Sagawehn

Sagawehn
Circle of Marching Ants
Aliases	The HIve Mind, the Winged Mistress
Alignment	Unaligned (Lawful Neutral)
Divine Rank	Dead God
Pantheon	Nentir Vale/Dawn War
Portfolio	Vermin, Community, Cooperation
Domains	Civilization, Life, Tyranny, War
Home Plane	Astral Sea
Worshippers	Insects, Mad Druids, Tyrants, Anti-Individualists, Thri-kreen
Favoured Weapon	Unknown, presumably Spears and Natural Weapons

Sagawehn is the dead Goddess of Vermin from the Nentir Vale setting of Dungeons & Dragons. She debuted in Dragon Magazine #390, as part of an article on dead gods, and had no other appearances.

A passionless deity, Sagawehn had little interest in sapient life, but instead somehow drew her power from the collective thoughts of all insect life; whilst each was individually inferior to a mortal worshipper, their sheer numbers made her extremely powerful. Central to Sagawehn's worldview was the notion that The Hive Is All. The greater survival of the community was her foremost desire, as it was the eusocial insects that most strongly provided her with power. Individuality was, in her mind, the greatest danger faced by all creatures, and she sought to crush it. Her other major obsession was expansion; like an ant colony on a divine scale, she and her faithful sought to push back the boundaries, assimilating or slaughtering whoever stood in her way.

This was her ultimate downfall; originally a denizen of Arvandor, her aggressive expansionism brought her into conflict with Corellon and his eladrin and elf followers. Refusing to give up their individuality, they fought with Sagawehn; a long and bloody battle, which culminating with a cabal of powerful eladrin heroes seeking out and slaying Sagawehn in a final decapitating strike. This final battle was costly, and saw many Eladrin die - the priestess who delivered the final magical killing blow to the mad goddess herself perished before Sagawehn's servitors fell into disarray with the loss of their queen.

No astral corpse remains of Sagawehn, who in life appeared as an enormous mass of beetles, spiders and other insectoid vermin that operated with a singular consciousness. Some say that the infamous lamia of the Feywild, hive-minded carnivorous beetle swarms that prey on fey creatures and wear the skins of their kills to walk in disguise amongst them, are Sagawehn's last vengeance, spawned from the corpse of her killer when it was eaten by Sagawehn's last remaining vermin followers.

Despite her death, and her traditional lack of popularity with most humanoids (although thri-kreen always felt a mild respect for her), Sagawehn is still revered in small cults, whose priests are called hive masters - a reference to a bug-centric druid AD&D kit. Each such priest has a fascination for vermin, which is why they choose to revere the Winged Mistress; to them, insect colonies form the model for a life that is much more structured than that of most other races. They either teach such order and community feeling to their people — or force it upon them.

When still alive, Sagawehn taught the following, which is still upheld by her mad cults:

• The community is the greater good. Sacrifice all for the whole.
• A community thrives if those within it do their jobs well—specialize and allow others to benefit.
• Strength is in numbers. Power comes with growth and expansion.
• Seek to expand. Conquer those who oppose you.