Sehanine Moonbow
| Greyhawk Deity | |
|---|---|
| Sehanine Moonbow | |
| |
| The holy symbol of Sehanine Moonbow, as depicted in Races of the Wild (2005). | |
| Title(s) | Daughter of the Night Skies, Goddess of Moonlight, the Lunar Lady, Moonlit Mystery, the Mystic Seer, the Luminous Cloud, Lady of Dreams |
| Home Plane | Olympian Glades of Arborea |
| Power Level | Intermediate |
| Gender | Female |
| Class(es) | |
| Alignment | Chaotic good (neutral good tendencies) |
| Portfolio | Mysticism, dreams, far journeys, death, transcendence, the moons |
| Domains | Chaos, Dream, Good, Knowledge, Oracle, Repose, Travel, Trickery |
| Alias(es) | |
| Superior | Corellon Larethian |
Sehanine Moonbow (SAY-ha-neen MOON-boe) is the elven goddess of the moons. She is one of the more powerful members of the Seldarine. The Lady of Dreams actively opposes the nefarious schemes of the Spider Queen and the other drow powers. She is often said to be the wife of Corellon Larethian. Her symbol is a full moon topped by a crescent-shaped haze.
Description
Sehanine appears as a youthful and ageless female elf wearing a diaphanous gown made from moonbeams. In combat she wields Moonshaft, a quarterstaff. As befits the elven goddess of mysteries, Sehanine is cloaked in secrets and illusions and rarely speaks her mind directly, preferring to communicate through a process of dreams, visions, and other mystic experiences. The Goddess of Moonlight is truly spiritual and ephemeral being who evades any attempt to define her. Her serenity surrounds her like a mantle of moondust.
Relationships
Sehanine is sometimes said to be Corellon's consort. Sometimes she is the sister of Labelas Enoreth, god of time, and the daughter of Corellon instead. Sometimes she is even said to be the sister of Lolth, who can be seen as representing the darkness of the new moon as Sehanine represents the light of the full moon.
Sehanine is closely allied with all the Seldarine, particularly Corellon, Aerdrie Faenya, and Hanali Celanil, and gets along swimmingly with many other gods, including Baravar Cloakshadow, Cyrrollalee, Dumathoin, Oberon, Segojan Earthcaller, Titania, and Urogalan. Her foes include Gruumsh, the Queen of Air and Darkness, and the evil deities of the drow.
Realm
Sehanine lives in the realm of Arvandor on the plane of Arborea. She shares Corellon's tower of Gwyllachaightaeryll there, spinning webs of illusion around its many splendors.
Sehanine Moonbow is also associated with the Moonarch of Sehanine, a portal to a demiplane where the elven gods test those who enter it.
Dogma
Sehanine's faithful view life as a series of mysteries veiled by Sehanine herself. The spirits of elves discover new mysteries once they transcend their mortal existences. Sehanine unveils the next step through dreams and visions revealed during the elven reverie. Worshippers of Sehanine revere the moons, feeling their pull in their souls like tides in the ocean.
Worshipers
Worshipers of Sehanine Moonbow seek out and destroy undead creatures, for Sehanine holds such creatures — with the notable exceptions of baelnorn and other good-aligned undead beings who voluntarily prolong their existence in order to serve their kin — to be blasphemous.
Clergy
As cloaked in mystery as Sehanine's church is, little is known of its secretive hierarchy.
Clerics of Sehanine are mystics and seers, acting as spiritual counselors to those elves and half-elves before they begin journeys in search of transcendence or enlightenment. Clerics of Sehanine also officiate over funerals and guard the material remains of the dead. They weave illusions and cast divinations to guard elven lands and strongholds. When they adventure, it is often with the goal of uncovering lost knowledge of illusions and divinations.
Sehanine's clergy favors silvery-white diaphenous gowns for the priestesses, and togas for the priests. They wear silver diadems on their heads, simple sandles, and silver lace sashes on their waists. Adventuring clerics are known for their elven chain mail and mirrored shields.
