Myrkul

Myrkul is a god of death, decay, old age, exhaustion, dusk, and autumn. He claims power over corpses and souls and cares only for the acquisition of knowledge. Myrkul's faithful call him the Reaper. He is one of the Dead Three with Bane and Bhaal, former mortals who took the divine portfolio of the death god Jergal and were slain during the Time of Troubles.

Myrkul can call forth the soul of any slain creature and bind it into a wax skull. To exercise this power, he grinds up a piece of the creature's body, working the powder into the wax skull. As long as the soul remains inside the skull, the eye sockets burn with cold blue flames, and Myrkul can compel the trapped soul to answer his questions and share its knowledge. The skull melts a little with each service the soul renders until it collapses and the soul is freed. When he speaks to his followers, Myrkul sends a Wraith or the Ghost of someone known to the mortal.

Mortals fear Myrkul as the ending of things and as a symbol of hopelessness. Individuals don't pray to him but rather dread him and blame him for aching bones and fading vision. Myrkul is passionless and uncaring even to his most devout worshipers. Those who venerate Myrkul tend to be morose, taciturn, and obsessed with death and the undead. Wizards and other spellcasters who wish to master the necromantic arts follow Myrkul's teachings, as do undertakers and morticians.

Shrines to Myrkul or engravings of his holy symbol appear where people bury their dead, but full-fledged temples are rare. The few that exist are hallowed places where the dead from hundreds of miles around are brought for interment, even if they were not of Myrkul's faith. There is little space set aside for the living in such a location, usually only a single modest shrine, but the surrounding catacombs and ossuaries might be vast. Wicked cults of Myrkul haunt Baldur's Gate, plaguing the city alongside other followers of the Dead Three.

Myrkul's Chosen are imbued with terrifying necromantic might. He teaches them the secret of binding souls, as well as ways to siphon life from others to render themselves immortal.