FORGOTTEN REALMS WIKI

FORGOTTEN REALMS WIKI

Amaunator

BASIC INFORMATION

TITLE(S) The Yellow God[1][2][3]

Keeper of the Eternal Sun[1]
[2][3]

Keeper of the Golden Sun[4]

Keeper of Law[2]
Keeper of the Yellow Sun[5]
Light of the Law[1]
Keeper of the Sun[3]

ASPECTS/ALIASES At'ar the Merciless (Bedine)

[6]

Lathander[7]

PANTHEON Faerûnian pantheon

GENDER Masculine

5E 4E 3E 2E

3RD EDITION STATISTICS[12][13][14]

POWER LEVEL Dead power

ALIGNMENT Lawful neutral

REALM Keep of the Eternal Sun

(dissolved)

PORTFOLIO Bureaucracy, contracts, law,

order, rulership

DOMAINS Servants of the fallen:

Law, Nobility, Planning, Sun,
Time
Risen Sun heretics:
Fire, Law, Nobility, Renewal,
Sun, Time
Three-Faced Sun heretics:
Death, Law, Renewal, Sun,
Time

WORSHIPERS politicians, sunmasters

WORSHIPER
ALIGNMENTS
Servants of the fallen
LG NG CG
LN N CN
LE NE CE

Risen Sun heretics

LG NG CG
LN N CN
LE NE CE

Three-Faced Sun heretics

LG NG CG
LN N CN
LE NE CE

FAVORED WEAPON light mace but also the

scythe for Three-Faces Sun
heretics

MANIFESTATIONS[6]

FAVORED ANIMALS Birds of prey, especially

sunfalcons
Cream-colored cats
Pure white wolves
Tan dogs
White stallions

FAVORED PLANTS Golden lilies

Sunflowers
Yellow-eyed daisies

FAVORED MONSTERS Dragons (emerald, sapphire,

and steel)
Golems
Takos

FAVORED MINERALS Any red-colored gem

Topaz

MISCELLANEOUS Thirteen giant hyenas

Woman dressed in a dress
with a scale on it

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Amaunator (pronounced: /ɑːˈmɔːnɑːtɔːr/ ah-MAWN-

ah-tor[15]) was the Netherese solar deity of order,
the sun, law, and time. He was viewed as a
harsh but fair deity,[17] revered by many rulers,
soldiers, and powerful wizards in ancient
Netheril.[6]

It was eventually claimed, following the

Spellplague, that Lathander, the Faerûnian god
of the sun, was an aspect of the long-dormant
Amaunator.[18] By the Year of the Ageless One,
1479 DR, Amaunator was worshiped both as
Lathander and by his own name.[19]

Description
Amaunator's avatar, whose skin shed golden
light, looked like a lanky, silver-white haired, and
short man with a white tenday growth of beard
clad in a long, flowing, black or purple gown with
silver or gold trims, the uniform of a magistrate.
He always equipped himself with two tools: a
scepter and a legal tome in each hand. The
former was the scepter of the eternal sun, which
doubled as his melee-weapon.[6]

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Personality
The Bedine believed in an entity called At'ar the
Merciless. She was thought to be a spiteful
woman who enjoyed an adulterous relationship.
This woman was the result of stories about
Amaunator becoming warped over time to the
point of the entity becoming unrecognizable.
The real Amaunator was a cautious god who did
not just try to write down everything to be
certain about it, but made sure to go through
the pain of contracting, signing, sealing, and
notarizing everything as well, a trait similar to
the Celestial Bureaucracy.[6]

Amaunator was viewed as a stern and

unforgiving deity dedicated to law and order
above all else. Though not concerned with
balanced natural order like Silvanus, he instead
advocated for kept promises, contracts, and
even that political order be kept among the
gods.[1]

“
…Amaunator shall be responsible for all time.
any misrepresentations of his or his
followers, If so deemed the fault of
Amaunator…

THE MISPUNCTUATION THAT MADE

AMAUNATOR THE GOD OF TIME[6]

Amaunator tended to ignore the spirit of the law

in favor of the letter of it. From time to time, he
was invoked as the god of time. The reason for
this was that a mispunctuation in a legal paper
with another god allowed him to consider
himself the god of time. That said, during the
time of Netheril, he did not actually act as one,
because he did not want to be on Mystryl's bad
side, the actual goddess of time, albeit an
uno!cial one.[6]
His adherence to law was such that he
knowingly did nothing to stop the fall of Netheril
because he lacked contractual power to do so.[6]

After his return, he gained the memory as a

youthful deity and maintained this perspective
as something valuable enough to urge his
followers to do too.[7]

Abilities
Amaunator's sight allowed him to discern
whether someone was a thief or lawbreaker with
a glance as well as invisible creatures and
objects. He could also use his eyes to shoot
flame strike or sunray every minute.[6]

