Gaea

Gaea is a greater power of earth, a progenitor of the greater titans, and grandmother of the first Olympians. According to some, she is also an embodiment of every Prime Material world, though the latter is more likely just Olympian boasting. There is little evidence of direct worship for her on Astora.

Description

In her true form, Gaea is the earth itself. Her avatar took the form of a beautiful, mature and buxom woman.

The avatars of Gaea wielded a black sickle that had the power to instantly slay those struck by it.

Personality

Over time some mischaracterize Gaea as some sort of schemer that jealously craves retaining her deific position and strength in light of the Olympian pantheon's rise to power. In actuality she is a very concerned and loving motherly figure. She is also rather aloof, rarely ever meddling in the affairs of mortals, and has a liking for hideous monsters.

Activities

Gaea sometimes provides aid to mortals in dire need, in return for sacrifices of fruits and animals being made to her. However, she never provides aid in fighting against hideous monsters. She potentially even provides aid to such monsters brought to her attention.

Worshippers

Unlike other deities, Gaea did not need proper direct worshipers, which led some to claim that she wasn't a proper deity. Instead, it was believed that the constant life and movement on the Prime Material worlds was equivalent. Nor did she need require temples or sacrifices, only desiring that those on the Prime treated their worlds with love and respect.

Dogma

The druids of Gaea oversaw tasks appropriate to her portfolio, such as animal husbandry, planting, and ministering aid to the sick. They also often served as oracles for their communities.

Clergy

Whenever Gaea had proper priests, they were always druids. Weapons commonly wielded by them included clubs, quarterstaves, sickles, and various agricultural implements. They had access to spells from the spheres of all, animal, divination, elemental, healing, plant, and weather. Among the spells they always had access to were cure disease and divination. They also were liable to know the spells control weather and control winds.

History

According to the Olympians' understanding of how the multiverse came to be, as documented in their the tome the Great Theogony, before everything began there was nothing but an indescribable roiling mass of chaos. From this chaos arose various aspects of nature, such as the planes of Arborea and Tarterus, and a handful of primeval gods that included Gaea and Eros. While the Olympians' story of creation was steeped in their own egocentric biases, it was true that Gaea was an incredibly old deity.

Gaea would then create and marry the primeval god Uranus. With their union they created a race of beings known as the Greater Titans, who by some accounts numbered eleven or twelve in total. Gaea then went on to birth more creations. Some were fair in appearance like the Titans, whilst others were far more monstrous, such as the cyclopses and the hecatoncheires. Uranus, proving to be a cruel and jealous man, would keep all of her more monstrous children locked up as he hated to look upon them. Some accounts told of them being locked up inside her earthen depths, causing Gaea pain, while others told of them being locked up in Tarterus. Either way, with time Gaea grew sickened over the imprisoned state of her children.

Gaea convinced one of her children, the greater titan Cronus, to overthrow his father and thus avenge her mistreatment. Cronus did so, severely wounding Uranus. The blood from his wounds fell upon Gaea, fertilizing her once more, causing the creation of the Furies and the gigantes. The wounded Uranus then fled from the battle to the farthest reaches of the multiverse, leaving his final fate unclear.

Cronus then married the Titan Rhea and assumed command of the Greater Titans, going back on his word to Gaea that he would free her monstrous brood. Furious, Gaea laid a curse upon Cronus, proclaiming that one day his own children would usurp him in turn. Eventually Gaea's curse came to pass and Cronus was usurped by his own son Zeus, who alongside his siblings led the way for the creation of the Olympian pantheon.

The newly formed Olympian pantheon's first act following this was the casting away of the majority of the Greater Titans into Tarterus. Not wishing for any of her children to be imprisoned, Gaea tried to send the gigantes and a hundred-headed dragon against the Olympians to liberate and avenge the Titans. Her creations brought the Olympians to their knees, but the new generation of gods ultimately held up against them. Despite this and some other early attempts to avenge or liberate her children, Gaea remained an ally of the Olympian pantheon.

In the month of Hammer, in the Year of Rogue Dragons, 1373 DR,[note 2] a group of adventurers from Ravens Bluff found themselves transported to the plane of Tarterus after defending the githzerai fortress of Tah'Darr from a tanar'ri incursion. At the urgings of the fallen paladin Elendil, the adventurers sought out Gaea's child Cronus for a way back to Toril.

Gaea

Greater deity

Basic Information

Titles

The Earth
Mother Earth

Pantheons

-

Attributes

Alignment

True Neutral

Symbol

Basket of fruit

Realm

Prime Material Plane

Portfolio

Earth, Fertility, Health, Prophecy

Following

Worshippers

Alignments

All

Domains

Air (Wind)
Earth (Caves)
Plant (Growth)
Water (Oceans, Rivers)
Weather (Seasons)