Eldath

Goddess of Singing Waters, the Quiet One, Mother Guardian of Groves, the Green Goddess, the Mother of the Waters

Eldath (EL-dath) is the guardian of druid groves, and her presence is felt every place where there is calm. Her druids and clergy often aid other druidic faiths in establishing a grove and sanctifying it. In religious art, Eldath is often depicted as a dark-haired woman dressed in shimmering green or as a dryad or wild elf with blue and green hair. Her singing is heard in every babbling brook and waterfall.
Eldath is a pacifist and usually takes no hostile actions even when threatened. This is one of the reasons that Eldath is almost a forgotten power; most Faerunians think of Mielikki, Silvanus, or Chauntea in relation to nature before they think of her. Eldath is enigmatic and speaks seldom. She seems shy, but possessed of unknown depths of character and an unexpressed resolve that cannot be broken. When challenged, she gives before challengers who only later discover that her apparent acceptance and retreat merely drew them out into an untenable position where they are surrounded, out of their element, and their reinforcements have been converted to her side.
Like Mielikki, Eldath serves Silvanus. Eldath sees him as a father figure, but often finds his robustness intimidating to her retiring nature. Mielikki and Eldath have a very close relationship. During the Time of Troubles Mielikki was heard to address her as "Datha," and the two goddesses embraced as sisters.
While Eldath opposes all that Tempus stands for, she does not consider him a personal foe. He in turn, is said to consider her naive, but to respect her convictions and generally ignore her.
Eldath made the Prime Material Plane her home until very recently, similar to Mielikki. In 1369 DR, the same year that Mielikki established an Outer Planes realm, Eldath also moved her home realm, the True Grove, to The House of Nature. Where she received the divine burst of power to make such a huge move is unknown; sages have considered Eldath's faith a shrinking one for centuries. However, these same scholars speculate that wherever she received the power from, it may be related to the official shift toward good that Eldath herself made apparent in picking Elysium as her home plane. (Among themselves, church scholars list Mielikki, Mystra, or Chauntea as likely candidates for help in the move.) The shift itself surprised no one, and Eldath still welcomes the same worshipers and clergy members within her fold.
Legend holds that Eldath's worshipers may still visit the True Grove even before their deaths through gates in places where it could formerly be reached: near the upper reaches of the Unicorn Run in the High Forest, in the Elven Court near Lake Sember or near Elventree, at Eldath's Water in the Misty Forest, in the depths of the Forest of Tethir, in the dense heart of the King's Forest in Cormyr, atop Oak Hill in the Border Forest north of the River Tesh, at various locales in Turmish, and in a dozen or more other wooded areas.

Divine Domains

Life, Nature

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Waterfall plunging into still pool

Tenets of Faith

The philosophy of Eldath is highly advanced. It teaches that peace can only come from within and cannot be taught or imposed; it must be reached through thought and meditation. The faithful of Eldath should seek stillness and thereby find peace. They are to plant trees and green-leaved things and tend such things when they need it, wherever they may be.
Eldathyn are instructed to nurture and aid and not to restrict or punish. They may defend but not punish. Eldathyn may work violence only to defend, and they may slay no thing of the forest save to prevent it from slaying themselves or another under their protection.
All worshipers of Eldath are to aid fellow Eldathyn and clergy of Silvanus and Mielikki whenever possible and to give assistance, support, and shelter to displaced forest dwellers and to those who work to defend ponds, marshes, and streamside woods everywhere. They must swear to take no thinking life save in direst need and to share with all beings the beneficial things that grow in or come from running water that all may know of and praise Eldath.

