Fionnghuala (fin-ell-ah)
Fionnghuala (pronounced "fin-ell-ah," meaning "white shoulder") is the deity of swanmays, communications, and sorority. Her symbol is a white feather.
Fionnghuala is a small, very slender human woman with red hair and green eyes. She wears white feathered patches on her shoulders and on the crown of her head, and gossomer armor. She may also appear as a giant swan.
Fionnghuala was granted divinity by Titania of the Seelie Court. She is also an ally of the giant goddess Iallanis.
Fionnghuala is part of the Outer Circle of the Seelie Court, though her duties often take her elsewhere. She attends meetings of mortal swanmays, flies in swan form as a sentinel around faerie lands, and eagerly plans for assaults against the Unseelie fey. She can often be found wandering Elysium on various tasks.
Fionnghuala is fiercely loving and protective of good-aligned faerie folk, and will slay any who deliberately kills a faerie in her presence.
Fionnghuala is revered by swanmays, a secretive organization of female human rangers with the ability to transform into swans. They continue to worship the deities who were their patrons before their transformation as well. Fionnghuala has no clerics.
Fionnghuala was once a mortal human ranger who gave many services to the fey and their kind. Fionnghuala was gravely wounded during a battle against an avatar of the Queen of Air and Darkness while selflessly protecting the avatar of Oberon. In reward for her services, Titania raised her from the dead and brought her to the Seelie Court. She was given a white feather that allowed her to take on the form of a swan, changing her from a mortal being to something partly of Faerie. Over the centuries since this event, a small, secretive sorority of rangers have been granted simulacra of this feather, allowing them to become swanmays as well.
Fionnghuala's name comes from Fionnuala, a swan maiden in Celtic mythology.
Fionnghuala was a female ranger, a mortal human. She gave many services to the faerie people during her years. After she helped the sylvan races fight off the last great incursion of the avatar of the Queen of Air and Darkness—bravely and selflessly protecting Oberon's avatar, which had been gravely wounded—Titania raised Fionnghuala from the dead and brought her to the Seelie Court. There, Titania gave her the gift of the white feather, now the goddess' symbol, which allows her to change into swan form, altering her nature and making her part faerie. Over the centuries, a small and seclusive sorority of rangers have been gifted simulacra of that original feather and become the swanmways. They retain their allegiances to their old deities, but revere Fionnghuala also. The goddess herself is small by human standards, not much larger than the sylvan gods, and she is devoted to their fellowship and to her own sorority.
Role-playing Notes: Fionnghuala's avatar can move across the planes, enabled by Titania's magical skills. The avatar attends sorority meetings of swanmays and is eager, perhaps even over-eager, to defend faerie realms against any attacks, and directs swanmays and other rangers into doing this. She is fiercely loving and protective of faerie folk, and if any being knowingly kills a nonevil faerie in her presence, she will slay that being. In her form as a giant swan, she often flies around the edges of faerie lands looking for those intent on evil deeds, and both in this way and through her sorority she often brings early warning of potential threats to the faerie peoples and gods.
Statistics: AL ng; WAL any good (swanmways revere AoC swanmays, communications, sorority; SY white feather.
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