Thanatimetra the Merciful Mother

Thanatimetra is recognized as the serene, maternal goddess of the harvest and afterlife, her arms spread wide as she offers bounty to her worshipers, cradles communities in her embrace, and holds the souls of the departed close to her.
Almost every mortal settlement contains at least a modest shrine to solicit her favor, and she is closely associated with the Elaeusian polis of Dasikos, the center of her worship. Wise and even-tempered, Thanatimetra values community, stability, and the balance of nature. She is the deity of maternity, mercy, compassion, family, orphans, domestication, and agriculture, as well as of the seasons, transformation, transitions, and all aspects of the life cycle: birth, life, death, and rebirth into the afterlife.
Thanatimetra appears to mortals as a motherly figure with glowing emerald eyes and hair of golden sheafs of wheat adorned with colorful blossoms and laden with heavy fruit. Her skin is earthen-colored, and her extremities, starting at elbow and knee, become spectral, permitting sight of flower-wrapped bones under the shimmering green-tinted and starry ghostly flesh of her hands and feet. She is always shown in art (and often seen in omens and visions) seated on her throne, which is formed from a tangle of grape vines growing out of a collection of jugs and amphorae that surround her. An elaborately carved wooden canopy extends above her, and a giant fox—her faithful companion—curls around the base of the throne at her feet. In one hand, she holds a harvester's scythe.
Thanatimetra governs nature as it comes into play in the lives of mortals, representing domesticated nature—a bounteous, nurturing provider. But she also reminds mortals that they are part of the natural world; they are animals that eat and digest and reproduce and sleep, and Thanatimetra is influential in all of that, as well. Mortals seek her favor because the fertility of nature is necessary for their existence. It isn't necessarily her wrath they fear—she is not a god of storms or plagues—but her withdrawal. Without her, plants, livestock, families, and communities simply fail to thrive. Her goodwill is a bulwark against both physical starvation and starvation of the spirit: despair, loneliness, and moral weakness.
Thanatimetra promises that spring will always come again, trees will always bear fruit, and flocks will always bear young. Children will always be born, parents will always care for them and be cared for in their turn. Great fortune or adventure might not be at hand, but the little joys of life—the smell of spring blossoms, the sweetness of ripe fruit, the flaming beauty of autumn leaves, the fellowship of community—can be savored. Moreover, she also promises that all must come to an end, if only to begin again. Children grow up, parents get older, the elderly die, and a new generation is always born to start the cycle once more. In a world of monsters and mysticism, Thanatimetra offers mortals perhaps the greatest blessing of all: security in the knowledge that their lives are finite, yes, but also meaningful and worth more than their weight in gold, and best yet, that there is an afterlife awaiting all who complete the cycle of mortal life. What kind of afterlife one experiences after death, though, is entirely up to them.
In many ways, Thanatimetra represents the essence of the divine relationship with mortals: fertility and protection are the nucleus of the aid mortals have always sought from gods, and Thanatimetra doesn't complicate these basic needs by couching them in terms of abstract ideals of honor or law or justice. She is the distillation of an ancient and primal exchange: mortal devotion in return for divine blessing.
The earth's fertility is essential for mortal life to continue. Those who live in the modern cities, states, and nations might not be as aware of that fact as those who farm their own food, but even they long for children, know the pinch of hunger, and feel the turn of the seasons. Prayers to Thanatimetra focus on asserting Thanatimetra's constancy and bounty, praising the goddess's love and generosity that stretch beyond life itself. Worshipers of Thanatimetra gather for a feast once a month, on the evening of the full moon, that celebrates the goddess's role in parenthood, community, and remembering those who have left the land of the living for the goddess's side in the afterlife. New parents receive gifts and blessings, young couples sneak away into the woods in hopes of finding sweet berries and sweeter kisses, and offerings of food and drink are left out in honor of the dearly departed so that they too might join the festivity.

Myths of Thanatimetra

The Miraculous Field

Somewhere deep in the lakelands of Llychlyn is a farm that produces incredible fruits and grains that can heal illnesses, increase fertility, and stave off hunger for days. The field is said to be Thanatimetra's tribute to her beloved human priest, Aisling, who died there. While many seek the farm, it is said that the vineyard around it is so labyrinthine that few have ever reached its center.

Striving for Perfection

Although Thanatimetra delights in nature's bounty, she ever strives to tap its greater potential. Her followers recount legends of breeders and horticulturalists who cultivated remarkable new types of plants and animals—such as the everfruit of Llychlyn or the storied Dawnfell dragon-hens. Yet, while Thanatimetra looks on such innovations with delight, some other gods see them as blasphemies. Even Thanatimetra has her limits on bioengineering, though, when mortals improperly use her gifts of domestication and husbandry, such as the blasphemous acts of ancient King Ariomedes who bred and trained a team of horses to become man-eaters in service of him. To punish him for such an improper use of her gifts, Thanatimetra transmogrified his steeds into monstrous aberrations whose external appearance reflected the aberrant practices of the king and set them upon him, devouring him inch by inch.

The Years of Rage

In ancient times, it is said that the typically merciful Thanatimetra flew into an implacable rage that neither mortal nor god could appease upon the disappearance of the moon and with it, her wife Eleuthemene. For a number of years, she withdrew her blessings from the world and ceased to tend to her divine duties. Crops withered on the vine, winter held the land in its grasp, and she tore down her own temples with her bare hands, fury in her eyes and a lamentation on her lips. The mortals of the world, threatened with starvation, beseeched her to curb her wrath. In an effort led by Thanatimetra's priests, nearly all of humanity prayed for a week, neither eating nor sleeping, praising Thanatimetra for her serenity and generosity. After that time, she relented and produced a miraculous crop of grapes that cured illness and fed the people. Ever since then, her statues have been adorned with twining grape vines around their left wrists in commemoration of that event.

