Portfolio: Death, dreams, exploration, the unknown, water
Domains: Death, Repose (Ancestors, Souls subdomains),
Favored Weapon: Oar (quarterstaff)
Osham is a god with many titles, for among all the Divines, it is Osham who often lies closest to mortal doings and interests. Detached, but by necessity less remote than other deities, Osham ferries humanity from the bright beachhead of life across the bottomless darkness of the unknowable, toward an ever-uncertain destination.
Alternately depicted as both male and female, based on local custom, Osham ascribes to no gender, appearing only as a hooded figure in a robe of black water, face in shadow and oar in hand. Sometimes the god's association with death moves artists to use skeletal imagery, but in truth, Osham has little truck with the undead, seeing them as either perversions of the natural order or as passengers who missed the boat. The concept of "holy water" originated with the Oshami faith, which is also responsible for many of the superstitions regarding lost souls and the spirits of the unquiet dead, all rooted in genuine rituals and practices performed by Oshami priests to put such forces to rest.
The most popular charm or ward known to common folk is that the dead cannot cross running water, because by failing to board Osham's ship and subsequently sail to their final destination, they have lost the ability to cross water, entirely, until they take that final journey. After all, none can cross the dark expanse of endless death except in Osham's vessel, and so those spirits who remain stranded on the wrong side of the dreaming waters are bound by those rules which the dead must follow, but which do not restrict the living.
Another omen is fog—not a warning of evils to come, per se, but because fog is common in seaside settlements (and human civilization is naturally drawn to the water's edge for a thousand reasons). The place where the land and water meet is symbolic of life and death, so many believers hold that there are spirits in the mist, phantoms who lurk at the edge of life, waiting for the ferry to come for them. Not all of them are friendly, and it is easy—if one becomes lost in the fog—to stray accidentally across the line from one world to the next, and to find oneself in the company of the dead.
Perhaps predictably, this superstition is even stronger and has more sinister overtones in arid interior communities, where mist is not an everyday occurrence—unlike coastal folk, who merely bolt their doors and shutter their windows when the fog rolls in, those who experience it elsewhere are wont to interpret it as a hostile invasion by the waking dead, reaching out to claw at the world of the living while mortals sleep, in that time when Osham is away with a laden ship. Until the god returns and takes the spirits away across the Seas of Forever, they scratch at the veil and make mischief, even stealing the unwary as they dream. Such is the diagnosis for those who lie in sleep without waking, or who pass from life while in the embrace of sleep.
The association of sleep with death is an easy one, with old, old roots. Ancient mythology held that the sun was the lamp at the bow of Osham's ship, shining in the sky as the deity took on passengers, and its progress across the heavens was explained by the vessel's approach from beyond, docking, and finally turning to retreat back toward the afterlife. Night fell as Osham departed with a new load of souls, and in darkness, the walls between worlds grew thin, so that mortals saw visions of the memories of the dead as they lay down to rest, after working during the daylight hours to take advantage of Osham's "lantern." In this fashion, Osham was once also revered as god of the sun, although the church eschews that role in contemporary times, focusing on the god's image as ferryman of the dead and explorer of unknown waters. Nonetheless, Osham either tacitly endorses the old belief, or some other magic is at work, for it cannot be denied that many undead flee from the light of the sun, or are destroyed by it—sometimes even more readily than by water.
Dogma: From water came the first life, and to water life returns, in death. Like water, life and death have a natural ebb and flow that cannot be denied, and these tides touch all things. As the sea calmly wears away the land, so inevitable passage from this world to the next erodes life from its beginning, and even the mightiest stones shall one day be sand, pulled to the ocean's bottommost shadows. Remember that life is in the water, but also death; respect it, for it is the beginning and ending of all mortal things. Acceptance of the cycle is the key to serenity, for when we are one with the tide, our ship sails smoothly, our strokes are no longer a struggle. Every river, lake, or ocean has at least two shores, and it is the journey between them which makes us glad to reach the other side.