The Keeper of the Eternal Sun held sway over

the sun. This gave him a plethora of protective
abilities. He was completely immune to light, fire,
and heat-based attacks while enjoying
complete immunity to illusions, phantasms,
cold-based, shadow-based, and darkness-
based spells as well as any fear or other
emotion-controlling magic.[6]

The Yellow God was capable of dispersing

magical darkness either with a touch or, as long
as said darkness was within 120 yards (111
meters), with a thought. Another e"ect his
touch created was the instant destruction of a
touched undead who were a"ected by sunlight.
Every 2 hours, he could fill an area of 10 miles (16
kilometers) diameter for up to an hour with
sunlight.[6]

When fighting, Amaunator's avatar used his

scepter, the scepter of the eternal sun, in
physical combat, but only when heavily
provoked into one.[6]

Amaunator could grant his Chosens the ability

to shed searing light from allies who drew from
their inner resources to invigorate themselves.
[20]

Manifestations

While male pronouns were used to describe

Amaunator, he appeared fairly often in the form
of a woman clad in a flowing, opalescent dress
with an image of a balance of practically see-
through gold on it. When this manifestation
appeared to a person, this person could
determine whether he stood in favor or disfavor
of the god by looking at the scale. If it scaled to
the left, he could be sure to spend the next
seven years in poverty, debt, and servitude while
losing his fortune. If the scale tilted to the right,
the recipient of the manifestation could expect
himself good fortune in the material sense. If the
scales were balanced, the recipient was
receiving an invitation to become enter
Amaunator's clergy.[6]

Another manifestation of his were thirteen giant

hyenas. These were sent by the Yellow God to
punish people who deserved such or to avenge
people who did not have the ability to do it
themselves. When these hyenas appeared the
o"ender was killed by them and the body was
ripped apart to cover 1 acre (4047 square
meters).[6]

Favored animals of Amaunator were tan dogs,

cream-colored cats, pure white wolves, birds of
prey, especially sunfalcons and white stallions,
which were sent to show his favor or disfavor.
The Keeper of the Eternal Sun's favored
monsters were, emerald dragons, sapphire
dragons, steel dragons, golems, and takos. His
favored minerals were topaz and any red-
colored gem. His favored plants were yellow-
eyed daisies, sunflowers, and golden lilies.[6]

Possessions
Amaunator's avatar wore a magistrate's unform
and held in each hand a legal tome and a
scepter, the scepter of the eternal sun.[6]

He once owned an oak sta" with astral

diamonds at the base and a sun-shaped one on
the head that was worth 23,000 gp.[21]

Divine Realm
Amaunator's divine realm, the Keep of the
Eternal Sun used to be on Mechanus. He lost
with the fall of Netheril enough followers to die
of neglect. His death robbed his ability to
maintain his divine realm and his corpse was
ejected to the Astral Plane.[6]

Once he came back to life, he created the astral

dominion Eternal Sun and lived there with
Siamorphe and Waukeen.[4]

Activities
Amaunator preached that people needed to
follow laws to the letter. The reason for this was
the belief that laws were the foundation on
which any society was built on and
disrespecting law would inevitably cause the
collapse of any society.[22] The same adherence
was also extended to traditions.[5]

The Yellow God's also taught that people had to

familiarize themselves with law to get an
understanding how to act in a proper manner
that saved them from getting punished.[22] He
also wanted people to be organized individuals
who met their commitments and were always
on time.[5]

His message also extended to hierarchies

mortals made for themselves. The Keeper of the
Eternal Sun told his followers to adhere to their
superiors. The idea behind it was that faithful
service would yield them rewards while failure to
do so punishment. That said, people were told to
keep tabs on their superiors' decisions. This was
to increase the number of precedents to draw
from and help to standardize rulings and with it
the relevance of Amaunator's message.[22]

Relationships
Amaunator was the judge over the Pantheon
Contour in the Netherese pantheon. He was
named the god of time on the basis of a
mispunctuation. He never acted on this claim for
he did not want to be on bad footing with
Mystryl who was the goddess of time in
practice.[6]

After returning, he was served by Siamorphe as

his exarch and lived with Waukeen on his astral
domain Eternal Sun.[4]

Apparently, he found Sune attractive.[23]

History
Before Karsus's Folly

Amaunator was a greater deity during the days

of ancient Netheril. He was the one who judged
over the Pantheon Contour, an agreement
between deities.[16]

