20 April 2024

So, I’m starting a D&D campaign with my family, and I wanted to centralize the lore, make it more accessible. Still very much a work in progress, there. So this is where I started, with the pantheon, since that’s what I have the clearest idea about in my head. I only got one done here, but there’s another three coming in the next post. Heralds are kind of lesser gods, along the lines of ascended mortals or whatnot.

Alyndra,  The Life Mother

Also known as just the Mother, the Wildmother, and She Who Hunts, Alyndra is often depicted as a tall, antlered woman with long, flowing green hair, at least in the human nations. She and her husband Death created this world after unknown events forced them to leave their previous one.

She is responsible for the cycle of life, in all its facets. Her clerics are most commonly associated with the Grave, Life, and Nature domains, though Blood, Death, and Light are not unheard of. She and her husband tend to take a more “hands off” approach to governing the world, preferring to let their children and the world’s inhabitants decide their own futures. The one known exception on a grand, historical scale was many thousand years ago, in the Great Fiend War, when they sealed the Archdemon of Lust after its failed attempt to seduce their daughter Leilari, the Eternal Rose.

Known Heralds: 

1) The Predator 

2) The White Stag? [Could also be an archfey; not mutually exclusive options, either] 

3) Yggdra, the Great Tree

4)

18 September 2022

This is the creation story for my homebrewed D&D story. Or, well, the first part of it. I may add more later. It’s been ages since I’ve played, but I do enjoy it, and I enjoy the worldbuilding aspect it inspires. My setting does differ from mainstream D&D settings in a few ways here and there, but that’s part of the fun for me. I’m not the first person to think of Life and Death being a couple who gave birth to everything else, but it’s an idea I find fascinating.

If I were ever to make this serious, there are definitely some things in this I’d expand upon. Also, this is 100% fiction, and doesn’t represent my actually religious beliefs. I probably didn’t need to say that, but you never know.

Before the beginning, there were only two, Mother Life and Father Death. Some say they were exiled from other realms, others that they wandered from their home to grow beyond the limits of what they were. And they stepped into the dark, and it was empty, and cold.

To stave off the cold, they embraced each other, and Mother Life conceived. To comfort her in her pregnancy, Father Death formed earth for her to lie on, and soon a baby girl was born to them, with flaming gold hair, and brought light to the darkness. In joy, the two gods wept and held their baby close. The Mother’s bed became the earth and the spirit Genbu, and their tears became the oceans and the spirit Aruna.

The baby grew, and as she grew she laughed loud and often. When she did, her hair would flare flames so furious it would boil the new oceans. The first flames fell deep in the earth, and became the spirit Pele. Mother Life wished for her daughter to know beauty, and so with her power grew a garden bed for her little girl. And even as her flames burned it, so too did her light sustain its life.

In time, Mother Life and Father Death again conceived and bare a son, who could shatter mountains with his cries. His first wail became the winds and the spirit Zephyr. With his winds, the boy learned to bring water to the garden the children now shared and let it rain, softening his sister’s flames and creating the first storm.

The two children would often fight and grieve Mother Life and Father Death. When they saw this, the four great spirits gathered and said, “We must do something.” So each shared of their essences to create a being in the image of their makers, and thus the first giant was born. They made many more, and brought them to the children, who stopped fighting to admire them in wonder, and play with them.

Mother Life and father Death were also impressed, and praised the spirits. “However,” Mother Life said, “they do not yet truly live. They are still little more than puppets.”

The spirits sorrowed, and Father Death cautioned, “If we grant them life, we must also grant them death. They will not be eternal, as the gods or the spirits. Do you still wish them to live?”

With one voice, the spirits pleaded for them to make it so. And the Mother and the Father granted life to the giants.