Gnomesmasher, The Watcher
Intermediate Deity
Symbol: Gnome skull
Home Plane: Baator
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Portfolio: Kobolds, trapmaking, mining, war
Worshippers: Kobolds
Cleric Alignments: LN, LE, NE
Domains: Evil, Law, Luck, Trickery
Favoured Weapon: Spear
Relics: Enveloping pit, skewer-of-gnomes
Kurtulmak (kurt-uhl-mak), the deity of kobolds, appears as a particularly large kobold. He is about 5 feet tall, with scaly skin mottled black and green. His rat-like tail is long and tipped with a wicked stinger.
Kurtulmak taught the kobolds the arts of mining, ambushing and trap-making. Garl Glittergold, deity of the gnomes, once collapsed Kurtulmak’s cavernous home as a joke. The event wounded Kurtulmak’s pride on two fronts, as he considered himself both an expert trickster and a miner without equal. Since then Kurtulmak has hated Garl and all gnomes. Kurtulmak hates being bettered by any means, especially by some frivolous method such as an illusion or a practical joke. He carries grudges and has a huge chip on his small shoulder.
Kurtulmak is a savage deity who is always attentive to events on the Material Plane and eager to secure any advantage for his people. He teaches the kobolds that fair fights are for fools or for the unlucky. It is better to flee and fight again than to be defeated, and no fight is truly over if even one kobold lives. Revenge is sweet, says Kurtulmak, even if it takes years to arrange. Kurtulmak also teaches his people that a quick wit, a good plan and a well-laid ambush are far better than a strong sword arm.
Kurtulmak’s clerics lead war and raiding parties, see to tribal defence (especially the construction of traps), and oversee each tribe’s mining operations. Others lead expeditions to explore new areas and probe dwarf and gnome settlements for weaknesses the kobolds can exploit.
No kobold community is complete without a temple or shrine to Kurtulmak. They are usually dug out of solid rock and accessed through narrow, twisting passages guarded by traps. Inside, a temple to Kurtulmak is cramped and usually decorated with piles of gnome skulls.
Kurtulmak insists that his clerics train under military discipline, learning doctrines for setting ambushes, building defences and otherwise defending the kobold people. The final test for a would-be cleric is to survive a run down a corridor filled with deadly traps.
Anything that enhances the stature of the kobolds is a boon to Kurtulmak. Collapsing a series of gnome burrows, convincing a dragon to live among a kobold tribe, and building a trap-filled set of kobold warrens are all typical quests.
Many of Kurtulmak’s prayers reference dragons and reptiles, such as “O Watcher, I slither before your scaly majesty”.
Kurtulmak’s temples are claustrophobic warrens bristling with traps, but they often have the accumulated wealth of a kobold community in their treasury.
Kurtulmak blesses births and honours deaths, but his ceremonies often feature a simulated or actual trap. Kobold youths, for example, contend with the Blessing of the Pit as a rite of passage.
Kurtulmak uses an 18-HD erinyes with reptilian features as a herald. Allies are bearded devils, erinyes and ice devils.
Source: Deities and Demigods (Page 79), Complete Divine (Page 113)