I WILL BE ADDING OURANIA TO THE MIDNIGHT SEA PANTHEON - Tumblr Posts

2 years ago

I was wondering if I could request a diety? If so may I request a goddess that is for the Gith what Moradin is for the Dwarves?

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Deity: Urania, The One Who Names The Stars

Hear me, brothers, sisters, my fellow orphans of the vast,

We are lost, but we are not forgotten,

The Bright Maiden has set a Star Burning for us,

And she calls us Home

The wild unknown and the simple laws that govern the universe, the cold embrace of space and the warmth of distant stars, the mystery of the infinite horizon and the knowledge of your course through it: The goddess Urania is a being of contrasts. Patron to astronomers, navigators, and any who find themselves alone with only the stars for guidance, the bright maiden is called upon by many who sail the astral sea to bless their journeys into the vast cosmos and to guide them back home again. 

Legend says it was It was the Gith who found her, aboard a lost and aimless refugee ship too full of desperate souls who’d just escaped from the tyranny of the ilithid. They saw a stranger cast adrift in the void, and though they did not have enough to go around they cast out a line and pulled her from the void because the thought of leaving anyone behind without hope of rescue was too terrible to bear. In rescuing her they rescued themselves, for when the captain gave up his ration of water the goddess awoke with her eyes full of grateful tears, whispering to him of a course towards sanctuary just as a new star flared on the horizon.

Since then it has been tradition among the Gith ( and those who have learned the art of astral navigation from them) to keep a star shaped lantern burning in the goddess’s honour, and to rescue any they find adrift, no matter who they might be.

 Adventure Hooks:

Knowledge of the stars is sacred to those who follow Urania, whether it be in charting new courses through the astral sea or divining the movement and influence of celestial bodies. An acolyte of such an order believes she’s had a star-granted vision of a previously unexplored reach of the astral sea but her superiors won’t let her mount an expedition as much of the nearby territory has a reputation for being dangerous, or downright hostile. To this end she hires the party to help her go delving a long abandoned archive-moon in the hopes of discovering ancient records that her research hints might just contain a means of traversal through this hostile stretch of space.

Much ink has been spilled over the potential connections between the bright maiden and Nyx, matronly goddess of primordial darkness, with most scholars agreeing to disagree as to whether the goddess are enemies, aspects of the same being, or somehow related.  This debate comes to a head when a night-shrouded acolyte of Nyx steals the star lamp from the vessel of a famous spelljammer captain on the eve of an important voyage, darkening the lamp with occult magics to use in some mysterious ritual. Both men are, as the party discovers after being hired to recover the lamp, brothers, and as their pursuit goes on it becomes wildly clear that the two goddess are having some kind of a wager over the outcome of the theft, subtly influencing events in their own favour

Along their travels, the party discover a reinforced capsule containing an ember of celestial fire, a nascent star that some enterprising mage plucked from the sky in an attempt to tap its power. The item is tremendously useful, (acting as a pearl of power that refreshes after short rests), but in moments of channelling the star’s energy the attuned creature is more and more filled with feelings of loneliness and need to return to a home they’ve never seen before. The ember is alive, if not sentient, and longs to be returned to the patch of sky from which it was stolen. Doing so can be quite an undertaking, but will reward the party with the Bright Maiden’s favour in the process. 

Titles: The Bright Maiden, Lady of Far Horizons, The Infinite,

Signs: The appearance of new stars, astronomical lines and diagrams appearing in the sky, a sudden awareness of a heading leading either home or into the unknown

Symbols: A star and sextant or other tool of navigation, lantern with star iconography or burning with celestial fire. 


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