Shelúne, the Moonweaver. One of the Prime Divinities, but also she is a Goddess of the Fey. She is the goddess and embodiment of the Moon, twilight, illusions, eclipses, romantic trysts, wanderers, hunters, goodly lycanthropes, and nocturnal creatures.
Many conceive her to be the goddess of love, the patron of illusions and misdirection, of moonlight and an autumn goddess. Those who work in darkness and trickery often ask for her blessing. But the goddess herself has a darker aspect, much like the moon, her mood and whims change on the morrow - ever-changing, where she embraces her own dark side known as
Nocturnal the Shadow Mistress. She is known as a meddlesome and fickle goddess at times, struggling and fighting with the two sides of her divinity within herself.
Church of Shelúne
Worshippers
Shelúne clerics are a very diverse group, including sailors, non-evil lycanthropes, mystics, and female spellcasters. Many elves, humans, halflings, gnomes and fey creatures pay homage to her.
The few followers of the Shadow Mistress are those that skulk and take kindly to the protection the shadows offer - criminals, murderers, assassins, beasts, vampires and evil lycanthropes.
Followers of the Moonweaver often set bowls of milk, a sacred fluid, outside on nights when the moon is full.
Orders
Temples & Shrines
Her church's main objective is to fight evil lycanthropes and summon the
Shards, blue-haired female planetar servants of Shelûne, to battle the minions of her arch-nemesis and twin spirit, Nocturnal. The temple also performs fortune-telling, healing, and practised self-reliance and humility.
Realm
Shelûne dwells in a planar realm called
The Gates of the Moon. There Shelûne resides in a shining silver hall named
Argentil, a place of beauty, quietness, and moonlight.
Divine Domains
Arcana - Light - Peace - Twilight - Trickery
Holy Books & Codes
Shelûne's faith has no holy books as they do not want to limit their faith to such material things.
Divine Symbol
A Crescent Moon - A pair of eyes surrounded by seven stars.
A Crescent Moon turned upward, strung like a bow.
Tenets of Faith
- Seize your own destiny by pursuing your passions.
- Let the shadows protect you from the burning light of fanatical good and the absolute darkness of evil.
- Walk unbridled and untethered, finding and forging new memories and experiences.
Dogma
Life is a series of mysteries whose secrets are veiled by the
Luminous Cloud. As the spirit transcends its mortal bounds and new mysteries are uncovered, a higher form is achieved and the cycle of life continues. Through contemplation and meditation, communion with the Lady of Dreams is achieved. Through dreams, visions, and omens revealed in sleep or the reverie, the Daughter of the Night Sky unveils the next step along the path and the next destination on the endless journey of mystic wonder that is life and death and life.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
Shelûne is constantly trying to combat the dark machinations of Lolth and Zehir, while at the same time guiding her followers to a life of enlightenment and the fulfilment of their desires. She offers help to those that work in darkness and seeks to cause trickery, illusion or misdirection.
Personal History
Created from the primordial essence of the universe, and was one of the gods and goddesses that came during the time of the Great Founding. Unlike most other deities, Shelúne was not made manifest from the Astral Plane - but rather her essence and being coalesced within the Feywild, as part of the beautiful and passionate realm - noticing the brilliant reflections of the world, until she stepped forth into the Material Plane in the night and was transformed, entering a world darker and less radiant than her own - her Fey nature interchanging and flying through the deep darkness, and her own shadow left her and became disconnected. Her form was in conflict with itself, her light and dark side fighting for supremacy, and manifesting into the twilight goddess of the moon.
Shelúne and Pelor, being the primary deities of light competed and argued as to whom would shine the brightest in the sky and for how long during the day and for the year. First, they raced across the sky - Pelor with Star-Thought, the ki-rin; and Shelúne on a midnight black and purple-tinted unicorn named
Starlite. They both found themselves as equals - then they came to a vote of confidence between the four seasonal-nature deities, the Season Riders; Vernoron and Boreas chose to vote for Shelúne, waylaid by her beauty and charm, whilst Freya and Eostara voted for Pelor, enamoured in his light and warmth. Happening upon this competition, the young god of the Halflings Maevericki joined the fray, and set to judge this wager in his own way. He asked what each god of light would offer to the Halfling to win the wager. Pelor came forth, radiant and blessed in his armour - with his daylight, he would offer the sun's eternal warmth, and to shine unlike any other. But Shelúne offered the Halfling god something unlike any other - a twist and turn of fate, the potential to have the universe in his favour; granting him and the Halflings the gift of luck. Offering this, Maevericki accepted Shelúne's offer and was largely impressed, but felt no different. Shelúne was granted five extra days of moonlight in the year from Pelor and the Season Riders, while each of them shared the year of light and night together to bring prosperity to the world and to nature.
