Deities

[Aux]

[banemode] Now get to work on the next one Rhifox or i will crush your soul! [/banemode]

[Rhifox]

Yes master, right away master! *bows and scurries off*

[Rhifox]

And here's Chauntea (eww, tree-hugger god )


Chauntea

( Greater Deity )

Titles: The Great Mother, the Grain Goddess, Earthmother

Symbol: Blooming rose on a sunburst wreath of golden grain

Home Plane: House of Nature

Alignment: Neutral good

Portfolio: Agriculture, plants cultivated by humans, farmers, gardeners, summer

Worshipers: Peasants and indentured servants, druids, farmers, gardeners

Cleric Alignments: CG, LG, N, NG

Domains: Animal, Earth, Good, Plant, Protection, Renewal

Favored Weapon: A shock of grain (scythe)

Chauntea (chawn-tee-ah) is as old as Toril itself. Hers is the divine spark that gave life to the natural world, the vibrant, caring spirit infused with the planet at the moment of its creation. Originally a deity of wild places and animal life, Chauntea has grown with her world, changing and adapting to its many developments. The millennia have taught her patience?to the point of being at times ponderous. Chauntea loves the inhabitants of her world, and she likes nothing more than instructing Toril?s denizens on how the land itself might enrich their lives. Hers was the hand that guided the first mortal wanderers to give up the uncertainty of the gatherer for the stability of the field. Today, Chauntea is worshiped as the Great Mother of agriculture, the kind benefactor who ensures a strong harvest, healthy meals, and robust country living.

Chauntea rarely manifests herself in physical form, preferring to diffuse her essence throughout the living land of Toril. Religious icons depict her as a matronly, middle-aged woman with pale white hair and a welcoming smile. She wields a sturdy shock of grain as both walking staff and weapon, on the unusual occasions in which she finds herself in battle.

Worshiped by farmers, gardeners, agricultural slaves, and any who make their living off the land, Chauntea is seen by most Faerunians as an integral part of the natural cycle of life. Wealthy landowners and simple farmers alike come to the local cleric of the Earthmother for advice on bringing in the harvest or in setting next season?s crop. When the foul weather or disease leads to blighted fields, growers turn their gaze and prayers to Chauntea in hopes that her attentions will salvage the seasonal yield. Those who subvert the harvest for ill ends have much to fear from Chauntea?s servants, who take their role as pastoral protectors very seriously.

Chauntea?s clerics and druids pray for spells at sundown. The clergy holds few organized holidays, instead instructing the faithful to give thanks to Chauntea at every sunrise, and in every moment the natural beauty of the world fills them with joy. A long-standing tradition within the church holds that a newly wedded couple should spend their first night together in a freshly tilled field, which is said to ensure a fertile union. Fertility plays an important role in the Chauntean faith, and a hedonistic celebration during Greengrass encourages excessive drinking, eating, dancing, and uninhibited behavior. The clergy observe solemn High Prayers of the Harvest during a ritualized annual ceremony coinciding with the start of the harvest. Chauntea?s clerics most often multiclass as rangers or druids.

History/Relationships
Chauntea is one of the oldest Faerunian deities. Shar and Selune predate her, having given her life when they created the world of Toril. In the ensuing millennia, Chauntea has forged passionate relationships with several deities, many of whom no longer exist in any meaningful form. So too has she battled (and even destroyed) deities who schemed to befoul Chauntea?s world. Some of her worshipers claim that Chauntea is the progenitor of all the mortal races, that the creatures who populate the world first emerged from her womb in the days when the air was quiet and the earth still. In those early centuries, Chauntea was known as Jannath the Earthmother, a wild deity who ran with animal packs and rejoiced in the unhindered growth of wilderness. Though the people of the Moonshae Siles continue to worship this aspect of the Great Mother, the deity herself has moved on, changing as the world changes.

In the last several hundred years, Chauntea has become enamored with the inhabitants of her world (particularly humans) to the point at which she now focuses her attentions completely on helping them live off the land. She preaches a reverence for nature and urges the folk of civilized lands to repair what they have damaged, but she long ago ceded the wildlands to other deities. This development has led to a cooling of relations with Silvanus?some of his more militant druidic worshipers believe that the Great Mother has betrayed herself and sold out the world to the all-too-rapid encroachment of civilization. Her ties to other nature deities, particularly Shiallia, Mielikki, Lurue, and Eldath, remain strong. She shares a fondness for Lathander that has at times become intimate, and the two deities currently spend a great deal of time together. Chauntea opposes Auril, Malar, Talos, and Umberlee, and she views the return of Bane as a dark omen. Talona, Lady of Poison, is the Great Mother?s most hated foe, as her propensity to bring blight, poison, and disease to the natural world fills Chauntea with great fury.

