Brennora
(a.k.a. The Hearthmother)
Brennora manifests as a sturdy, matronly figure radiating warmth and nurturing strength. Her skin glows with an inner heat like banked coals, with a complexion that shifts between warm copper and ruddy bronze depending on her emotional state. Her face combines motherly softness with undeniable authority—round cheeks, laugh lines around her eyes, and a gaze of amber or deep red that seems to evaluate not just physical wounds but emotional ones. Her hair appears as a complex arrangement of braids containing tiny embedded gemstones and metal beads that record family histories and healing knowledge, while her beard (as dwarven females also have fine beards in many traditions) is shorter and adorned with small symbolic charms representing different aspects of hearth and home. She typically wears practical clothing in layers, with an elaborate apron containing countless pockets holding herbs, tools, and comfort-objects she might need to tend her extended family of worshippers.
Worship of Brennora centers around nurturing, healing, and maintaining community bonds. Her followers include healers, parents, brewers, cooks, mediators, and those who maintain home and community. Devotional practices involve the tending of hearth fires that are never allowed to completely extinguish, the brewing of ceremonial ales and meads that improve with generations of care, and the maintenance of family recipe books containing both culinary and medicinal knowledge. Many adherents wear small hearth-shaped pendants that they heat in their palms when making promises, believing Brennora witnesses commitments made with "warmed words."
Sacred spaces dedicated to Brennora exist in central community locations, typically featuring "Eternal Hearths"—fire pits or forges that have remained lit since settlement founding, with each family responsible for tending the flame during assigned periods. Around these hearths, dwarves construct circular gathering spaces where the community shares meals, resolves disputes, celebrates achievements, and makes collective decisions. These areas often include "Healing Halls" where traditional medicines are prepared according to ancient formulas, and "Memory Kitchens" where ancestral recipes are preserved and prepared during festivals. Most sacred to Brennora's followers are "Reconciliation Tables"—round stone tables where feuding parties must sit together until they reach resolution, with the goddess believed to directly oversee these negotiations.
Throughout the year, followers observe ceremonies tied to family and community milestones. The most significant is the "Hearth Gathering"—a midwinter festival where each family brings a portion of their hearth's coals to the central Eternal Hearth, symbolically uniting the community during the harshest season. During these gatherings, new marriages are announced, births are celebrated, and the previous year's departed are honored with the sharing of their favorite foods. For individual families, the establishment of a new household hearth represents a sacred connection to Brennora, with coals from the parental homes and the Eternal Hearth combined to light the new family's fire in a ceremony called "Flame Continuation." In times of community conflict, elders invoke Brennora through the "Mending Circle," where representatives from all involved parties brew a communal tea together, the shared process of creation helping to rebuild damaged bonds under the goddess's watchful eye.
Divine Domains
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