Hel
Name(s): Goddess of Death and the Underworld
Status: Intermediate Deity
Symbol: Her face
Home Plane: Nilfheim
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Portfolio: Death, underworld
Worshipers: Anyone who fears death
Clerical alignments: CE, LE, NE
Domains: Death, destruction, evil
Favored Weapon: Longsword
The daughter of Loki and the female giant Angrboda and the least monstrous of the three children of that union as her siblings of the full-blood are Fenrir, the wolf, and Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent. Hel was banished to Nilfheim and given charge of the unworthy dead, those who had not earned the pleasures of the other afterlives. There her power outweighs even Odin as she was able to deny him when Baldur was slain and sent to her domain.
Her appearance is that of a woman whose face and body are alive and fair on one side, but dead and rotting on the other, though given her paternity it is unclear how truthful this is. Some depictions of her show her as simply rather gaunt and severe looking so whether that is her true appearance and the other an assumed form, or vice versa, or both are assumed shapes is debatable.
Hel teaches no particular dogma to the living as her focus is her dead minions and her preparations against Ragnarok. If someone might be useful to her then she might grant them some gifts, but otherwise she is disinterested in matters outside her domain. Despite this lack of organised worship she does have a temple in the roots of Yggdrasil and has acted as a rallying point for some who feel that society has unjustly imprisoned, exiled, or ignored them. To avenge these real or imagined slights these people have plotted with each other and with followers of Shagarath to advance the cause of the undead on Ysgard and try to corrupt the worthy so when they are slain they would be judged unworthy and sent to Hel.
