Vastara, the Hanged One

Character I did last year for Book of Devotion zine. Cleric of a Tree of Life God.

Vastara was a rich spoiled noble woman, who found out she was terminally ill at one point. She began to fade away, but she was used to always getting her way with influence and money. She decided to regain her life and health by sacrificing one of her maids to the Tree, but the deity did not recognize such a fair exchange and considered that it was contrary to the natural cycle of life. The woman died next to the tree, but for her transgression the deity breathed life into her again and ordered her to serve him forever in its branches, helping those believers who truly respect the natural course of life and death. Nobody knows how many years or decades she is already serving. Her flesh is depleted, she herself is entangled in ropes coming from the branches, and she wears small amulets from her own and other people’s bones, as well as totems of the hanged men whom she escorted to the next world.