“Pain is a part of life; live it.”
Symbol: three lightning bolts radiating away from one another
Alignment: True Neutral
Portfolio: suffering, philosophy
Worshippers: Sadists, Masochists, Torturers
Cleric Alignments: TN, NE, LE, NG
Domains: strength, knowledge, destruction, protection
Favored Weapon: mace
Animal Totems: rats, wasps
Followers of Hyark believed in pain. Pain could be used to force an opponent to reveal information. Pain could be used as a teaching device. Pain could be a delicious form of life. And Pain could be used to cut your enemy to ribbons over the course of a lifetime. They also believed that one could not deal out effective and efficient pain without understanding it and experience it, first.
The followers of Hyark depicted him as a gorgeous god, with dark eyes, dark hair, and light skin, rippling muscles – and covered in piercings from brows to feet. Surviving portraits of Hyark show him with a brooding expression that bores into the observer as though weighing his soul.
Hyark was originally an orcish god that found a huge following among the equatorial humans of the great continent. Within the span of a few generations, the once obscure god of rites of passage for the orcs, became the god of pain for the humans. The following of Hyark slowing wended its way elsewhere throughout the world, with its priests bringing sadism and masochism wherever they went, as well as a deep respect for pain and piercings in general. Pain was used to enhance pleasures, as well as extract information by the church.
When the followers of Hyark made it to the lands of Nathel, they were instantly subjugated by the Dark God. Within a generation, all of the church of Hyark was under the dominion of the God of Strategy, Nathel.
Hyark was slain in 763 Avard by the paladin of Mikindim Therod Halsbal, whom had found the ancient weapon Giran Howel, the God Slayer. Hyark and another of Nathel's gods, Multheir, were slain together in a cunning trap set by the paladin.
Nathel's minions took control of the Relic, and it is believed it resided in Nathel's holy city when it was destroyed by ancient magics. In all probability, it now lies in the heart of a massive sea-filled crater that is part of the southern ocean.
The church of Hyark was a very small one while under the control of the orcs. The church oversaw circumcisions, rites of passage, and other ceremonies for the ancient orcs. When the humans began to dominate Hyark through their worship, the church continued to oversee circumcisions and rites of passage, but also came to dominate piercings, torturers, and even seductresses. Though subservient to the God of Strategy, the God of Pain used his position within the various lands of Nathel to inspire fear and torture information out of persons of interest. After the death of Hyark and the loss of power of his followers, the church dwindled into obscurity by the end of the Storm Wars.