The Pallid Matron
Enethor's current moon goddess is not the first of her kind. Before she sat upon her throne, the Pallid Matron was in her rightful place. She was the sister of Pelor, and regulated the movement of the moon and stars in the sky. The night and its beasts were her domain. But eventually, as magic developed, a ritual for godly ascension was created by a high elven sorceress known now only as Sehanine. It involved absorbing the life essence of one of the living deities, ending their life and reducing them to a form known as a Vestige. Once the ritual was completed and the essence was absorbed, the sorceress took the Matron's place in the sky, bringing the divine corpse of the Matron into the earth. During the ritual itself, a total lunar eclipse befell the sky, as an omen of the falling goddess. In the weeks to come, the day/night cycle of the Lands was erratic as the sorceress got adjusted to her new form. Even now, every several hundred years, on the night of the ritual, in an event known as the Matron's Fall, the total lunar eclipse returns, blacking out the moon and bringing night for a full day.
Eventually, one of the wandering conclaves of High Elves came upon the body of the Vestige Deity. With an insatiable urge to learn, they set up a small encampment around the Vestige, studying it, the resources it provides, and its lingering effects on the nearby populace. Eventually, through generations of exposure, that small encampent became the city of Lunaeris, and those high elves became the Pallid Elves. They began to worship and revere the Vestige, and its lingering will gave the elves a modicum of their goddess's power over the moon.
Our goddess is the true Queen of the Night. Sehanine is merely a usurper, an act we seek to rectify.
There exists an esoteric ritual among the Pallid Elves of Lunaeris. One that seeks to replicate the success of that ancient sorceress. This painful ritual involves ingesting a fragment of the Vestige, absorbing dangerous amounts of Cosmos Essence into the ritualist. In some unfortunate cases, this results in death. In more successful attempts, this turns the Pallid Elf into something called a Shadar-Kai, or "moon warrior" in Elvish. Their aim is to one day displace the usurper goddess, and restore their goddess to her rightful place in the Enethori pantheon.
Divine Symbols & Sigils
- A crescent moon partially obscuring an elven face, representing the visage of the Matron shown in the visions of Shadar-Kai during their ritual.
- The face of a barn owl, an animal associated with the goddess.
Holidays
Matron's Fall - A cosmological event, every 543 years, when a full day is blanketed by a total lunar eclipse, as a permanent reminder in the sky of the Usurper God's replacement of the Pallid Matron. This is a day of quiet among the Pallid Elves, when lunar energies are at their weakest, and the death of their deity is mourned deeply.
The visage of the Pallid Matron and her five owls, as seen in the vision of an aspiring Shadar-Kai during their ascendancy ritual.
Divine Classification
Vestige
Alignment
Lawful Neutral
Current Status
Deceased
Current Location
Realm
Children
Pronouns
she/her
Presentation
Feminine
Eyes
Pure white
Hair
Long, black
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Very pale purple
Height
40 feet.
Weight
Hundreds of pounds.
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