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Player > Setting > Deities > Besmara
Starfinder Core Rulebook p.483
CN goddess of piracy, space monsters, strife
Centers of Worship: Absalom Station, Akiton, Apostae, the Diaspora, the Veskarium
Symbol: A skull and crossbones
When trade blossomed between the planets of the Pact
Worlds, the pirates that preyed on that commerce
followed, bringing Besmara with them. Once a minor nautical
deity revered on Golarion, Besmara is now venerated as a
powerful goddess of pirates, conflict, and the alien leviathans
that swim through the void. Some of her priests claim that
Besmara took her current power and position as her prize
when she deposed another deity in a daring raid, but as these
events ostensibly took place during the Gap, they remain
impossible to confirm. Besmara’s ship, the Starwraith, sails
through space and across the planes. Loyally crewed by sly
and fearless pirates and spacers from countless worlds, the
Starwraith shares a name with a constellation in the skies of
the Pact Worlds, and many believe the two are actually one
and the same.
Besmara is brash, fickle, greedy, and lusty, but she follows
her own code of honor and is loyal to her crew and allies as
long as they remain useful and serve her interests. She scorns
laws and civilization for the freedom and fortune of outer
space, delighting only in battle, plunder, risk, and the thrill
of the chase. Besmara does not concern herself with good or
evil, but she disdains acts like senseless murder that bring
no profit or reward. She revels in strife and trickery, and she
believes that if she wants a thing someone else owns, it’s only
fair for her to take it.
Many vesk mercenaries worship Besmara in her role as the
goddess of strife, but pirates, smugglers, war profiteers, and
other criminals who profit from conflict make up the bulk of
Besmara’s followers. Even those pirates who normally eschew
religion might still pray to Besmara to ward away her wrath,
or they might toss a share of plunder out the airlock as tribute
to the Pirate Queen to curry her favor. Such folk tend to be
more superstitious than religious, however, so Besmara has
few temples and little in the way of an organized church.
Nevertheless, ports and space stations visited regularly by
pirates often host small shrines to the goddess; similar altars
can also be found on remote asteroids, on space hulks, and in
starship graveyards.
Most of the Free Captains (see page 476) pay at least lip
service to Besmara, and many of them carry a small, valuable
trinket (such as a chunk of rare mineral or an antique laser
pistol stolen from an important starship captain) with them
at all times, considering it bad luck to ever misplace the item.
Some of these baubles have been passed down from Free
Captain to Free Captain over the decades.
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