Herem, the Blade of the Ban

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you— and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy."

Born of blood and violence, Herem is the Demiurge of holy war and destruction. Beneath his banner, crusaders march to scourge the world of the infidel, the unworthy, the other. He is the bringer of annihilation, of genocide and cleansing, he who happily dashes the little ones against the rock. Those who fall under the Ban must not just be vanquished, but utterly destroyed, down to every child and livestock, every grain on the field and every rock that makes their home. Almost feral, Herem display much less cunning than his fellow Demiurges, and will attack them just as readily as he does New Eden. He is without doubt the most personally powerful of the Demiurges, able to flay entire battlefields in his fury, but blind and unguided.

In moments of lucidity, Herem appears in the dream of his followers as a great pillar of bronze, cracked and broken. Blood seeps from its fractures and sizzles against the furnace-hot metal. His voice is like swords being drawn from their scabbards, rising in number as his anger grows - as it always does. No matter the supplication, Herem's wrath is all but assured. It extolls its worshippers to kill and clense by blade and fire, to leave nothing alive and no stone left unturned.

"Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."

Murder is an act of worship, and with every holy war called and every genocide committed, Herem grows in power. Only when the last mortal has been struck down by his brother and mankind has drowned in its own blood will Herem be satisfied. In this trouble age of war, such horrors are common, and the only thing preventing Herem's power to grow out of control is his own nature. Herem freely dispenses with Blessings and Relics among his followers, or inflicts catastrophies upon tribes that displease him. Impatient to see blood be shed, he has no time to wait for longterm plans, only concerned with the now. Such generosity, if you can call it that, makes Herem one of the more popular Demiurge to worship among the Adamite tribes. They wage war against each other and New Eden to gain his favor, not just for conquest or glory, but the ritualistic annihilation of their enemies.

Like their master, these tribes suffer from their own brutality. Instead of moving quickly, they linger around places they have conquered to butcher and destroy everything. Only when the last stone has been smashed will they move on. They leave behind them a desolat wasteland, at the cost of any real sort of strategy. Among the Adamites, they are the least advanced, relying more on the Blessing of Herem than their clumsy chariots or crude copper and bone weapons.

When Herem comes to the world, he has two shapes. First, he appears as a vast and distant thunderstorm, but its black cloud is a chaotic mess of rusty and bloodied blades. They grind against each other in a ear-splitting cacophony that drive those who hear it into a frenzy and even meek livestock into flesh-eating abominations. Second, he takes the shape of a enormous bull with a hide of bronze and horns of obsidian. In this shape, he revels to trample everything in his path, friend and foe alike, until everything has been crushed beneath his white-hot hooves.

"They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys."