Lilies

Lilies is a nature spirit, the manifestation of the wetlands and marshes that spread from the base of the Malfa peninsula inland. Her name is the plural of lily, in any language.   Willowisps don't exactly worship Lilies, but they respect her and feel that they owe her a duty; when she asks them to do something, they do it. She is not well known outside her purview—not even in Malfa, whose river was created out of her marshes. This leads some Malfa residents, when they learn of her existence, to think that she must hate the river and the Deeping that created it. In fact she doesn't mind it; to her very, very long perspective, the river is an interesting thing that's been happening lately and will be over soon (that is, in a couple of centuries).   That said, there was a thing early on, in which Lilies was irritated that the Hewellen didn't ask her permission before building the Deeping. The Hewellen artificer leading the work smoothed this over by agreeing that the people who used the river would pay her respect by doing favours for her when she asked. The artificer then forgot to tell the Maveren about this, so Malfa residents are occasionally surprised by the news, but Lilies' requests are few and far between.   When Lilies appears to characters, they will seem to have wandered into a sudden grove of tall lilies. At the centre of the grove is a wooden statue of a woman, of whatever race the characters expected to see. When she speaks, it seems as though the shadows of the lilies across her face are causing the illusion of movement. It's a very pretty effect, and sometimes people are mesmerised by it and forget to come out of the lilies.   Image: Lilies was inspired by a muddy reproduction of Alphonse Mucha's Madonna of the Lilies.
Children