Game background | |
---|---|
Title(s) | The Crying God, the Broken God |
Home plane | 2E: Martyrdomain (Bytopia) 3E: House of the Triad |
Power level | Intermediate |
Alignment | Lawful Good |
Portfolio | Endurance, suffering, martyrdom, perseverance |
Domains | Good, Healing, Law, Strength |
Superior | Tyr |
Design details |
Ilmater (/ᵻlˈmeɪtər/ il-MAY-tər) is a fictional deity in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Ed Greenwood created Ilmater for his home Dungeons & Dragons game, created with similarities to the fictional deity Issek of the Jug, created by Fritz Leiber for the short story Lean Times in Lankhmar.
His name, though, bears a resemblance to that of Ilmatar, the mother of Väinämöinen, from the Finnish Kalevala (and it would not be his first or only borrowing from Finnish mythology).
Ilmater 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). Ilmater is introduced as the god of endurance, suffering, martyrdom, and perseverance, a lawful good lesser god from the plane of the Twin Paradises. He is described as having the appearance of "a broken man, with smashed hands which he constantly uses. He is the willing sufferer," and that he has the "power to manifest himself in creatures being tortured, but only if such creatures are of good alignment and have not done anything to deserve such treatment." Ilmater's role within the cosmology is also defined: "Torm and Ilmater serve Tyr, and worshippers and priests do the will of this Triad willingly." Ilmater is commonly worshipped by lawful good thieves, clerics, and characters employed as guards.