Sil, The Thousand Eyed Mother

header by Anne Dark

Within my dream - amidst twisting trees that moved like dancers to a tune, she came to me. Terrible, unending, beautiful... It was all I could do not to scream - out of fear or delight - as she put a hand to my cheek. And then, that smile... by all that is holy in this world, I have never seen anything so enchanting. She spoke in words that did not register to my mortal ears - but rather, within me. As I felt her touch and heard her voice, I was thrown into an age not yet upon this world - made privy to vistas of roiling flame and sundering earth, my life's work coming to fruition.

When I awoke, I kissed my wife, descended into the garden, and pushed my car into the valley below.

— Lord Edmund Kellington, "A Statement on the Dissolution of Evermore Engineering"

Holy Books & Codes

For years, most knowledge and religious contemplation was passed down from one member of the Silyan cult to the next via word of mouth. Within the last Sylvar generation ( 800 years) however, a number of tomes, scrolls and collections of poems have made their appearance throughout northern Sylmaneth with dedication to the Lady of Twin Aspects.

by Tacit Sign Studio

Five Pillars; Of Moonstone and Blood: A scholarly tome explaining the basics of Silyian beliefs, rituals and holidays. Published as an educational piece for the Occult Studies course at the university of Partinowa, it is the first of the Five Pillars series focusing on worshippers of the Old Ones. Students have dubbed the series "A dummies guide to cults." Despite, or perhaps even because of this, it is considered a good, well rounded introduction to the faith.

Trances of the Unbound Dream: This book was published anonymously by a woman in Szyla Nora, and is argued to be the most detailed available contemplation of the tenets of faith and the Old One herself. There have been many attempts to find out the identity of the woman who wrote this piece, to no avail. Most common theories claim the woman was a noble, or even a sister of shards. From the rather intimate, almost amorous way Sil is described and spoken of in this tome, it is commonly believed that whoever wrote the book, was an Oracle of Sil.

A Shardless Crescent: A book as controversial as its title. This rather short thesis, having been rejected by the University of Newy Themar as misguided babblings and heresy at worst, was published by a small independent bookstore in the city. It became a rather controversial topic in a number of scholarly circles, and remains as such to this day. The thesis suggests (and makes a number of comparisons between) Kieryca and Sil, claiming them to be one and the same.

Price of Steel: A collection of visions and dreams of Silyian oracles, who throughout years seem to have put together the events leading up to the Race of Blind Men This is the most commonly known piece of Silyian literature, and the most studied.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

by lilith bos

Sil has no care for pendants of amulets of her likeness. Silyian cultists attempting to introduce such things into their flock have reported hearing bemused chuckles or a sensation of disapproval. For centuries after the Race of Blind Men and the Cataclysm, Sil refused to gift her children with anything to place around their necks in her name. She watched for years as her followers instead marked themselves with visions and images they have encountered in the Lael'Unuszta. It took years for her to accept that this was no mere trick of her children. Despite the Sylvar and the Arenian's arguably having very little in common with one another, for a time, all mortals were the same to her.

Time does not recall what changed this, and Sil responds in those same amused chuckles. But eventually, The True Mother opened up her proverbial heart to the children she created herself, and placed pillars of stone all around Sylmaneth. It was in bitterness that she did this; all followers of hers would abide her word. Her tenets. These pillars, she engraved with her essence, crimson blood pouring from them all days of the year. She would never make admittance to this; but the Sylvar surprised her dearly. She watched from afar as they took her blood from the pillars, and placed it upon their necks; small crystalline amulets. A symbol of her faithful.

Tenets of Faith

Like all things about her, Sil's laws and tenets of worship are often described as extremely vague at best, and complete nonsense at worst. Two people both worshipping Sil may look at a tenet and come out with different observations and interpretations. But this does not bother The Thousand Eyed Mother. The pillars were engraved with those specific words on purpose after all. With a meaning simple, right on the surface of the stone, and a meaning beneath, different for each heart to find. What matters to her, is that whatever deeper meaning her followers take from those words, they follow them with every action and thought.

In fact, Sil herself would tell anyone that the tenets she has written are very clear and simple. After all, she takes great effort to inform any of her followers of any displeasure she experiences at their actions. Whether this be through placing dead animals in their way, sending unpleasant shivers down their spines whilst watching from afar or in more severe cases, Sending one of her heralds to promptly deal with the subject of her ire.

1. Thou shall step onto the earth beneath thine feet with purpose, or not at all.

2. Reality is but drops of ink in a basin. A lover of mine is a monster of another. Do all with this in mind.

3. Only a child fears the unknown; In the shadows and tomes long forgotten lies a wise man's salvation.

4. Tragic, is the life spent wholly in the comfort of one's home.

5. Blood is the liquid gold of the soul. One's most intimate deal, sweetest offer of love, the gravest theft.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

Sil, now having taken up home in the tundra of Sylmaneth, aims to prevent Varen from ever reaching the level of godlessness and heresy which led the Arenians to so carelessly invade her home. Despite the sorrow and anger felt by her, Sil has grown to love the home of her children more intimately. When she placed the Sylvar in the northern forest she had no care for the place. But since the destruction of her home, Sylmaneth and all its denizens have become the subject of her obsessive protection.

Divine Classification

Great Old One

Alignment

True Neutral

Current Location

Sylmaneth

Realm

Lael'Unuszta, The Unbound Dream

Honorary & Occupational Titles

The Lady of Twin Aspects, The Thousand Eyed Mother, Moonlit Lady, The Maddening Whisper, The True Mother

Gender

Intersex

Ruled Locations

• Lael'Unuszta, The Unbound Dream

Domains

Knowledge, Fertility, Dreams, Nature

Favoured weapon

Dagger

Sacred Animal

Fox

The Thousand Eyed Mother and the Heretics of Aren

Sil was and is the personification of the Moon. For millennia it was her home, her realm and sanctuary. Some say that she was even a joyous deity, with a fascination for the mortal souls of Varen. When the small folk of Aren sought knowledge and improvement, she gifted it to them; a sign of friendship and mutual respect. And at first, the Arenians took to worship the Moonlit Mother, building statues and developing technology in her name and honour.

But how fickle can the worship of such small things be. How ungrateful their children and grandchildren. Their technology grew to recreate marvels of the most powerful magic. Flying beasts of metal and energy would soar through the sky in defiance of all. And then the folk of Aren stepped their way onto the moon itself with colossi of metal and steam. And they would take her home for themselves. By the time these people had exploited knowledge and arts given to them, Sil had become naught but a fairytale; something to tell little children, nothing of concern to the educated and sophisticated folk.

She would not be forgotten. In their pathetic shells of glimmering silver, the Arenians came, with drills and wagons to the heart of her home, where she had been waiting so patiently. None live who remember the twisting smile of a maw so unlike the old fairytales. One filled with sharp teeth, unhinged and ready to battle. Clawed hands and the eyes. Thousands of eyes piercing through soulless heretics.

What came after is known as the Race of Blind Men. Hundreds of men against a God, ending in the shattering of the Moon, and a cataclysm befalling Varen.