Taros, the Raven Queen

Primeval Goddess of Death, Rebirth, and Fate

Also known as She-Who-Judges, Taros is the last thing a person sees at the very end of their life. She is an incredibly neutral god, fitting the idea of death being a neutral concept. As a result, she is often depicted as being an emotionless being. In truth, Taros has a great deal of love and affection towards all mortal beings, but the nature of her role as the Goddess of Death requires a degree of detachment.

Divine Domains

Grave, Life

Divine Symbols & Sigils

The most common ornate symbols used are ravens, black feathers, skulls, bones, and scales. Her colors are often neutral - mostly blacks, whites, and grays, to symbolize the desolation and her interest in solitude.
Many of her worshippers also wield a lantern in their hand, said to light the way for the dead to follow.
Her most common symbol is that of a Raven's head.

Tenets of Faith

Death is the natural end of life. There is no pity for those who have fallen.

The path of Fate is sacrosanct. Those who pridefully attempt to cast off their destiny must be punished.

Undeath is an atrocity. Those who would pervert the transition of the soul must be brought down.

Holidays

The Raven's Rest - Held on the last day of Autumn, this is when the veil between the Material Plane and the Ethereal is thin, allowing spirits to pass into the physical world for a few moments.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Taros concerns herself with ensuring that those fated to die pass from the world as expected, and bids her agents to defeat those who seek to cheat death through undeath.
She loathes intelligent undead such as vampires and liches, and expects her followers to strike them down, where the mindless undead such as skeletons and zombies are little more than shells.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Taros is usually depicted as a tall woman dressed from head to toe in black clothing draped in raven's feathers. Four raven wings spread from her back to make her form more imposing. Her skin is an almost porcelain-white, but much of it is covered by her clothing. She wears a raven's hood that masks the upper half of her face.
In her hands, Taros holds a set of immaculate brass scales which she uses to judge those who die and come to her; two feathers sit on the scales, one white and one black.

Special abilities

Taros is said to be able to see the future, which adds to her detached nature; supposedly she has seen the life and death of every living creature that walks before they have. She also bestows this gift upon the most worthy of her followers.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Taros is said to be one of the first Gods to have been birthed by the All-Maker at the Founding of the World, formed from a speck of shadow that transformed into the first raven. Overtime this raven, imbued by the divine power of the All-Maker, would transform into her deific form; the Raven Queen. The young Raven Queen's mind was made open to the concept of endings and of death. As the first lifeforms created by the All-Maker began to walk the still-cooling ground beneath their feet, she spoke her first words to them:

Death comes to all, and is natural. Death comes to all, and is inevitable. Embrace the life you have, and welcome the death that comes.

- The first decree of Taros

To provide the mortal races with comfort after death, Taros carved a place for herself separate from the material world: The Raven's Road, where she could judge those who came to her, and comfort them before they continued onto their next life.

Divine Classification

Primeval Deity

Religions

• Church of the Raven Queen
• The Founders

Alignment

Neutral

Church/Cult

Church of the Raven Queen

Honorary & Occupational Titles

She-Who-Judges
Matron of Ravens
The Desolation.

Parents

The All-Maker, the First Light of Dawn

Current Residence

The Raven's Road

Ruled Locations

• The Raven's Road

Related Historical Events

• 1701 A.O.D.
  The Death of Kos

The Raven's Road

Where the other Primeval Deities make their home in the Great Beyond, Taros instead sits in the Raven's Road. The Road is where all souls venture after they die, where they walk towards her before being judged and sent away. Taros herself looms over the road like an ever-present shadow, judging the spirits as they pass.
While the Road normally appears as a black road floating in a purple and black void, different people may view the road differently. A soldier may see it as a battlefield, a hunter as a forest, a clergyman as his temple.

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