Melora
What the Faithful Believe
Goddess of wilderness and the sea. Her realm extends to wherever the seas shift and the land grows wild. Keeper of wilderness, she represents wild creatures of nature, the rush of angry rapids, and the heat-heavy stillness of the desert. Elves and hunters worship her, accepting her guidance to exist harmoniously within savage lands. Those seeking safe passage across dangerous waters pray to her for guidance. Druids of Melora and clerics of her lover, Erathis, work together to preserve the balance of nature and civilization. It is said they grow furious when this balance is upset, a fury manifesting as devastating natural disasters.
In Marquesian, Melora is known as Serataani; in Goblin, an-Melzidanye.
Commandments: Protect the untamed wilderness from exploitation and destruction. Slay abominations and other mockeries of nature. Embrace and respect that which you cannot control in this world. Exist in harmony with it.
Worship & Practices
Worshippers include elves, hunters, druids, nomads, and those seeking safe sea passage. The Wildmother’s holy day is Wild’s Grandeur, celebrated on the vernal equinox, usually the twentieth day of the third month (Dualahei). The people of the Menagerie Coast set this day aside to sail purely for the pleasure of observing natural beauty. In the southern wilds, worshippers journey to a place of great natural beauty — a mountain waterfall, the center of a desert.
No permanent temples — the natural world is the temple. Shrines are hidden in overgrown groves and rural locations.
Perceived Powers
Watches over nature, ensures good harvest, grants protection during raging storms, guides passage of ships, preserves wilderness and those who seek her blessing.
Tensions with Rival Faiths
Worship of Melora was outlawed in the Dwendalian Empire, causing disagreement between clerics of Erathis within Western Wynandir, where many blamed poor weather and natural disasters on the ire of their deity’s partner. Zehir the Cloaked Serpent loathes both Erathis and Melora; his surviving worshippers use poison and fire to undermine civilization and consume nature, hoping to infuriate both.
Exodus Status
Per Campaign Three canon: at the end of the Red Solstice in 843 PD, Melora agreed to the Rites of Catatheosis — entering a consecution-like cycle of rebirth as a mortal, bound to Exandria rather than remaining a god beyond the Divine Gate. She was one of the few Prime Deities initially opposed to leaving Exandria at the Divergence; she did not want to leave nature and her creations. Her mortal avatar form, Asha, was played during Downfall as a Taliesin Jaffe PC. Her current status as of 1000 A.E. is unknown, but she has been in a mortal rebirth cycle for 1000 years — meaning she exists somewhere in Nuxan as an ordinary mortal carrying an extraordinary soul through some iteration of rebirth, with no guaranteed memory of what she was.