Derketo

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The dual nature of Derketo encourages her worshippers to walk the knife-blade between lust and death. Her northern cult, found throughout Shem and Stygia, is worshipped with elaborate orgies that can include bestiality and necrophilia. Her southern cult, worshipped in the Black kingdoms, is focused primarily on sacrifice and death. Though the archpriests of Set frown upon the wanton rituals of the temple and want nothing more than to drive the 'cult' from their kingdom, they could never do so— the nobles and merchants would never allow it. Those who call upon her avatar will see that her dual nature is built into her very form; one half appearing as a beautiful woman, her body in the prime of life, while the other half is a rotting and degenerated corpse. “She is a dual-natured goddess who is worshipped in Stygia as the queen of lust and fertility, while feared in the Black Kingdoms as the goddess of death. She is both terrible and beautiful. A goddess of fertility and lust originally worshipped in Shem, Derketo can be found among the pantheons of many southern kingdoms, particularly Stygia and Kush. In Stygia, Derketo is a decadent, licentious deity, serving as the religious counterpoint to the strict and humorless devotions of Set, the Great Serpent.”