Feh. A REAL death goddess doesn't need anyone to die before existing. That is postmodern crap.
Izanami would probably feel offended... Enough to take thousands lives every day.
So could be Papa Ghede, Yama and many other deities of death that were mortals ascended to divinity by the virtue of being first mortal to die.
In an awesome homebrew I play in, the major deities are the four horsemen. They have positive and negative aspects that are used by their followers and detractors.
I played a doctor who worshipped the Pale Rider, or "Gentle Death" as he was known to me. The idea being that with violence, disease and starvation also vying for your soul, mere death offered the best possible outcome.
That's really nifty.
Our recently-made home-brew above actually has a number of different "death gods" all of which hold death in their portfolio somewhere, or are, themselves, dead (based on ancient mythology instead of post-modernism, though).
It kind of turns the world into one of three basic areas for the "afterlife" - the (literal) Underworld (which is below the Darklands and all that), the Shadow or Darkness (which is "sideways" from the "real" world) and the Abyss (which is the pit of all terrible things). There's also Duat and a few other places actively created and maintained by gods... who can't actually enjoy them 'cause reasons. :/
Added to that, Each of the gods have one or two (or sometimes more) major heresies or heterodoxies that view their alignment entirely differently. A few are even different religions altogether, despite ultimately tying back to the same deity (knowingly or not).
It becomes very strange (and interesting) when Yoth (a chaotic evil deity in the Abyss who loathes undead) is the source (via discovery) of a Lawful Neutral path of Universal Positive Energy - something that she, herself, is forever denied from following, despite being her discovery because of her own alignment. That feeds her bitterness and frustration, driving her to more evil, you see...
Out of the undead gods, only a few are, themselves, evil, though they certainly have worshipers who are.
Anyway:
The Reaping Rider
The Inescapable Fate
Mortality
Mercy.
The two I'm toying around with right now is Styx and Loth.
The problems:
With Styx I feel that associates her two much with Pathfinder's Charon.
With Loth that name I believe might cause people to confuse her with Lolth.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
So for my own campaign setting I've just about finished designing my own Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The only thing that eludes me is a suitable name for the rider of Death. The other three are:
Nero - Conquest/plague
Malthusia - Famine
Megiddo - War
Death is female, and also a primordial being that had been in Abaddon/Gehenna/Sheol since the beginning, long before the Daemons existed. She is associated with the River Styx, Lampedes (underwold nymphs), as well as natural and accidental deaths (and whatever you would call getting hit by a meteorite, unlucky? Death).
The two I'm toying around with right now is Styx and Loth.
The problems:
With Styx I feel that associates her two much with Pathfinder's Charon.
With Loth that name I believe might cause people to confuse her with Lolth.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I like looking up different languages, particularly Latin. For this I'd recommend you use Letifera which translates from Latin to English as "Lady Death"
First-Holder, Last-Taker.
A title used for one of the death goddesses in my group's homebrew, Ireshkigal.
Honestly titles seem to be the way to go, given what you want. Have her have an array of nicknames, but the only one who knows her true name is whoever created her, or if she simply spontaneously manifested, either only she knows, or some great cosmic secret-keeper, or she simply has none.
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First-Holder, Last-Taker.
A title used for one of the death goddesses in my group's homebrew, Ireshkigal.
Honestly titles seem to be the way to go, given what you want. Have her have an array of nicknames, but the only one who knows her true name is whoever created her, or if she simply spontaneously manifested, either only she knows, or some great cosmic secret-keeper, or she simply has none.
You can't tell me what I do or don't want! You arnt my real dad!
*shakes fist*
:3
Ereshkigal from Mesopotamian mythology, literally "great lady under earth. She was the goddess of Irkalla, the land of the dead or underworld. Sometimes her name is given as Irkalla, similar to the way the name Hades was used in Greek mythology for both the underworld and its ruler.
[edit]: as Ereshkigal was already mentioned a few times. Ignore that, sorry.
Alternatively: make her unnamed, as speaking her name will call her. Or worse, calling her will keep you from her clutches forever, never dying even as your body rots away into dust.
Feh. A REAL death goddess doesn't need anyone to die before existing. That is postmodern crap.it pains me to disagree. I prefer the first death to be am important moment, but that's just me.
Maybe SHE was the one who died first and thus became Death.
Saihestezina
Its the Basque translation of the word inevitable.