Dogma
Growing and reaping are part of the eternal cycle and the most natural part of life. Destruction for its own sake and leveling without rebuilding are anathema. Let no day pass in which you have not helped a living thing flourish. Nurture, tend, and plant wherever possible. Protect trees and plants, and save their seeds so that what is destroyed can be replaced. See to the fertility of the earth but let the human womb see to its own. Eschew fire. Plant a seed or a small plant at least once a tenday.

Clergy and Temples
Members of the Great Mother?s clergy divide themselves into two factions of roughly equal size. Those clerics who minister to farmers and agricultural workers in cities, towns, and villages refer to themselves as Pastorals, while those of the wilder, older sect that caters to the wilderness call themselves, with a touch of arrogance, the True Shapers. Members of both sects recognize no central authority?theirs is a highly individualistic faith. Chauntea sets out a doctrine outlining a general set of values and taboos, but how each cleric adapts this code for herself and her flock is largely a matter of personal interpretation. The church welcomes members of all races, though women vastly outnumber men, perhaps because the religion?s liturgy is infused with references to fertility, motherhood, and femininity.

Clerics and druids of Chauntea often double as farmers or gardeners, and Pastorals frequently hold positions of great respect in rural communities. They were usually born in small villages or country farms, and while few eschew cities altogether, most came to the church through an appreciation of natural beauty, a feeling of peace when standing at the center of a tilled field under the light of the midsummer sun. They earn the admiration of their peers by strengthening yields and driving away natural blights or predators with magic spells. They also don?t hesitate to pin up their skirts and join locals at harvest time, keeping farming families healthy and providing an additional pair of hands for even the most arduous and menial tasks. Like their deity, most who server Chauntea are patient and quiet, slow to anger, and prefer passive diplomacy to open conflict.

Surprisingly, quite a few cities sport temples to the Great Mother, usually large, many-windowed structures that double as granaries or impressive open gardens. In the outlands, most ceremonies take place under the light of the sun or moon, with clerics holding special services in their homes, small shrines, or even barns or haylofts. In such places, clerics and druids of Chauntea instruct congregants on proper methods of planting, identification of plant and animal diseases, and herblore. Many perform marriages and act as midwives for human and animal births. They preach a respect for the natural world and emphasize programs of replanting, careful irrigation, and crop rotation to ensure that the earth is not despoiled.

Militant druids of Silvanus scoff at these lessons, however, claiming that the very act of agriculture is an affront to nature. It allows more people to live in a given area that can be sustained in the long term, and hence fosters overpopulation and environmental destruction, despite the best intentions of the Pastorals. They assert that over time, Chauntean agriculture, with its diverted waterflow, drained wetlands, and emphasis in supporting cities, will do irreparable damage to the natural balance. The Pastorals discount them, but such reactionary screeds have caused a great deal of turmoil among the True Shapers (most of whom are themselves druids). Numbers of the more primal Chaunteans have become Silvanites in the last century, leading to a cooling of relations between even the more moderate members of both clergies.

[SnoopBob]

Bane's reappearance

I found this interesting.

On Midwinter night of 1372 DR, Xvim burst in a conflagration of diabolical green light. From the smoking husk of his remains emerged a newly reinvigorated Bane, his right hand ablaze with green fire. Xvim, it appeaed, had been nothing more than a sentient cocoon, a shell in which grew a festering larva that would, in time, become Bane. Within days, the Xvimlar clergy had converted to the worship of Bane, and a great evil once again cast its calculating stare over the lands of Faerun.

Compared with:

The Year of Omens 1370 - The Black Hand of Bane comes to Sundren. The Triumvirate arrives soon after.

This means Bane's Black Hand arrived and the Triumvirate rallied to counter him before Bane was renewed? Just wondered if this was correct.

[Saulus]

Indeed, a task which they face with great difficulty.