Sehanine's high priest on Lendore Isle is Anfaren Silverbrow. There are also priests of Sehanine in Oakvein in the Welkwood.
Temples
Sehanine's temples are situated so that they are bathed in moon light when it is full, with open ceilings that reveal the night sky. They often adorned with moonstones, silver and surrounded by a garden of night blooming flowers. Sehanine's following is strongest on the mysterious Lendore Isles.
Rituals
Clerics of Sehanine pray for their spells each night when the moons are fullest.
When the time comes for an elf to leave the mortal world and travel to Arvanaith, the elven afterlife (identical to Arvandor, the home of the elven gods), the elf will commonly spend several days experiencing vivid waking dreams and reverie. The lens of the elf's eye manifests a milky crescent at this time, the "moonbow" of Sehanine's name. During this time, Sehanine sends the elf a vision of where they must go to reach the otherworld; the most important of these secret places in the Flanaess is currently Lendore Isle.
If the elf dies violently without suffering utter spiritual destruction, Sehanine's priests perform the Ceremony of Recovery for several days, meditating and communing with the goddess and the two worlds. If successful, they channel the lost spirit through Sehanine's grace, enabling it to transcend to Arvanaith. During these ceremonies, the moonbow appears in the eyes of the priests, but vanish immediately upon the ceremony's conclusion.
Holy days
Sehanine has a wide variety of holy days tied to the positions of the heavenly bodies, particularly the phases of the moons and various eclipses. Many of these holidays occur once per decade, once per century, or even once per millennium, but the most frequent are the Lunar Hallowings, held monthly beneath Luna's full moon. They are marked with personal meditation and a communal trance, and concluded with joyous freeform dance until the break of dawn. Once per year, the faithful gather for the Mystic Rites of the Luminous Cloud, when the participants are transformed into shimmering, silvery light that darts across the heavens, learning sacred mysteries according to their level of spiritual development.
Myths and legends
Creation of the elves
Some myths say the first gods sprang fully formed from the primordial chaos. While many gods squabbled over the portfolios they would dominate, those deities who called themselves the Seldarine, the Brothers and Sisters of the Wood, cooperated to impart their essence to make the worlds lush and green and beautiful. They also created vessels that would one day house the first sentient life: the race known as elves. The Seldarine took more care in crafting the elves than other gods did in creating similar vessels (in imitation of the Seldarine's work, of course), so all other races were flawed. Only the vessels reserved for humanity had something remotely comparable to elven potential within them. Still, none of these vessels would come to life until after the battle between Corellon Larethian and the orcish god Gruumsh.
During Corellon Larethian's battle with Gruumsh, as night drew near, Corellon's strength waned while the strength of Gruumsh waxed. It seemed that Corellon would be defeated, but Corellon looked up into the heavens and the moon shed tears, weeping for Corellon's injuries, and these moon-tears gave strength to the wounded elf-god. In some myths, Sehanine waits helplessly until the moon begins to rise, when she could aid Corellon by distracting Gruumsh with illusions. Corellon drew back his sword and, with one blow, put out the eye of Gruumsh. The blood and hatred of Gruumsh was used to bring life to the orcs, but the Seldarine gathered the moon's tears and Corellon's blood and infused them with their own spirit to bring life to the elves. The tears from the moon are said to explain the ethereal beauty that characterizes the elven race to this day.
Bibliography
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- Boyd, Eric L, and Erik Mona. Faiths and Pantheons. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002.
- Holian, Gary, Erik Mona, Sean K Reynolds, and Frederick Weining. Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2000.
- McComb, Colin. The Complete Book of Elves. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1992.
- -----. On Hallowed Ground. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1996.
- Sargent, Carl. From the Ashes. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1992.
- -----. Monster Mythology. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1992.
- Williams, Skip. Races of the Wild. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2005.
- Wyatt, James. "A Fractured Family: Elven Strife, Separation, and Rebirth." Available online: [1]. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2007.
