger and bury the assembled deities alive. The subsequent turn of events differs on whether the myth's teller is a kobold or a gnome, but either way Garl Glittergold stumbled across Kurtulmak's cavern and pulled the trigger, burying the God of the Kobolds in his own trap. The kobold version insists that Garl Glittergold did so because he was jealous of Kurtulmak's creation, whilst the gnomish version claims that Garl admired Kurtulmak's work and pulled the keystone out simply to see if it worked, soon forgetting all about the event. He did continue to wear the keystone about his neck, however, as it resembled his holy symbol (the kobolds believe this was the origin of his holy symbol).

A third version of this story is found in the book Races of the Dragon. When the dragon god Io gave the secret of creation to the first true dragons, the first dragon to use that secret was Caesinsjach, a green dragon. The first kobold was Kurtulmak. Because he was the first, he was much larger than any of his kin, and Caesinsjach commanded her kobolds though Kurtulmak.

When Caesinsjach told the kobolds to mine for precious metal, Kurtulmak invented the pickaxe. When she ordered them to tile her lair with gold, Kurtulmak minted the first draconic coin. And when she told them to mine precious stones, Kurtulmak taught himself sorcery to divine where minerals were located.

When Caesinsjach's lair was finished and she had become the wealthiest dragon in creation she let the kobolds go free.

In emulation of his former mistress. Kurtulmak immediately begain mining a lair for himself. Although he never asked for help he nonetheless received it. Every kobold he ever worked with came to his aid.

Kurtulmak found a spot with a near limitless supply of metal ore and precious stones. With Kurtulmak commanding the operation, it quickly became the most structurally sound and resourcefully designed mine the world had ever seen. Kurtulmak called it Darastrixhurthi, a fortress fit for dragons. Nothing rivaled it.

Garl Glittergold was not pleased. While his gnomes were playing useless games, the kobolds were busy working and were ready to emerge as a dominant race. And so with a wave of his hand, Garl collapsed Kurtulmak's mine, crushing all the kobolds inside. The other gods demanded an explanation but no deity came forward to reverse the damage done. Io, realising that no god would help, searched the souls of those who died to find Kurtulmak still clinging to life. Even buried under the mountain he would not give up on his people. Io gave Kurtulmak a choice. He would empower Kurtulmak with the strength to rebuild the mine, or he would make the mighty kobold a champion of his people for all eternity. In this latter case, the loss of Darastrixhurthi would remain, but the memory of what happened would never be forgotten. Kurtulmak chose the latter, becoming the racial deity of his people.

Vengeance Thwarted

Obsessed with revenge against the gnomish pantheon, Kurtulmak dragged Gaknulak to a citadel of the gnomish deities, attempting to booby-trap it. Unfortunately for them, the gnomish deities detected him, captured him, tied his tail in a knot, sticking a red nose on his face, and fastening a glowing stuffed chicken to his waist before kicking him back to the Nine Hells.

Trivia

  • "Kurtulmak" means "to survive/escape" in Turkish.

Bibliography

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