Ollarasht

Sovereign of Feast and Fortune.

Ollarasht is named more often than any Sovereign. The gambler breathes her name over the dice. The farmer thanks her for a good year. The soldier touches iron before the charge. None can say what she asks in return.

Her clergy are gamblers to the last. They take heart from heroic meals, and read omens of the day as it arrives. The strongest in her faith can weigh a man’s Fate in their hands. Her feast tables are blessed, and her followers charged to share her blessings, in hopes that even the most downtrodden will not starve.

Ollarasht does not give good fortune. She gives a chance at fortune — and woe betide a follower who will not take one.

Traditions that teach her: the Gnomish Iconologist, and the Antiquarian.

Her worship day is Far, when the week’s work is behind and its winnings are still in hand. She shares Far with Dolorah, the sun that ripens the field.

Strictures

Ollarasht’s traditions have many strictures. Find yours below.

Gnomish Iconologist

• A follower of Ollarasht must always display a holy symbol of Ollarasht (a domino with one white square and one black) somewhere on her person when in public.
• A follower of Ollarasht must open each day with a meal, a drink, and a wager laid on the day to come. The breakfast takes at least one hour (6 turns). On Far, Ollarasht’s holy day, she must feast in company and set upon the table a precious stake to gamble against another. The Far feast takes at least two hours (12 turns).
• A follower of Ollarasht must never refuse a fair wager, however little she likes the man offering it.
• A follower of Ollarasht must abide the fall of the dice. The only fair way to recover a precious loss is to wager for its return.

Antiquarian

An antiquarian of Ollarasht abides every stricture listed for the Gnomish Iconologist above, and further:

• The antiquarian of Ollarasht must refuse no sporting wager for coin. She will rarely be rich, and never for long — but none will call her life dull.

The wager

Precious Stakes: A precious stake must be something of substantial importance to the character. A stake worth at least one month’s expenses to a character is always considered precious; in other cases the Judge may use his discretion.

A wager needs two willing parties, a stake, and an outcome neither can command. A man who gambles with weighted dice is owed nothing.

She need not always find a taker, though she may not reject one. The farmer who plants early has laid a wager against the frost, though no man holds the other side. The kinds of solo wager that might satisfy Ollarasht’s strictures — staked against the gods, the weather, or the day to come — are left to the Judge’s discretion.

An omen announced is fair play. Her acolytes can read the day before it arrives (though the reading is sometimes wrong). A wager laid on the strength of an omen counts as fair, so long as she announces it as the stake is laid, and before the wager is accepted. “Ollarasht smiles on me. My victory is foreseen!”

A fair wager’s odds answer its stakes. A follower may not refuse to lay a gold piece against a silver, so long as the odds run ten to one to match.

A sporting wager is one where one or both of the odds or the stakes runs nearly even. Gold against gold that a die comes up six is a sporting wager, as is a stake of one’s whole purse against a single copper on the flip of a true coin.

These things are never a valid wager:

• A stake she cannot cover. She is bound to meet what is offered where she can, not take on debt to meet a stake beyond her means.
• Flesh against property. Life, limb, and liberty may be staked only against their like. No follower of Ollarasht, however deeply sworn, is obliged to lay a hand on the table against a purse of coin. Nor may she stake what was never hers to stake — another’s goods, another’s freedom, another’s life.