Belar, Bear-God of the Alorns

Things To Remember About Belar (Not Actually Canon Unless I Specifically Indicate That It Is):

1. Youngest brother for around twelve thousand years. Kell is supposed to be close to ten thousand years old in his world; I'm inclined to believe that it took him and his brothers a while to get the purely inorganic elements of the world all settled before they put people into it, otherwise they wouldn't have needed the cave. Thus, I'm pegging his age at around twelve thousand. He may be older, but he only counts time from when he and his brothers created their world, since that's when years started.

2. He and his brothers created all the animals of the world together, and only wound up adding refinements to their totem beasties later. Belar had originally been thinking of declaring the orca for his totem, but Mara pointed out that a, not everybody would be living near enough to the sea to recognize the name, and b, there was only one kind of orca. If he chose something that they'd made multiple varieties of, he'd have a much wider sphere of influence and interest. This is just one of the many reasons Belar and Mara are canonically close; they think alike in some regards. (Mara chose the bat over the more fertility-oriented rabbit because bats are more diverse and are less likely to end up somebody's food source- and still breed liek wo, which is important to him.)

3. That bit in Belgarath the Sorcerer about Belar trying to make Alorn maidens' dreams of visitation by their god come true? Yeah, he did that. A lot.

4. As with human sorcerors, Belar can take any form he can properly imagine. His preferred alt is the polar bear, but he can readily assume the form of any kind of bear. His other alts of choice are the white gyrfalcon and the orca.

5. The human form he's wearing is a constructed one, with visual elements taken from multiple different humans. The nose looks like that because Belar saw it on the face of one of his Chereks and decided he liked the distinctiveness of the break. The Cherek in question had been kicked in the face by a horse when he was young, and while the nose was reset, it healed funny-looking. Belar doesn't look like anybody in particular from his world as a consequence of this composite approach.

6. Belar has to spend some time every day answering prayers specifically directed to him by Alorns or adopted Alorns. Most of the rest of the business of looking after the world is in Eriond's hands now. However, as long as people exist who believe in Belar as their god, Belar considers himself bound to look after their requests. He can handle a full day's worth of prayers in fifteen minutes or less, though he generally takes the full fifteen.

7. After Eriond took over most of the world's deific duties at the end of Polgara the Sorceress, Belar headed off to Earth. So far on Earth, he's pursued the following activities: six years traveling with Mongolian nomads, two years working on an Alaskan crab harvest vessel (or at least two seasons on the crab vessel and the rest of the year working on other boats), thirty-seven years of surfing, snowboarding, skiing, and other sports in the Pacific Northwest region, mostly in Canada.

8. He canonically likes blondes. Preferably busty. However, he can appreciate all kinds of feminine beauty, and frequently does. As regards homosexuality, his sentiment is, "What happens at sea, stays at sea," and conversely, what happens on the homestead while the men are away, stays on the homestead.

9. Things that piss him off, god-wise: oath-breaking, failing in one's family obligations, harming children, insulting or harming blacksmiths, failing to respect the sea, harming storytellers, cheating at dice (Dras did this to him once too often), killing without need, stinting on hospitality. I strongly suspect that he's also not cool with abortion, although the topic never came up in his canon. He doesn't want his people mucking around much with the spirits involved in witchcraft, but sorcery's okay, since that comes from within- and he REALLY does not like magic, because he knows the Morindim.

10. The single most awkward moment of his time on Earth came when one of his Jewish friends asked him over for Hanukkah and explained the celebration to him. He finally managed to work out in his mind a way that it wouldn't be inappropriate to attend, but it was still awkward- and afterward he found somewhere else to be well in advance of most religious holidays. People who ask about his religion get told he's pagan. People who ask 'what sort' get a lot of fast talk, but usually he just exerts a little of his Will to keep them from thinking to ask that question.

11. Belar loves all his children equally, and all Alorns are canonically considered his children. Adopted Alorns count too, but they don't get his intervention in anything unless they specifically call on him after they've been adopted, at which point they get treated just like the others. Canonically, he will not play favorites with his children, to the point where he refused to stop early Alorn clan wars because that would've meant taking sides among the Alorns.

12. If asked what he's god of, in his own world Belar is considered god of the Alorns (duh), but also of beer, hunting, the sea (naval warfare, specifically), smithing (depends who you ask- Chaldan also lays claim to this), the northern climate zones on his planet, and bears.

13. He likes Mara and Aldur in canon. Chaldan's a jerk. Nedra has a stick up his ass. Issa is weird. We all know how things stood between him and Torak, who he calls Bro-bro, mostly because it annoyed Torak while he was alive. He likes Eriond, since it means he's finally somebody's big brother.