[Stratigo]

Mmmm the Black Hand of Bane are also known as the Zhentarim. During the time with which Bane was absent Cyric had taken over the Black Hand. Of course there were several loyalists who still worshipped Bane under cover such as Fzoul (Who ironically led the Zhentarim). When Bane re enterred the world there was a short and bloody civil war within the Zhentarim in which they reverted to the worship of Bane. I do know that they were known as the Black Hand through out this time, but not if the 'of Bane' was still there. Cyric is a nutty guy, he may have just left it there.

[Aux]

Tempus is written up and about to be added to the Sundren wiki (and Chauntea, posted by Rhifox, is still waiting to be added- i dont know what these developers do with their time )

[Radiance]

Well, I can offer up a write-up on Yondalla. Been looking into her for a while. Deities and Demigods doesn't say a thing about Dallah Thaun, so I pulled this from Races of the Wild instead.

YONDALLA
Greater Goddess (Lawful Good)
The goddess of halflings, Yondalla, is lawful good. Her titles include the Protector and Provider, the Nurturing Matriarch, and the Blessed One. Yondalla is the creator and protector of the halfling race. She espouses harmony within the halfling race and stalwart defense against their enemies. Her followers hope to lead safe, prosperous lives by following her guidance. The domains she is associated with are Good, Law, and Protection. The short sword is her favored weapon. She has a darker aspect known as Dallah Thaun (see below), who is known only among halflings. The Blessed One appears as a beautiful, proud, blond-haired halfling, garbed in green and brown and carrying a short sword and shield.

Symbol: Cornucopia on a shield.

Portfolio: Halflings, protection, bounty, children, security, leadership, creation, wisdom, family, tradition, explorers.

Cleric Alignments: LG, LN, NG.

Domains: Good, Law, Protection.

Worshipers: Halflings, children, leaders, paladins, parents.

Cleric Training: A cleric of Yondalla trains new followers by borrowing a wagon from a Halfling caravan, then taking the would-be clerics away from their families for a month or two. The cleric and his disciples wander the back roads of the land, seeking sights that none of the pilgrims—teacher and students alike—have ever seen before.

Quests: The safety of the halfling people is Yondalla’s first concern, but she is also eager to chart new territory for Halfling caravans to visit. Her followers act as guards and guides for caravans and trading companies, capture the raiders that plague the highways, and lead expeditions to unexplored lands.

Prayers: Yondalla’s prayers are models of understatement. A prayer for healing might begin “I am in such fine health, yet . . .” and a prayer for intercession might begin “A minor annoyance has been visited upon me . . .”

Temples: Yondalla’s temples are gathering places for the otherwise seminomadic Halfling population. They are storehouses of food, weapons, and everything else needed to equip a caravan for a long journey. The clerics at a temple can always be counted upon to help a halfling in need—and her non-halfling friends as well, provided that they seem trustworthy.

Rites: Yondalla’s rites center on family and community. Weddings feature particularly elaborate and joyous ceremonies, because tying two souls together for life is so rare in the halfling race. When a halfling caravan pulls into a town near harvest time, Yondalla’s worshipers generally hold a festival called the Pageant of the First Fruit.

Favored Weapon: Short sword.

DALLAH THAUN
Intermediate Goddess (Chaotic Neutral)

Dallah Thaun, the Lady of Mystery, is the dark aspect of Yondalla. Physically split off from Yondalla when she created the halfling race, Dallah Thaun is worshiped both as a deity in her own right and also as part of Yondalla. Anyone who worships one goddess worships both, and prayers to one are heard by both. Each goddess knows everything the other knows and is privy to the other’s plans. Since they both work toward the same goal—the benefit of the halfling race—they do not quibble over one another’s methods. Instead, the two goddesses utilize each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses.

For example, when someone evil harms a great number of halflings, Yondalla’s followers nurture the survivors while Dallah Thaun’s seek vengeance. Likewise, the Blessed One provides her people with food, comfort, and healing, while the Lady of Mystery helps them find wealth. Should any dirty work need to be done, it falls under Dallah Thaun’s purview, and Dallah Thaun is said to receive the souls of dead halflings and guide them to their final reward.

There is no inherent evil in accumulating wealth; indeed, a nest egg for one’s golden years, when a hard-working halfling can no longer work as hard, is a necessity. How one gains this wealth is another matter. The Lady of Mystery does not condone killing or even harming others for money, but relieving the overly wealthy of a portion of their burden is quite acceptable. In fact, any method that harms no one is fine with Dallah Thaun, so long as the perpetrator doesn’t get caught.