Eight Exceptions

Eight times in the course of history, Thanatimetra has purposely allowed a mortal to delay their death or temporarily return from the afterlife. These individuals were restored as living beings (not as Revenants) to complete particular tasks. As a record of these exceptions, Thanatimetra keeps a revenant-like mask of each individual, all of which she has given to her wife Eleuthemene in case she should come across the eight in her nightly travels. Despite centuries between bargains, though, no one who Thanatimetra has made an exception for has ever returned. As a result, the Merciful Mother refuses to make another exception. She might be convinced to do otherwise were someone to bring one of the eight lost souls before her for punishment.

Divine Domains

Agriculture, vegetation, animal husbandry, and domesticated nature; seasons, natural cycles, beginnings and endings, and life and death and the afterlife; fertility, marriage, motherhood, pregnancy, and children; and mercy, pity, compassion, hope, and community.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Sacred Animals: Foxes, sheep, bears, cattle, horses, dogs, and screech owls.
Sacred Plants: Corn, wheat, barley, pomegranate, grapes, asphodel, and willow trees.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Thanatimetra doesn't engage in underhanded politicking or petty disputes. She seems to stand above the quarrels and tumultuous rivalries of other deities, and equally aloof from the machinations of the mortal world. Her fundamental concern is for the well-being of mortal folk, starting with their physical health but also including heir need for security, love, and belonging, and ending with their easy transition through life into death and then a deserved afterlife. For those mortals who escape her or are taken from her in the afterlife, though, she will go to great and sometimes brutal ends to shepherd them back home in the name of restoring the natural balance of life and death. While merciful, Thanatimetra is not above mercilessly punishing those who seek to intentionally upset the natural balance or endanger the living or unliving lives of mortal-kind.

Social

Family Ties

Thanatimetra might not want to wield power over other gods, but her position of detached compassion lends her significant influence to wield as she chooses. The other gods trust her to be impartial in their disputes and honest about her motivations, and they look to her for wisdom and even sometimes comfort. Furthermore, as one of the most widely worshipped deities of Etheria, she possesses the power to challenge Helionax the Light-Crowned's unspoken leadership over The Etherian Pantheon and claim dominion over it should she want it. Proud Helionax himself might even step down willingly for her, which is testament to her character and power within the pantheon. Helionax, after all, respects her civilized demeanor, and Thanatimetra recognizes the vital role the sun's brilliance plays in nurturing life of all kinds. This mutual respect does have its limits, though, as Thanatimetra is always one of the first gods to voice her disagreement with Helionax's many schemes, plans, and bouts of scorching wrath. For Helionax's part, he has come to expect this of her, and if there were to be a voice that would stall him, it would be hers.
Thanatimetra's relationship with her twin brother Theromedeon the Wild Guard is unbreakable though strained. Theromedeon is disappointed by Thanatimetra's decision, as a nature deity, to subordinate nature to the needs of mortals. Thanatimetra is frustrated by what she sees as Theromedeon's refusal to recognize mortal folk-and all their civilizations as part of the natural world. Moreover, her brother believes her to be overburdened by her many divine domains, though this could just be because he believes the responsibility of shepherding the seasons should rightly be his to bear. She is also not unaware that her brother justifiably blames her for the creation of Revenants, abominations to them both as deities concerned with maintaining the natural balance. Despite this tension, both gods encourage their worshipers to leave offerings at each other's shrines and continue to work together as nature deities and siblings.
The closest relationship Thanatimetra has in the pantheon is with Eleuthemene the Star-Dappled, her beloved wife. Both goddesses seek to protect mortal life, advance civilization, and tend to the spiritual care of mortals as they pass from life into death and then into the afterlife. It is Eleuthemene, after all, who is responsible for acting as a psychopomp to guide the souls of the recently deceased into the open arms of her wife who then oversees those souls in the afterlife in the celestial realm of the gods. It is said that Eleuthemene gathers all the souls departed in a day as she crosses the sky at night, guiding mortal spirits home to her wife who she greets with a kiss at dawn when Thanatimetra must rise to help Etherians tend the fields and flocks of the continent.
The gods who provoke Thanatimetra's sharpest disdain are Iroanos the Battle-Wise and Ginnir the Silver-Tongued who seem devoted to the idea of preventing mortal life from fully flourishing. Regarding the former, war, even if it's couched in noble terms, as Iroanos' followers like to do, is fundamentally an instrument of premature and unnatural death, bringing an early and pointless end to mortal life. That said, Thanatimetra does recognize the need to fight in defense of one's life, family, and community when they come under attack, so she and Iroanos are able to find some common ground in that matter—and in their shared hatred of Ginnir.
Thanatimetra holds a special grudge against Ginnir. Ginnir readily teaches mortals how to escape the afterlife as revenants and even sneaks into Thanatimetra's domain to assist them, earning him Thanatimetra's undying ire. Moreover, the god of deceit and greed represents the hardest traits of mortals to embrace as well as the traits which most often prematurely destroy mortal lives and happiness. As though that were not enough, Ginnir betrayed Thanatimetra's trust millennia ago, exploiting her faith in others to do harm to all.

Divine Classification

Deity

Species

Human

Gender

Female

Eyes

Glowing emerald green

Hair

Golden sheafs of wheat adorned with colorful blossoms and laden with heavy fruit

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Earthen-colored with extremities that become spectral and permit sight of flowering bones