Shelúne and Pelor aided the Season Riders of the Primordial Green on numerous more occasions and were became bound to the natural cycle of the world's changing seasons of nature, and thus the natural life cycle tied them to the world. But in her time with the Season Riders, she came to be renowned for her skills as an archer, and the choices in which hunters make within the dark, where they meet at a crossroads. Adopting an extra symbol in her portfolio, of a triple crossroad, shaped like a Y, where hunters make a choice 'in the dark', without the guidance of moonlight.
Shelúne did not create her own race, unlike the other Prime Divinities, but upon Arvanos' abandonment of the elves and the loss of their matron deity Lolth - Shelúne took it upon herself to foster the elven children and parlay the powers between them. Those that she truly blessed and gave her mark to were the
Moon Elves, that reciprocated their love for her, travelling across the starry nights. Though she did not lead the elves, she allowed them a choice through their dark and devastating fall from supremacy.
Shelúne caught her eyes on the Harvest Lord, Vernoron, and felt her passions ignite. And the two shared a loving embrace for time on the night.
Shelúne, a loving and impulsive goddess took flights of fancy with other deities in the divine era - much beloved by the Halfing's and Gnomes, those creatures of the Feywild - she was said to have short relationships between Maevericki and even Pygmea at the time.
The other deity that she had held passionate and troublesome trysts with was also Romeus, the Sorrow Sovereign. Her other ego, Nocturnal, a seductive being, enamoured the Sorrow Sovereign in the times in which she is the prominent phase of the Moon - but upon the return of Shelúne, she does not recall the times of her romances and rebuts her paramour each time. A complicated relationship between the two deities at times.
She became quite tied to the Feywild, and diverted her essences in helping guide the Elves - becoming closely tied and friends with the Seldarine, especially Eilistraee. Before their eventual fall, Shelúne was the one that thwarted the plot to overthrow Arvanos by Araushnee - and was seemingly the inadvertent instigator to the downfall of the Elves.
In the absence of their father, Shelúne sought to bring guidance to the elves the best way she could - and attempted to aid them in their flight away from the world during the Cataclysm. But due to the vengeful machinations of Lolth, and the conflicting nature within her between Nocturnal and herself, her concentration to send them to the safety of the Feywild wavered - and many of the fleeing Arkspires were lost across the planes. The Elves of Gwynngilliad had lost and crashed their Arkspire to Gwynndrassil's domain, and was left decimated and left to devolve into the wilds. Nocturnal seeks to diminish and toy with Shelúne's beloved pets, and cast a dark period of twilight and suffering towards them.
The others locations of the Arkspires are unknown, lost in time and in space.
In the battles of the Cataclysm, she also gave aid to the Shapeless One, and working against the Horned King, Baphomet. Aided by the Shards, her loyal angelic maidens, they battled the Demon Lord of Beasts with the Shapeless One to do battle. Sending moonlit arrows against the creature, breaking through the creatures thick hide and bringing it low, and aiding in banishing the creature in the great beyond of the Abyss - she was granted the purview over nocturnal animals and good lycanthropes, to hopefully sway the mortals from devastating the beauty of nature and abusing animals.
After the Divergence, she became the patron of the Moon Elves, those that wished to search for the lost elves of the Arkspires and return them home.
During the Century of Broken Magic, she was entrapped by Morpheus the Fantasy Lord in the Dreamscape - in a morbid curiosity to harness and potentially cure the conflict between her. He tried to split her essence apart to entrap and ensnare her darker side and seal it away within the
Astral Nightmare. Her powers diminished, though sending her visions beyond the dream and nightmare.
She felt the coming of the Great Elder One, Hadar the Dark Hunger, and knew great fear - as she was nearly swallowed by the being. But with her divine strength and the Twilight powers within her, she held back the sky alongside Pelor. Succeeding in aiding the Skyclasp Sealers in the Rift Schism.
Physical Appearance
She is most often depicted as a young lady with light blue skin and silver-white hair. Her body and limbs create the edges of the shadows.
