Selune

Our Lady of Silver, the Moonmaiden, the Night White Lady (a.k.a. Bright Nydra (Farsea Marshes), Elah (Anauroch, among the Bedine), Lucha (Durpar, Estagund, and Var the Golden), Sehanine Moondbow (Elves))

When Selune (Seh-LOON-eh) journeys to the Realms, she is said to appear in many forms and is depicted in religious art as everything from a female face on a lunar disk to a dusky-skinned woman with wide, radiant eyes and long ivory-colored hair to a matronly, middle-aged woman whose dark hair is streaked with gray. In Durpar, Estagund, and Var the Golden, Selune is worshiped as part of the Adama, the Durparian concept of a world spirit that embraces and enfolds the divine essence that is part of all beings. Here she is known as Lucha, She Who Guides. Lucha oversees connections and relationships, guiding herdsmen to good pastures, blessing marriages, helping lost ships at sea, and ensuring safe births. It can be safely said that as the moon changes, so does the nature of the moon goddess.
Selune's eternal foe is the evil goddess Shar, and she battles her ceaselessly on many planes of existence, both through mortal worshipers and servitor creatures. The undying enmity between the two goddesses predates the existence of most, if not all, of the present-day existing Faetunian deities. The enmity between Shar and Selune carries into their priesthoods, such that open battle often occurs when followers of each faith meet. Selune also struggles with Umberlee constantly over the fate of ships at sea and with Mask over the works of mischief and evil he performs in the shadows the moon's soft glow creates.
Selune is a caring but quietly mystical power who often seems saddened by events perhaps millennia old. While she is normally calm and placid, her war with Shar is fierce, with neither side giving or receiving quarter. She is seen in many ways by her followers, who are a diverse group, and she is at times effervescently joyful and active, at others maternal, quiet, and almost poetic, and at yet others warlike and fierce, showing little mercy to her foes.
Before the Time of Troubles, Selune had served Sune for some centuries after being independent for millennia. After the Godswar, she went her own way again. Her relationship with Sune and Lliira is still extremely friendly and cooperative.
Selune is served by the Shards, a group of shining female servitors. The Shards can grow wings or banish them as they desire and have long, flowing blue hair and pearly-white skin. They are in reality planetars.

Divine Domains

Knowledge, Life, Light

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Pair of female eyes surrounded by seven silver stars

Tenets of Faith

Selune's ethos seems to be one of acceptance and tolerance over any other overriding principle. All are to be made welcome in her faith and seen as equal, and fellow Selunites should be aided freely, as it they were one's dearest friends. "May Selune guide your steps in the night, and bring them to the new dawn" is the common blessing ot priests of Selune to the faithful.
Novices are charged with the words of the goddess: "Let all on whom my light falls be welcome if they desire to be so. As the silver moon waxes and wanes, so too does all life. Trust in my radiance, and know that all love alive under my light shall know my blessing. Turn to the moon, and 1 will be your true guide."

Holidays

Selunite clergy embroider their rituals into quite individual, unique observances. The basics of these are open-air dances and prayers under the moonlight with offerings of milk and wine poured upon a central altar during the nights of every full moon and new moon. These rituals are often called night stalks and during them her priests reaffirm their closeness to the Night White Lady and commune with her when possible.
The most sacred rituals of Selune are the Conjuring of the Second Moon and the Mystery of the Night. The Conjuring of the Second Moon is performed only during Shieldmeet. It summons the Shards to do the bidding of the mortal clergy, often to do battle with minions of Shar. The Shards always take one mortal priestess to be one of them before they depart.
The Mystery of the Night must be performed at least once a year by every priest. During the Mystery ritual, Selunite priests cast certain secret spells and lie before the Moonmaiden's altar, from whence they fly upward and spiral around the moon in a trance while they speak personally with Selune via mental visions.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Day-to-Day Activities

Priests of Selune spend their time wandering Faerun reaching out to the faithful and to potential worshipers of the moon goddess, since Selune can be worshiped anywhere on the surface world. They make much small coin by telling fortunes, because folk who try to read the stars never achieve the same success rate in predictions as do clergy members who can call on Selune for real guidance. In this way, Selune steadily gains worshipers from the ranks of those who look to the night sky for guidance.
Members of the Selunite priesthood also face lycanthropes fearlessly and thereby win respect among farmers and other members of the common folk. They are also, by the Lady's command, generous with their healing, often charging very little beyond a meal and a warm place to sleep for straightforward healing. Selune's way thus makes the goddess ever more popular and keeps her clergy hardy, well-traveled, and in practical touch with the natural world.
The Moonmaiden's clergy are encouraged to be self-reliant, humble, and yet make as much of a success as they can in the world while always remaining as helpful and friendly to the lonely and to decent folk as possible. By this long-sighted policy Selune allows her clergy to become happy, fulfilled, important people, and sees her faith steadily gain power thereby. Our Lady of Silver is inclined to be lenient in matters of alignment and religious observance. Self-reliance and finding one's own, practical path are more important than fussy detail in her faith, and so Selune is also gaining favor among eccentrics, adventurers, and mavericks of all sorts, including outcasts. Many sages expect Selune to rise again to great might among the powers, perhaps within their lifetimes.

Priestly Vestments

The ceremonial costume of Selunites varies from place to place. Selunite clergy members wear everything from plain brown robes to only a little moonstone jewelry as an accent to normal clothing to rich bejeweled gowns of the finest make and haughtiest fashion with enchanted, animate trains and capes and accompanying moonstone crowns.
The finest can be found at the House of the Moon in Waterdeep, where the high priestess Naneatha Suaril presides over rituals in a wide-bottomed hooped skirt with a large fanlike collar rising at the back of its neck. Both skirt and collar are stiffened with whalebone and set with clusters of pearls and other gemstones
The ceremonial dress of priests of Lucha consists of a circlet woven of vines or flowers and white robes. No shoes are worn at ceremonies. The only other symbol of office is a staff wound about with vines and flowers.

Adventuring Garb

In the field, the clergy members of the Selunite church dress practically for the task they are undertaking. The tend to dress fashionably, but not gaudily, in day-to-day life. The preferred weapon of the clergy of Selune is a smooth-headed mace called the moon's hand. The moon's hand has identical statistics to a standard footman's mace, though it gains special combat bonuses in the hands of a specialty priest of Selune.

Symbol: Pair of female eyes surrounded by seven silver stars
Home Plane: Gates of the Moon
Alignment: Chaotic good
Portfolio: Moon, stars, navigation, navigators, wanderers, questers, good and neutral lycanthropes
Worshipers: Female spellcasters, good and neutral lycanthropes, navigators, monks (Sun Soul), sailors
Cleric Alignments: CG, CN, NG
Domains: Knowledge, Life, Light
Favored Weapon: “The Rod of Four Moons” (heavy mace)
ALIASES: Bright Nydra (Farsea Marshes), Elah (Anauroch, among the Bedine), Lucha (Durpar, Estagund, and Var the Golden), Sehanine Moonbow (Elves)
ALLIES: Mystra, Lliira, Sune, Tymora, Eilistraee, Shaundakul, Eldath, Chauntea, Valkur the Mighty, Lathander
FOES: Shar, Umberlee, Mask, Moander (now dead)

Divine Classification

Power