Pharika

Description
Pharika, the god commonly worshipped by herbalists, is apparently associated with grief and old age. Deadly poison can be healing medicine in small amounts, and this dichotomy is reflected in the god whose province is such tinctures. Pharika is the keeper of apothecary knowledge and the source of dark magic, potions and poison. She is also the mother of all Yuan-Ti, who are said to have hidden many cures within their blood. Pharika herself is thought to take the form of a Yuan-Ti. Prayers to her are usually letters rolled up in ceramics and dumped in bogs. Stories say that the secretive god has hidden medicinal knowledge within the natural world, such as in basilisk blood, although most die trying to learn them.

Myths
Tales of Pharika emphasize her secret knowledge, with many legends hinting at apocrypha that a listener might track down to discover the god's most exalted lore.

Aestraste's Reward
So impressed was she with the deeds of her champion Aestraste that Pharika offered to fill her kylix with any draught for Aestraste to imbibe. The champion asked to taste the nectar of pure joy, and the god obliged. But when Aestraste took a sip, passion took hold of her, and she quaffed the entire elixir. Overwhelmed with ecstasy, the champion perished, having forgotten that too much of anything, even happiness, can be fatal.

The Basilisk's Greed
In Pharika's earliest days, her mind overflowed with knowledge, and she retreated to a secret, verdant glen. There, she set to scribing her secrets into the garden's fruits, hiding within each a dozen deaths and their cures. When she retired wearily to bathe, a lizard crept into her grove and gobbled up much of the fruit. It's said that this original basilisk and its progeny are still heavy with undigested secrets, and that if basilisk blood is distilled into ink, it can be used to write out forgotten lore.

Day of Affliction
During the first week of the eleventh month, Orbis observes Pharika's winter festival, the Cheimazion. The sick and infirm sleep in the goddess' temples during this festival in hopes of receiving a miraculous cure, and the truly devout imbibe near-lethal doses of poison, trusting Pharika to oversee their recovery. In some tales, a cobra with rainbow scales appears in Pharika's temple and bites some incurable soul. The envenomed victim pitches and babbles for three days, but their disjointed words prove to be a font of alchemical truths, sometimes bearing the secrets to healing others around them. In most of these myths, the victim expires at the end of these three days, Pharika's price for sharing her secrets, but in some, the patient recovers, there-after exhibiting remarkable resistance to illness and poisons.

Dragon Balm
Some texts of Pharika claim that within the chemical makeup of each individual dragon lies the cure to one specific disease or venom. Those desperate for a cure to a rare affliction often pray to the goddess to reveal the monster that embodies the malady tormenting them. Such insight, though, rarely decreases the danger of dragon hunting.

The Medusa's Curse
To seed the world with knowledge, Pharika gathered her medusa children and granted a hundred secrets to each, bidding them to hide their revelations throughout the mortal realm. Selfishly, the medusas each kept secrets for themselves, using these as currency to bargain with mortals. Angered that her children would hoard any of her secrets, Pharika cursed them, so that they could never after behold their own reflections without risking death.