Nadra
(a.k.a. The Blood Rot Mother)
Nadra manifests as a fertile, multi-limbed figure blending goblinoid features with arthropod aspects. Her skin appears as a mosaic of chitinous green and brown plates interspersed with sections of fertile soil from which small plants, fungi, and insects continuously emerge, live brief lives, and then decay back into her flesh in endless microcycles of life and death. Her face combines maternal goblin features with arachnid elements—multiple eyes of various sizes that independently track different movements, mandible-like tusks that continuously secrete nourishing venom, and sensory appendages that taste the air for chemical signals. Her hair appears as a writhing mass of roots, vines, and symbiotic organisms that extend outward to connect with nearby plant life, allowing her consciousness to spread throughout natural areas. She typically possesses multiple limbs—some obviously arms, others more like jointed insect appendages—all constantly busy tending, gathering, weaving, or nurturing the countless offspring she continuously produces.
Worship of Nadra centers around fertility, survival through adaptation, and the savage nurturing aspects of nature. Her followers include tribal mothers, beast-handlers, poison-brewers, and those who cultivate useful plants and fungi. Devotional practices involve blood-fertilization of crops, the cultivation of symbiotic relationships with insects and plants, and communal birthing rituals where multiple females give birth together in specially prepared fertility pits filled with nutrient-rich soils. Many adherents maintain "growth pouches"—small collections of soil, seeds, and organic matter carried against their bodies, the resulting growths used for medicine, poison, or divination.
Sacred spaces dedicated to Nadra typically exist in dense jungle regions or subterranean fungal forests, centering around "Mother Groves"—areas of intensely concentrated life where plants, insects, and other organisms exist in complex, accelerated relationships. These locations usually feature "Birthing Pits"—nutrient-rich depressions where tribal births take place amid specially cultivated organisms believed to confer beneficial adaptations to newborns exposed during their first moments of life. Most sacred to Nadra's worshippers are rare "Bloodroot Nexuses"—locations where her consciousness is believed to be most present, identifiable by distinctive spiral patterns formed by symbiotic plant growth and the unusual behavior of local insects that appear to operate with collective intelligence, forming patterns and structures without apparent individual purpose.
Throughout the year, followers observe ceremonies tied to natural cycles and community growth. The most significant is the "Great Spawning"—a tribal-wide fertility ritual coinciding with seasonal insect emergences, where all activities focus on reproduction and growth. During these periods, tribal members undergo the "Symbiosis Grafting," where carefully cultivated fungal or plant matter is integrated into their bodies, creating permanent symbiotic relationships believed to carry Nadra's blessing and practical survival benefits. For communities facing environmental challenges, shamans perform the "Adaptation Seeking," consuming specialized concoctions that induce transformative visions, often resulting in new tribal practices or mutations designed to address survival pressures. These ceremonies often coincide with the "Culling Recognition," where weaker offspring are identified not for elimination (as Nadra values all life) but for specialized roles that leverage their particular adaptations, ensuring every member contributes to tribal survival regardless of conventional strength.
Divine Domains
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