Selûne (pronounced: /sɛˈluːnɛ/ seh-LOON-eh), also known as the Moonmaiden, was the goddess of the moon in the Faerûnian pantheon. She held the portfolios of the moon, stars, navigation, navigators, wanderers, questers, seekers, and non-evil lycanthropes. Hers was the moon's mysterious power, the heavenly force that governed the world's tides and a mother's reproductive cycles, caused lycanthropes to shift form, and drew one to the brink of madness, and back again. Her nature, appearance, and mood all changed in turn with the phases of the moon. Most Faerûnian humans believed the moon to be the goddess herself watching over the world and the lights that trailed behind it to be her tears, from both joy and sorrow.
From the shadows of chaos, two sisters are born,
One bright Selûne, the other dark Shar.
A harmonious balance soon to be torn
When Selûne gifts life with flame from afar!
-An excerpt from a ballad by Veseene the Lark
Sibling Rivalry
Selûne's eternal enemy was her sister Shar, goddess of the night, a war that had been waged since before all other Faerûnian gods existed, before time was recorded. They fought constantly in all realms of existence, across the sky at night and in other planes, waged through their mortal followers and their servitor beings, and in person. Selûne labored always to thwart Shar's dark plots. They would never forgive and never forget.
In the Beginning
According to one of the most ancient myths of the creation of the world and the heavens, after the universe and its crystal sphere were created by Lord Ao, there was naught but the primordial essence, the protoplasmic raw stuff of existence. Described as chaos and timeless nothingness, the sphere was filled with no more than dim misty shadows, neither light nor dark, for such things had not yet separated. In time, Selûne coalesced from the primordial essence, alongside her twin sister, Shar. The goddesses were beautiful, identical but polar opposites, silver-haired and raven-haired, one representing the light, the other the dark in the manner of yin and yang. Yet they were so close they saw themselves as one being, known later as the Two-Faced Goddess or the Sisters-Who-Were-One. They complemented each other and brought order out of the chaos.
Together, they created from the cosmic ether planet
Toril and the other heavenly bodies and infused these worlds with life. In the process, they formed the goddess Chauntea, whom they worked with to bless the worlds with life. This universe was illuminated by the cool radiant face of Selûne and darkened by the hair and welcoming embrace of Shar. However, there was no fire or heat on any of these bodies. Desiring to nurture life on the worlds that formed her body and limbs, Chauntea asked the Two-Faced Goddess for warmth. Then, for the first time, Selûne and Shar were divided, being of two minds on whether they should let there be more life on the worlds or not.
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