The Sisters

The Sisters are the telluri of the three moons that orbit Ashar, known as Han, Lum and Tol to the Eshtem. Though they are called many things by cultures around the world, they are often identified as the Sisters by people as different as the Ulan and the Jolnir. In some cultures, the moons are the daughters of this god or that ancestor or are previous avatars of gods. Or simply glowing objects in the sky. Some scholars and priests debate the idea of the celestial bodies possessing and generating natural, telluri of their own, but for those that revere them and are capable of communing with them, this is an objective fact.

The ulan were the first people to learn to communicate with these natural celestial spirits. They were the first sight that the first ulan, the ama Moonlight-on-Spring-Tide, saw as she became the first of her people to break the surface of the water in millions of years. Moonlight spent centuries observing the three moons, their phases and their effect on the surface waters in the complex tides they created.

In time, she began to internalize this pattern, this dance of light and gravity and used it to communicate with the natural spirits of the moons. Once this communion was achieved, she spent further centuries deepening the communication. She learned many secrets about the true physical nature of the moons that not even the most advanced astronomers have discovered. She passed all the knowledge she gained to her daughters, who in turn passed it to their daughters down through the centuries. Every ama is capable of communion with the Sisters, though some are more adept than others.

Millennia later, in the southern waters of the Torvalen Sea, a close and lasting relationship blossomed between the ancestors of the sea faring Chir'kualu people and the neighboring ulan communes. Over time, knowledge of the moon spirits and how to communicate with them were shared with those sea varhani and they became the only other people to have this relationship with the moons' spirits.

The nature of these moon spirits are difficult to know and learning how to understand and communicate with them is second in difficulty only to that of the only other known celestial telluri, Urkan and Silan. The few that achieve this communion and understanding gain greatly in knowledge and power. They are capable of catching glimpses the world from the perspective of the moons at times and gain a measure of control over the tides as well as gravity and manipulating light. In return, they grant the spirits a way to perceive themselves and the universe around them outside of their own, unconscious minds, something all telluric spirits desire.