The Earthmother

The Earthmother is the central figure of a monotheistic pagan religion practiced by barbarian tribes across the region, revered as the primal source of all life and the relentless sovereign of the natural world. She is the fertile womb of every creature, plant, and spirit, with all lesser deities considered her progeny. Far from a nurturing caretaker, she is a feral, commanding deity, her essence a volatile mix of lustful creation and merciless culling, favoring only those who prove their strength in her savage domain. As a “den mother” to her tribes, she spawns life through erotic rites and ensures survival by weeding out the weak, her worship a brutal testament to nature’s unyielding hierarchy.
Iconographic Representations
The Earthmother is depicted as a three-faced entity, her form a provocative blend of human and beast, seated on a throne of stone covered in matted pelts, tangled roots, and bloodied bones. Her body, with swollen breasts, flared hips, and a protruding belly in a voluptuous form of ancient fertility carvings in the realm, embodying her role as the font of life. Each face reflects an aspect of her nature, adorned with symbols of her dominion:

• Face of Desire: Sultry and ravenous, this face, with smoldering eyes and parted lips, radiates erotic potency, crowned with blooming thorns that signify her fertile, life-spawning hunger, drawing devotees into sensual devotion.
• Face of Culling: Fierce and predatory, this face bears sharp features and a piercing, unnerving gaze, its jagged horns symbolizing the power to eradicate the unfit, enforcing survival’s harsh mandate.
• Face of Survival: Stern and enigmatic, this face, framed by a crescent moon, exudes raw endurance, its scaled texture denoting the relentless drive to thrive amidst nature’s trials.

Her serpentine-like limbs, slick with earth and sweat, coil seductively yet threaten with hidden claws, while her fertile curves pulse with primal allure. Effigies, carved from wood, bone, or clay with exaggerated maternal forms, stand in sacred groves, believed to channel her presence, igniting desire in the faithful or paralyzing the irreverent with dread.
Ritual Practices and Worship

Worship of the Earthmother revolves around rituals that celebrate her role as the progenitor of life and arbiter of survival. Devotees offer sacrifices of slaughtered beasts, ripened and rotting fruits, and human flesh—often consumed in cannibalistic feasts to absorb the strength of the fallen, honoring her culling aspect. Moonlit ceremonies, held during solstices and equinoxes, feature ritualistic orgies, where frenzied coupling under intoxicating brews ensures fertile wombs and potent warriors, paired with blood offerings to appease her hunger. These rites, steeped in erotic fervor, aim to secure abundant harvests, robust offspring, and tribal supremacy, but failure to revere her risks curses—blights that barren fields or sap vitality, as if caught in her gaze.
Her fertility is invoked through sensual chants and earth-smeared dances, believed to heal wounds, quicken pregnancies, or enhance martial prowess, granted only to those who prove their vigor through combat or ritual endurance. These practices underscore her as a goddess who rewards the strong, casting the weak to ruin in a relentless survivalist creed.

Spiritual Leadership
The Earthmother’s spiritual leaders—shamans, druidic circles, and spirit guides—serve as her conduits, wielding volatile magic drawn from the natural world, a gift reserved for the resilient.

• Shamans: Chosen for their communion with her primal spirits, shamans harness her dual nature, healing through blood rites or invoking curses that weaken foes. They undergo brutal scarring initiations, surviving visions of lust or predation, and guide tribes in worship and survival tactics, ensuring only the strong endure.
• Druidic Circles: These guardians protect her sacred sites, led by seasoned elders who embody her authority. They oversee orgiastic and cannibalistic rites to honor her culling aspect, fostering tribal dominance, and steward the wilds to favor the fit, prioritizing survival over harmony.
• Spirit Guides: Bonded to specific spirits, these individuals undertake solitary quests involving ritual debauchery or trials of endurance, emerging as mediators who offer seductive guidance or dire warnings, reflecting the goddess’s dual nature.

Leaders facilitate worship and offer counsel rooted in primal instinct as well as defend sacred sites, ritually consuming trespassers’ remains to honor her. Those who defile her sanctuaries face curses—such as wasting sickness or infertility—to enforce her survivalist mandate.

Tribal Conflict: One God, Many Faces
The tribes, driven by a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, engage in relentless territorial conflicts, raiding for mates, resources, or captives to prove their strength. Each tribe venerates a specific aspect of the Earthmother—desire, culling, or survival—as their primary aspect of patron, viewing rivals’ deities as inferior offspring unworthy of her favor. The culling aspect justifies their raids, as they believe the strong must consume the weak to embody her will, often incorporating cannibalism to claim rivals’ vitality. Temporary alliances against external threats, such as invaders or predatory beasts, form but fracture swiftly, as tribal devotion to their interpretation of the Earthmother fuels ceaseless warfare, each seeking to dominate in her name.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

The Earthmother’s symbols reflect her cyclical, survival-driven power, inspired by the fertility-focused forms of ancient carvings:

• Serpent-Wreathed Womb: A stylized womb encircled by serpents, symbolizing her fertile desire and relentless culling, uniting creation and consumption.
• Triple Crescent: Three crescent moons in a spiral, representing her three faces and the lunar cycles guiding her rites.
• Spiral of Vitality: A flowing spiral, signifying the transformative cycle of lust, birth, and survival.
• Horned Veil: A horned veil, embodying her authoritative culling aspect, rooted in primal dominance.

Tenets of Faith

The Earthmother’s tenets guide followers to embrace her primal, survivalist will through lust, sacrifice, and endurance:

1. Revere the Earth: Honor the land as her fertile body, claiming its bounty through strength to prove worthiness for her gifts.
2. Commune with Spirits: Seek her offspring’s guidance through ritual offerings, aligning with their primal instincts to survive her trials.
3. Celebrate Cycles: Mark seasons with orgiastic rites, fueling her lunar power to ensure fertility and vigor.
4. Offer Flesh and Seed: Sacrifice lives and lust, consuming the fallen to absorb their strength, securing her favor or averting her wrath.
5. Prove Supremacy: Dominate rivals through raids and conquest, as the strong honor her by consuming the weak, reflecting her culling aspect.
6. Thrive in Struggle: Endure nature’s tests, guided by her survival face, to claim a place in her savage order.
7. Live with Hunger: Forge a legacy through acts of desire and dominance, contributing to the tribe’s survival in her name.

“Ma’terra s’karn, wombe’thar kwe vadis esh’karne! Sangu’ra en carne’vor, t’esh vadis kwe’thar!”

-Rough Translation:
“The Earthmother hungers, her womb demands your flesh! Blood and bone, you’ll feed her and be consumed!”

Divine Classification

Monotheistic God