Secrets, guile, lies, half-truths, flattery, intrigue, manipulation, and all things done by stealth are the purview of Dallah Thaun. “Don’t get caught” is her credo, and the lesson that she passes along to all her worshipers. Dallah Thaun also serves as an avenger for any wrongs done to her people.

Very few outsiders know of Dallah Thaun’s existence, and the halflings like to keep it that way. Since she is an aspect of Yondalla, halflings who venerate her can truly say that they worship Yondalla— who, as everyone knows, is a lawful good goddess. Since no one except halflings realizes that Dallah Thaun exists, she is not as powerful as her other half. In many ways, the two goddesses epitomize the dichotomy between openness and secrecy that is so characteristic of halflings.

The Lady of Mystery appears as a beautiful female halfl ing with dark hair and eyes. She dresses all in black and wears a voluminous black cloak with a hood that conceals her face. She tosses a gold coin in her gloved hands.

Portfolio: Halflings, secrets, guile, thieves and rogues, acquisition of wealth, death.

Domains: Chaos, Knowledge, Luck, Trickery.

Cleric Training: Clerics of Dallah Thaun are chosen by senior clerics of both Yondalla and Dallah Thaun. They covertly watch the young people in a community and identify those who have the mind-set and talents for Dallah Thaun’s service. They begin to groom those individuals as clerics without even telling them they are being trained. The candidates are sent on covert missions, told secrets and bade to keep them, and provided with opportunities to participate in confidence games. When the secret of their training comes out, they may either accept Dallah Thaun’s service or refuse it with no stigma.

Quests: The Lady of Mystery’s followers often undertake quests that involve stealing from the rich, discovering secrets, and acquiring particular items through means other than force. If half lings are in trouble with a local lord over thefts that have occurred while they were camped on his land, Dallah Thaun’s followers are the ones who enter the lord’s keep by night and suggest that harming or expelling the halflings could result in the revelation of the lord’s affair with a certain young noblewoman destined to marry another.

Prayers: Prayers to Dallah Thaun are usually whispered or mumbled, and they often sound like the kind of wishes one makes while daydreaming. Typical prayers begin “If only I could get a hundred gold pieces,” or “If only I could get out of this place safely,” or “If only I could figure out how this trap works.”

Shrines: Dallah Thaun’s shrines are usually surreptitiously folded into Yondalla’s. For example, a temple to Yondalla in a halfling town might have a shrine to Dallah Thaun behind a secret door or a sliding panel. Similarly, a family shrine to Yondalla in a wagon might have a rotating panel with Dallah Thaun’s holy symbol on the other side.

Rites: Dallah Thaun’s clerics celebrate the same holy days as Yondalla’s do, and they are usually present for the same celebrations. They also bless new ventures, successes of any sort, newly acquired wealth, thieves’ tools, and other “tools of the trade.”

Favored Weapon: Dagger.

[Machiavelli]

We've got a wiki (the link's at the top of the page). Feel free to add to the deities section there. It also has all our house rules, info on the setting, etc.

[Radiance]

Oh, this is fun. The submission page directs you to the wiki page on the copyright laws, and that wiki page doesn't exist yet. Strange, that.

[Llew Hy]

I'm not sure if anyone noticed this or if it's helpful or not but at the bottom of the classes page (http://www.sundren.org/wiki/index.php?title=Classes) I compiled and listed all of the deities from the Gods & Pantheons post (http://www.sundren.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5147)

Of course; all I can really take credit for is arranging the lists and adding them to that page, I didn't do any of the actual work. (Which is why I linked to the post at the bottom of the page)

It just seemed really bare before. it said "Cleric Domains" but there was nothing listed.

[Radiance]

I'm going to need a bit on the copyright regs on submissions before I can do anything. Anyone? The wiki directs me to a non-existent wiki page on the rules, so I don't know the restrictions there.

[Saulus]

If it's directly copy-pasted out of a book, don't do it. If it's bits of info on the net or written in your own words, it's perfectly okay.

[Radiance]

Well, in that case, rewriting it is. I'll get it done. Eventually.

[Gabryal]

I noticed something that made me wonder, because it's different in the wiki I usually look dieties up in. In the Sundren Wiki it says Auril's worshippers are LE, CE, and NE. But in the Faerun Wiki, which seems to be in accord with what I remember from the books her worshipers are LN, CN, and NE. Is this a Sundren thing then?