Way of the Warrior Saints/Saint Morugan

Saint Morugan is the Patron of Fate, Wind, Crows, Carrion, and Looting. She is also known as the Grey Lady Fate and sometimes as the Triple Goddess, where she takes the form of a beautiful maiden, a middle-aged woman, and an old crone -- each with only a single golden eye.

Priests and priestesses of Saint Morugan are called Stormcrows and can always be found near battle and strife. Women are most often called into the service of Saint Morugan, frequently as warrior-martyrs, giving their lives to grim doomed battle. Stormcrows often keep crows, ravens, or other carrion birds as pets, companions, or even familiars.

Legend

Morugan was said to be a terrifying warrior queen in the Elder Days, sister to Mekkhe the younger and Babb the elder. While Babb was a known and gruesome witch and Mekkhe a coy and alluring seductress, Morugan was the grim warleader of her clan. Though her husband was slain by treachery fighting the titans of old, Morugan gathered the remnants of her people about her and fled to the windswept crags and hills of the highlands. As day passed into week, week into month, and month into year after year, her people starved but sang their battle songs as they fought against the titans tenaciously, surviving on the scraps they could scavenge from the battlefields before they fled.

In time, she passed into mere memory, but was said to emerge like an avenging valkyrie upon wings of shadow and wind, driving her war chariot and wielding a black-tongued spear named Durbolg.

Even though her people were eventually scattered and lost, it was said that Morugan's keening cries of vengeance and doom can be heard before impending battles -- and after they are lost.

Those who know the legends of Saint Morugan have recorded her songs as the "Dirge of Doom", always a parchment tome bound in a metal cover formed from the hammered and twisted spoils of many ancient battles. It is said there are other lost tomes of her wisdom and that of her sisters.

Rites

Young girls, pale of skin and with raven hair, are sometimes chosen from a very young age to be raised as priestesses of Morugan. They are trained in peculiar rites of alchemy and arcane charms, as well as the martial arts of charioteering and spear-fighting. These girls are ordained as Grey Witches and expected to defend their people to the death.

Saint Morugan's Prayer

"Saint Morugan --

Today is a good day to die!

Let us sing and be merry.

And let us take what we may!

For today is a good day to die!

Let us ride like the wind.

And let us fall upon the foe!

For today is a good day to die!

Let the wind blow and the grey fall.

And let us die, friend and foe alike.

For today is a good day to die!

Let us see how good a day it is!"

Notable Scripture

"Come what may, so mote it be!" (Dirge of Doom, chapter 1, verse ii, refrain)

"Gray and grimly clouding skies The hope of day belies. Darkness do not fear: Scream and war-cry hear, By deathsight become wise." (Dirge of Doom, chapter 1, verse iii)

"Boil, boil, toil, and trouble, Fire burn and houses crumble, Charge forth in the chariot's rumble!" (Dirge of Doom, chapter 4, verse vi)

"And ye shall starve, and thereby feed The thirst for war, the dying breed." (Dirge of Doom, chapter 5, verse ii)

"It is a bastard shall break the world." (Dirge of Doom, chapter 6, verse xxi)

"Fear the coming carrion fate, death's friend, grave's mate." (Dirge of Doom, chapter 6, verse lxv)

"A house unhomed, a house of leaves, and men were leaves, when cities roamed." (Dirge of Doom, chapter 9, verse iii)