Greater Deity

Mother Earth, Treemother, the Forest Mother, Terra

Symbol: A Green Leaf, or a Blooming Rose
Alignment: Neutral
Portfolio: Earth, Animal, Plant, Elves
Favored Weapon: The Unicorn’s Horn (Scimitar)
Priest‘s Title: Earth Lord/Earth Maiden
Colors and Designs: Greens and browns, earthen colors

Gaia (Guy-uh) is a beneficent paternal deity to her worshipers. She is emotionally distant when it comes to the necessity of having balance in nature and wrathful towards who threaten wild places. She is worshiped by those who live in or depend on the wild or remote places of the world. Her great scimitar fells dead trees to prevent the spread of fire and more easily let them become one with the soil. Gaia usually she appears as a beautiful woman with long brown hair, snarled with vines and leaves. Mostly naked, she is garbed only in vegetation.

Her church favors small communities over large cities; although clusters of her clerics work in large cities to create beautiful and breathtaking gardens of wild forest within the city limits and preach the purity of nature compared to the haste and corruption of the city. Most of her clergy are druids who work independently, with other druids in circles, or rangers in the wild. Her clergy work to serve the balance of forces in nature and spend most of their time stalling or reversing the encroachment of civilization. This clergy’s methods sometimes involves sponsoring brigands or breeding and releasing predators – activities that have to be done in secret so that outsiders view the clergy as benign tree lovers. Tending plants, nursing sick and injured animals, and replanting trees are done publicly to promote this image.

Clerics and druids of Gaia prepare spells at sundown or in moonlight. Holy days are all throughout the festivals. Each one celebrating a turn into a new season for followers to enjoy. It is said that the seasons will not change until Gaia wills them to do so, which could account for prolonged seasons. Offerings made to Gaia are never blood sacrifices. They are usually something made of wood that is buried in a circle of ancient trees on a hilltop.

History/Relationships: Like Journey, Gaia is an old deity with many ties to other planes. Journey is her ally, along with other non-evil deities who work with her willingly. She opposes Rae, who’s fire is a bane to all forest creatures. She opposes unneeded destruction, hence Conquest and her are at continual differences.

Dogma: Gaia sees the balance of all, meeting out wild water and drought, fire and ice, life and death. Hold your distance and take in the entire situation, rather than latching onto the popular idea of what may be best. All life in in a cycle, deftly and beautifully balanced. It is the duty of the devout to see this cycle and the sacred Balance as clearly as possible, Make others see the Balance and work against those who would disturb it. Watch, anticipate and quietly manipulate. Resort to open confrontation only when pressured by time or hostile action. Fight against the felling of the forest, banish disease wherever you find it, and plant new flora wherever possible. Kill only when needful, and destroy fire and it’s employers.