Torngasak

Torngasak, Walker on Bitter Paths, is City Father of Windcreche and (current) nation-god of the Haslanti League, serving in the Bureau of Humanity’s Administration of Northern Civilization within the Celestial Bureaucracy.

Torngasak appears as a brawny, middle-aged man, with the head of a walrus with tusks or gleaming Orichalcum, thick white whiskers coated in rime ice. His skin is thick and gray, while his single arm ends in the clawed paw of a bear... his other a stump from which blooms a single white iris flower.

Torngasak is one of many gods to take responsibility of the purview of the Haslanti. For centuries the pattern had played out the same: a god would rise and claim the title and its trappings, drawn to move amongst the Haslanti extorting worship and sacrifice directly in a tradition dating back to the claim of the Lunar Exalted Arvida of the Crescent Eye. This abuse would continue until the agents of the Immaculate Order descended to oust the god, forcing it to flee to the safety of Heaven... where the Celestial Censors would await to see them dismissed from the post and punished, and another would begin anew thinking themselves more capable than their predecessor, only to fall into temptation once more.

Torngasak, the ambitious City God of a Haslanti township considered by his peers to be more hinterland than settlement, thought he could succeed where others had failed. He carefully cultivated an alliance with his superior Wun Ja, to ensure his appointment and the support of the Bureau, and when approached by Vanileth god of Artificial Flight with a proposal he eagerly embraced it, welcoming the flight god’s machines into his lands and idols into his temples.

Even with such allies, the wrath of the Immaculates still came upon Torngasak. While his Haslanti tribesmen fought bitterly against the monks, and the god used artifice to speed to safety many a time, in the end he was forced to do battle himself… his missing arm still attests to the magnitude of the loss. Yet, as he fled to Yu-shan, the god of the Haslanti League was confident: he would take a time to recover, and return to rule his people once more, for his allies had assured that no Censors awaited him.

This assumption was correct, it was what came after that the Oppidan had failed to predict: in his absence, an alliance of gods came together in a spirit court, the Ennead, to lay claim to the prayer of the Haslanti. Numerous, the corruption of each singly did not provoke the Order’s monks to lengthy campaigns, while their ranks and positions spread across nearly all of the Celestial Bureaucracy’s Bureaus meant it was nigh impossible to bring the Censors down upon any one of them. Torngasak was forced to watch as these gods usurped his prayer, and took also the fealty of the lesser Terrestrial gods of the region, who submitted their reports to the Ennead as if it were the true Haslanti nation-god. Even Vanileth abandoned him, the god of flight’s place in Torngasak’s temples preserved even as the icons of their god himself were cast out into the snow.

Today, Torngasak remains the officially-appointed nation-god of the Haslanti League, but his ostensible subordinates no longer submit their reports to him, the prayer of the people no longer flows in his direction, and he is cut off from Creation lest the Immaculates or the Ennead have plans in place to end him. He paces his office in Yu Shan, rendered impotent by his rivals and with little to do but fume and dream of vengeance. He remains a confidante of Wun Ja, who continues to call for the Censors to condemn the gods of the Ennead and restore the rightful nation-god to his position, though this effort has met with minimal success.

Torngasak wears fine robes of silk, which move with a breeze even if there is none to be felt, and upon his feet are long blades of sharp Iron whose edges coat constantly with ice, allowing him movement no matter the surface beneath them. He bears a split cloak upon his back, whose complex mechanisms can be seen poking through: a gift from the god of Artificial Flight Vanileth during a time when the two gods were allies. Like sails, the cloak would catch the wind, not granting flight but incredible speed to the wearer. Broken during his battle with the Immaculates, Vanileth has refused to repair them despite Tongasak’s demands.

Source: Adapted and significantly expanded from original concept by Jiba on the unOfficial Exalted Wiki.