Salorna¶
Domains: Life, Nature, Storm, Sun
Salorna believes that nature is a moral good. That to behave in a manner not in accord with the natural balance (she would never use the word "order") is to commit offense against the gods.
Salorna teaches that humans are a product of nature, so then a tilled farm is as much a natural phenomenon as a forest. Indeed, tilling the land is a form of caring for it. But she also teaches balance in all things. A land of farms and no trees would be just as unnatural to her as a land of all trees and no people.
Felling a tree for lumber is natural. People need lumber to make homes for shelter. This is proper and good. Felling a tree because it's in the way of a road is mere convenience and therefore a moral wrong. Salorna curses a straight road.
Killing for food is likewise natural. People need to eat and the pig knows this as well as the person. Killing for sport is a moral wrong, however. It is unnatural, Salorna says.
A wheel that harnesses the power of the river is a beautiful thing. Humans and river physically connected. A dam that blocks the river is a desecration.
Some of Salorna's priests are conduits; some are mages of the green. Both seek to preserve the balance and respect for nature. Because much of Vasloria is covered in elven forest, Salorna's druids are also often diplomats to the elves.
Salorna has few censors, but not none! Favoring light armor and ranged weapons, her censors are often mistaken for rangers. They seek to punish those who hunt for sport, or those who would defile the natural order.
Draighen the Warden¶
Domains: Nature, Sun
Saint Draighen the Warden, the Ranger, Draighen of the Wood was known in her life for her mastery of the elf haunted wodes which she could cross without incident. Draighen it was who first treated with the derwic, whom even the wode elves had not seen in many ages of the world.
The awakened trees were happy to hear news of the world and while it was impossible for her to satiate their endless curiosity ("How fare the steel dwarves?"), Draighen provided many services for them. Chief among those—locating the Stone of Hyllc a large flagstone infused with magic, which the derwic used as a kind of altar for communing with their creator. Many traditions had the derwic forsworn after the loss of their symbolic meeting-stone, and they were sore grateful to the human who took their problems as her own.
Years later, a fire threatened to engulf the local wode, and the elves within refused all aid. Their stoic refusal to prevent their own extinction infuriated Draighen, whom they already resented because of her special relationship with the walking trees.
Draighen proposed a trick the humans-"the men of farm and field" used when fire threaten to burn their crops after a drought. "Starve the fire," she proposed. The elves, initially curious, rejected her idea as soon as they understood it. "Cut down the trees?!" they exclaimed, and exiled the human.
Refusing to give up on the elves, even after they chose to die with their forest, Draighen went to the derwic, who immediately praised her plan and were eager to help. The elves of the wode were astonished when Draighen returned with a dozen derwic who immediately began uprooting a line of trees ten miles long and a thousand feet wide. What would have taken the elves or humans many days even working together, the derwic did in an hour. The fire reached the edge of the break the walking trees had made... and died out.
When the elves remarked upon this, taking the derwic to task for their actions, Hurolathornindrascyl, derwic's chief, looked at Draighen in confusion and then pointed to the sea of uprooted trees. "They would have moved on their own if they could! We just helped them along."
The elves were properly chastised and realized their shame. Though the derwic disappeared back into the wode, the elves celebrated Draighen, naming her Elf-Friend and Wode Warden. In the ceremony, Draighen was surrounded by a golden light and her brown eyes turned green. The elves knew she was Saint Draighen now.
Draighen teaches solutions can always be found if people are willing to talk. That even the darkest forest is not a thing to be threatened by if you carry wisdom and an open heart with you. That the proper reaction to unknown territory is curiosity.
Eriarwen the Wroth¶
Domains: Nature, Storm
Eriarwen the Wroth apprenticed to her mother as a witch just as her mother had apprenticed under her mother. Her family were witches in service to Halcyon the Moonmaiden, saint of Viras, the Lady of Spring. They had tended to the souls and health of the people of five villages for two centuries. Eriarwen was not yet of age, and so not yet a full mistress of the craft when the blight came.
At first it was a newborn foal born with seven eyes and a writhing grasping tentacle where it tongue should have been. It took three farmers to kill the infant beast and though they dismissed it as an accident of birth, the three were harrowed.
Soon, it was a cat, then a herd of cows. Then every kind of beast and bird in the wood emerged with hideous mutations, defects, and deformities. The creatures had not just been driven mad, they were filled with hate for the people of the farms and villages. Though they could not know it, it was the Red Blight of Caswyn the Plaguemaster.
In a matter of a week, the people were forced to all gather together in one town for protection, and they feared they were doomed. All attempts to stop the blight had already failed.
Her mother and grandmother, the other witches of their coven, spent their time trying to protect the people and heal the afflicted animals, but this was not possible. There could be no cure, for these creatures were not sick. Caswyn had changed their nature making new things out of the wildlife.
When her grandmother's horse changed underneath her, turning into a merging of horse and crab, Eriarwen saw her mother summon a killing spell, but her grandmother forbade it and turned to try and calm and reason with the steed who had carried her for twenty-seven years.
Then Eriarwen saw the beast rip her grandmother apart with a single bite.
Her mother raced to her mother's corpse. And Eriarwen called out.
Eriarwen did not scream or cry, nor call out for aid or even mercy. She did not call to Viras, nor any of her saints. She called out to Salorna the Summer Storm and demanded the Woodland Mistress act.
Eriarwen felt a growing heat and joy in her heart, and, feeling like she could fly, she suddenly saw the world through a million eyes all at once, and where she had stood, a humanoid figure composed entirely of bees filled the space. Eriarwen the Swarm exploded in a cloud of bees and each bee was Eriarwen. She sped across the countryside from one village to the next, stinging every animal affected by the Red Blight, and the villagers watched as the woodland creatures, their own pets and livestock, returned to normal. Good as new! None knew then that it was Eriarwen who saved them, but all knew it must be a member of her family. Who else?
But Eriarwen was just getting started. Returning to her grandmother's corpse, the swarm coalesced and Eriarwen emerged, a young woman again. But her hair was flame and lightning crackled where she walked.
"CASWYN!" she thundered. "I SUMMON THEE! COME! YOU CANNOT RESIST! I COMPEL THEE!"
Caswyn, furious at the death of his blight, furious at the girl who dared oppose him, could not resist. He revealed himself and in that moment, it was Caswyn the Pestilent, saint of Cyrvis who appeared.
Saint Caswyn and Saint Eriarwen battled and grappled with each other, each growing to great size infused with the power of their gods. But their figures were unrecognizable. Caswyn was a rotting giant, a mutated dragon, a griffon oozing blood.
Eriarwen was a wolf made of fire, a crow made of lightning, a bear made of stone.
Caswyn the Chimera hurled Eriarwen the Lion to the ground and it was Caswyn the Cobra who struck. But it was Eriarwen the Elk who spit Caswyn upon her antlers, banishing the saint from the mundane world.
Eriarwen returned to herself, and though she was now an immortal saint, she sensed that Salorna had given her yet more power. She saw her mother weeping over her grandmother's body. The old woman's horse, restored by Eriarwen's sting, nuzzled at her mistress's curled gray hair.
Eriarwen smiled, and knew the task before her. She conjured lightning from her fingertip, and her grandmother was renewed. Mothers and daughters reunited.
Eriarwen teaches that nature holds the power to destroy—that Mother Nature is also the fury of a hurricane. She preaches revenge against those who would pervert the natural world. And that those who seek to preserve the balance between humans and nature must be willing to take violent action if necessary.