After Karsus's Folly

When Netheril fell, Amaunator's worshiper-base

shrunk to Netheril's lower and middle class.
These people abandoned his faith for they
believed that he knowingly did nothing to stop
the disaster.[17] They were correct about it. The
reason why the Yellow God did nothing was
because he had no legal basis to do so. Per
divine contract, magic was Mystryl's domain on
which he had no right to infringe upon. With his
worshiper-base gone, his faith continued to
shrink over the time. He dropped from greater
deity-status to lesser deity-status and from
there to dead power-status over a millennium.
His inability to maintain his divine realm caused
it to cease existing and the Keeper of the Eternal
Sun became one of the corpses on the Astral
Plane.[6] This all would have happened around
661 DR, for the fall of Netheril was in −339 DR.
[24]

On the mortals' side, various theories were

concocted to explain Amaunator's non-
existence. Starting with having moved to
somewhere else than Faerûn like another world
or Kara-Tur's pantheon to having become or
absorbed by something else like At'ar the
Merciless or Lathander.[6]

Belief in Amaunator lived on in at least three

di"erent ways. First, the Bedine belief of At'ar,
the Merciless. This was the result of Netherese
survivors telling stories about the Yellow God to
the Bedine, which then were twisted over time
into that of a woman who was married to Kozah
but pursued an adulterous relationship with
N'asr. This belief received no divine support and
At'ar had no clerics.[6] The second belief was
belief in Amaunator himself. This belief in a dead
deity experienced divine support and had active
clerics. Provided the clerics learnt the art of a
servant of the fallen, the dead god could supply
those people with spells.[25] The third belief was
in one of Lathander's heresies, either the Three-
Faced Sun heresy or the Risen Sun heresy. The
former was the idea that the sun was an
overgod who had two aspects that were
possible objects of worship for mortals. Not all
but some believed that Amaunator would return
to resume his role as one of these two aspects.
The second heresy was the idea that Lathander
was the reincarnated form of Amaunator. By the
14th century DR, their radicals believed that
Lathander revealing himself as Amaunator was
close. Faced with this heresy, Lathander had
three options, accept it and turn it into the
e"ective truth, reject it and lose potential
worshipers, or let it be and gain more worshipers
at the cost of his authority losing its weight. He
chose the last one.[26]

Return of Amaunator

In 1371/1372 DR, high-ranked clerics and

paladins of Lathander began to receive
messages regarding a mysterious event called
the "Deliverance", leading them to begin an
aggressive recruitment campaign. It was not
clear whether this had anything to do with
Amaunator.[27]

Amaunator's return was heralded by a fire

genasi called Daelegoth Orndeir. The man was a
believer in the aforementioned Risen Sun heresy
and made it his goal to make it the mainstream
branch of Lathander's church. He strengthened
his base and power in intra-church politics,
developed the Amaunator's eternal sun spell,
and managed to get hold over the Shard of the
Sun, a holy relic of Amaunator. He claimed he
had seen visions that Amaunator's ascension
was nigh and gathered his people to Elversult to
witness the sign of the ascension in 1374 DR.
The sign he referred to were the e"ects of the
Amaunator's eternal sun spell, which he
developed beforehand. This made people
believe him and people flocked to the church of
Lathander to join the church of Amaunator
while the leaders of Lathander's church were
not sure what to do.[28]

Lathander was revealed to be Amaunator in the

Year of Blue Fire, 1385 DR, just after the
Spellplague. It was not clear whether it was the
truth or he embraced a heresy and turned it into
the e"ective truth.[29]

Post-Spellplague Era

After the Spellplague, Amaunator became an

established greater deity of the Faerûnian
pantheon. He fulfilled the role of timekeeper
among the gods.[18]

He had people who primarily worshiped him as

Lathander, his youthful aspect - something
Amaunator actively encouraged.[7]

The city of Elturel benefited from a shining globe

that was sometimes accredited to Amaunator.
However, it was unclear whether the god had
anything to do with the sphere. The only one
who knew the answer was the High Observer of
the city.[30]

Post-Second Sundering

In 1486 DR, Lathander returned according to his

Chosen Stedd Whitehorn.[31] By the year 1491
DR, Amaunator and Lathander were once again
worshiped as separate beings.[32] It is unknown
if they were actually separate beings by this
time or one was the aspect of the other.
[speculation]

Rumors & Legends

Heresies

The church of Lathander was not without its

notable heresies, including the Risen Sun
heresy and the Three-Faced Sun heresy, both
of which were prominently focused on the
return of Amaunator. The former later proved
true when Amaunator returned.[29]

Astronomy

Amaunator's belt was a constellation that

appeared in the sky above the Spine of the
World during the summer.[33]

Worshipers
Main article: Church of Amaunator

Priests of Amaunator encouraged the

establishment of lawful order and bureaucracy
in the world at large. They were called on to
witness contracts and apply a signatory stamp
with the symbol of Amaunator to verify its
validity.[1]

Appendix
Gallery

Further Reading

Eric L. Boyd (January 1995). “Forgotten