Onatar

The Sovereign of Fire and Forge — Lord of Craft, Shaper of Civilisation
Brother of Aureon; husband of Olladra (Pyrinean) or Boldrei (Nulakeshi) Father of Kol Korran and the Keeper (Kol Turrant)
Portfolio: Crafts, weapons, tools, smithing, fire, innovation
Favoured Weapon: Warhammer
Symbol: Crossed hammer and tongs; or the Octagram in red and orange

"Onatar took the fire we feared and set it before him. He shaped it for torches against the dark, for weapons of ore to keep us safe, and bowls of clay to eat our fare. He did the unthinkable — he gave them up to teach to others. In doing so, he soothed their minds. The forge was warm; it did not burn." — Giant creation myth, recovered from Xen'drik

Without Onatar, the civilised races could never have risen above the beasts to build communities and societies. He is the god of the forge, of craft and industry, and of fire. He first inspired mortals to build tools and weapons, and then to improve on those already built. He is the patron of smiths, artisans, inventors, those who craft magic items, and a small but growing number of warforged. Legend holds that Onatar gave fire to mortals to survive the cold winters — making him not only the god of what people build, but of the warmth that keeps them alive long enough to build it.

He guides both mundane smiths and artificers, inspiring anyone who performs an act of creation. He is brother to Aureon. With Olladra, he is father to Kol Korran and the Keeper — placing him at the origin of an entire dynasty spanning creation, exchange, fortune, and death.

Portfolio and Domains

Crafts, Weapons, Tools, Smithing, and Innovation. Onatar governs all forms of skilled making: the blacksmith's hammer, the artificer's schema, the mason's chisel. He is the Sovereign of the product and the process both — not merely what is made, but the discipline and iteration required to make it well.

Fire. Onatar's fire is the forge flame — a tool, not a force of nature. He represents heat as the agent of transformation: raw ore becoming steel, clay becoming vessel, darkness becoming light. The cold winter fire of his legend is the same fire as the forge; both sustain, both require control, and both will destroy if mishandled.

The Contribution Doctrine. Onatar preaches that everyone should contribute to society. His priests are expected to learn a trade if they do not already have one. A person who takes from civilisation without adding to it has failed Onatar's most basic expectation.

Iconography and Symbols

Onatar's shrines are almost always stone, because they include working forges. They are sparsely adorned and contain many windows to allow smoke to escape. The shrine is a functional space — worship and labour occupy the same room. A smithy in use is already a shrine; the addition of a crossed hammer and tongs above the door is sufficient to make it official. An alternate symbol renders him as a brass dragon.

Onatar is typically depicted at the forge — mid-strike or stoking flame — rather than at rest. He is shown as broad and powerful, with the unhurried bearing of someone who has done this work ten thousand times and will do it ten thousand more.

Worship and Practice

Priest training. Most of Onatar's priests are crafters. All are expected to learn a trade if they do not already have one. Priests quest for new knowledge and techniques of building and crafting, seeking innovations they can bring back to their communities.

Sacrificial rites. Onatar prefers petitioners to make something rather than sacrifice something during their rites. A prayer offered while finishing a well-made object carries more weight than a formal oblation offered empty-handed. Where making is not practical, he accepts offerings of old tools and weapons that have served well — objects with a history of use, not new ones bought for the occasion.

In Karrnath, Heartforge (11 Zarantyr) is a day of competition in Onatar's name — celebrating both the forge and the fire that powers it. Communities gather around the warmth of the smithy while those practised in its arts work from dawn until dusk to create something new. The following day, the creations are judged and tested.

The Pool of Onatar's Tears

In Sharn's industrial Blackbones district, buried deep in the Cogs, lies a strange wonder: a small pool of cool, crystal-clear water surrounded by a larger pool of blazing lava. The water replenishes from an unseen source despite the heat. A dwarf priest, discovering that items tempered in the cool water and worked over the lava were far superior to normal craft, declared the site the work of Onatar. A temple was built around the pool, and smiths from across Khorvaire come to be blessed at the site. Those who temper a metal item using water from the pool produce demonstrably finer work, and divine magic associated with the Artifice domain becomes more potent near the water.

The current caretaker is a warforged named Smith — one of the few warforged priests on Khorvaire. Smith served in the Last War and along the way developed a deep faith in Onatar, whom he believes guided humanity to create the warforged race. Smith is deeply opposed to the ideology of the Lord of Blades and firmly believes that warforged and the creatures of flesh are meant to live together. Nearby, The Red Hammer — an inn for warforged, owned by two warforged named Blue and Crucible — serves as a gathering place where the Becoming God cult is openly discussed.

Sects and Associated Groups

The Three Faces of Coin honours Onatar, Kol Korran, and the Keeper (Kol Turrant). Onatar guides those who create the goods people desire; Kol Korran inspires those who trade them openly; the Keeper guides those who move them through shadow. The cult has no grand political agenda — it is a fraternal order for people who understand the mysteries of coin, with valuable networking on the side.

The Scions of the Forge are a Hierocrat warforged sect that believes Onatar is their creator and all other gods his servants. They have taken a special interest in the Becoming God — a warforged religious movement centred on the belief that a divine body is being constructed to house a new god. The Scions examine the worshippers' doll sculptures, trying to infer the form of the divine body, and wonder whether their god could have made another on his holy forge. Some see this as exciting proof of Onatar's supreme power; others fear that if one god can forge another, there is no limit to potential challengers to the established pantheon.

The Sacred Spark — honouring both Onatar and the Fury — sees them as two faces of the same divine force: the greatest mortal achievements come not by the grace of Onatar alone, but through him by means of the Fury's passion. Without the Fury, Onatar's craft is cold and purposeless; without Onatar, the Fury's passion is a fire with nothing to consume but itself.

The Nulakeshi Creed

In Karrnath's doctrinal tradition, Onatar is Aureon's brother, as elsewhere — but his marriage is to Boldrei rather than Olladra. Under the Nulakeshi interpretation, the flame of civilisation fuels both his forge and her hearth, and their children are Kol Korran and the Keeper. This makes Onatar and Boldrei the parents of the entire domestic and commercial sphere of civilisation: the forge that equips it, the hearth that sustains it, the trade that enriches it, and the death that waits at its end.

Onatar in the Modern Age

The Last War produced industrial demand on a scale Khorvaire had never seen, and Onatar's temples and their affiliated craftspeople were at the centre of it. Weapons, fortifications, warforged — the forge was never cold for a century. In the war's aftermath, the artificers and smiths who served that demand are reckoning with what they made and what it was used for.

Onatar's doctrine offers no easy answer. His faith holds that creation carries responsibility, but it does not specify where that responsibility ends — with the maker, the buyer, the wielder, or the ruler who issued the contract. That ambiguity is the central postwar argument happening inside his temples, and it is unlikely to resolve quickly.

"Every smith who ever sharpened a blade for a soldier said a prayer to Onatar. Half those blades were used on people they never met and never had a quarrel with. Onatar didn't stop any of it. I've never decided whether that means he approved, or just that he doesn't work that way." — Artificer Darra Solaun, formerly of the Cannith weapons programme

Common Sayings and Invocations

"By Onatar's hammer."

"Strike true."

"Build it to last."

"Fire refines what endures."

"What you make will outlast you."