Holidays

Eldath's clergy members pray on a personal and individual basis when bathing or floating in ponds or streams, when standing under waterfalls, and in small chambers, caves, or forest bowers given over to regular meditation. Many forest paths in woods dwelt in by Eldathyn cross streams by means of log bridges bearing tiny huts with holes or trap doors in their floors, permitting modest clergy to immerse themselves for prayer or bathing. These are the most favored meditation spots for Eldathyn.
Prayers must be performed upon awakening, at sunset, and at least once during the dark hours, and may be performed at any other time as personally desired. In woodlands and remote wilderness areas, worship of the Green Goddess should be done unclad or as close to it as is possible in a given circumstance. Startled woodsmen tell of certain adventurer-priests standing in pools to pray with their weapons drifting in midair around them in slow, enspelled orbits so as to be ready to hand if danger came upon the scene.
The only calendar-related ritual of Eldath, the Greening (Greengrass) is also the only regular gathering and festival of the priesthood. It is preceded by Firstflow, a festival held at different times in different locales as the ice breaks up and the waters begin to flow. The only other occasions upon which Eldathyn gather in large numbers are consecrations of new places as open-air temples or shrines of the goddess. At such consecrations, the assembled clergy perform the Chant of the Fastness. An avatar of Eldath always appears to bless her worshipers' efforts, though she may not always speak or work magic other than making any spring or water in her new sacred place into water of Eldath for a tenday thereafter and giving it the power to regenerate and heal all creatures immersed in it until the dawn following the day of her appearance.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Day-to-Day Activities

Eldathyn usually spend their lives tending unspoiled places to ensure that they survive and even flourish in the face of human and other depredations. Priests of Eldath replant burned areas, purge areas of plant diseases, construct boulder firebreaks, irrigate wooded areas, and clear streambeds to make rivulets flow more swiftly or create dams to slow runoff and encourage the life created by small pools. They even make bargains with nearby foresters to cut only in certain areas and leave other woodlands alone.
Eldath has a hatred of indiscriminate and greedy woodcutters, those who use fire as a weapon, and avaricious millers and careless beings who foul rivers and other waters. Her clergy are pledged to work against such individuals by whatever means seem most prudent for long-term success. They rarely resort to any sort of open confrontation for as long as possible as it tends to bring attacks down on the clergy—but hidden priests can work in opposition unhindered.
Eldathyn are also charged with observing and recording what sort of birds, beasts, and plants dwell in what places and the changes in the amounts and locations of such flora and fauna over the years. They are to report such things to their superiors on a regular basis so that the senior clergy members, working with those of Silvanus and Mielikki, can interpret long-term trends in regional ecologies. A
To raise funds for personal and church support, priests of Eldath may act as water-dowsers by employing an infallible (water divination spell known to the church, as herbalists, gardeners, or as potion-makers. Few Eldathyn live in large settlements, but many dwell in springside cottages—often with trained guard animals—within an easy ride of cities or large towns so as to be able to serve the local populace as sources of medicines and potions.
Clergy of Eldath are all taught to swim, and often teach this skill to nonbelievers in return for small offerings to the church and the goddess of food and coins that the priests can use.

Priestly Vestments

Priests of Eldath dress simply in green and blue robes decorated with water-colored (blue, green, translucent, and opalescent) semiprecious gems and embroidery in water patterns. Specialty priests don a series of sheer robes, each in different shades of blue and green. The sleeves and hems of the garments are artfully cut to look ragged like tossing waves or water ripples. All clergy wear Eldath's symbol as a holy symbol; the sky-blue disk is fashioned of painted wood and fresh fern fronds are planted or affixed over the painted ones on the symbol whenever possible.

Adventuring Garb

Eldathyn priests dress practically in the field, though some like to accent their dress with blue and green and allow the sleeves and hems of their garments to become ragged to simulate frothing water. Most wear leaf-green robes with moss-green accents, gray sashes, and brown overcloaks. Peacemen and peacewomen wear no armor and sport garb similar to their ceremonial dress made up of multiple layers of semitransparent robes and tabards over an opaque foundation robe or dress. Sightings of Eldathyn in the deep woods have given rise to many legends of wild folk of the woods.

Symbol: Waterfall plunging into still pool
Home Plane: House of Nature
Alignment: Neutral Good
Portfolio: Quiet places, springs, pools, waterfalls
Worshipers: Druids, pacifists, rangers
Cleric Alignments: CG, CN, NG
Domains: Life, Nature
Favored Weapon: Net, Unarmed Strike
Allies: Mielikki, Silvanus, Chauntea, Selune, Lathander
Enemies: Malar, Loviatar, Bane, Amaunator, Talos, Moander (now dead)

Divine Classification

Lesser Power