LAREA
The Hunting Princess, The Huntress, Goddess of the Wilderness
Intermediate Deity
Symbol: Roan stag's head
Home Plane: Elysium
Godly Realm: Hunter's Rest
Alignment: Neutral good
Portfolio: Avians, hunting, wild animals, the wilderness, protecting children
Worshipers: Barbarians, elves, firbolgs, half-elves, hunters, lizardfolk, rangers, the ee'aar, mothers, sisters, daughters, and aunts
Cleric Alignments: LG, NG, CG
Domains: Air, Animal, Forest, Good, Protection
Favored Weapon: Longbow
Larea is the North Goddess of the Wilderness. Often called the Hunting Princess or the Huntress, Larea is the chief deity of the wilderness, hunting, and wild animals. She is also a goddess of avians. She was the wife of Anacoro, North God of Cavalry. Larea lost much in the Divinity War, her husband, her oldest son, and her two youngest children remain trapped on the Material Plane. Larea, as a result, often spends much time in melancholy in her realm, Hunter’s Rest.
She rarely manifests on Harqual and hasn’t sent her Avatar there since the end of the Divinity War. The land holds too much pain for her. Her followers have been known to hear the call of her hunting horn or for snow to fall around them, as manifestations of her favor or disfavor. Rarely, they will see a spectral image of a hunter chasing a roan-colored stag through the mists of early morning. This manifestation is a sign that the Huntress is watching and favors the watcher.
Some wonder what it would take to cause the Huntress to send her Avatar to Harqual again. Some believe that all it would take is for her charge, Brenna, the daughter of Bast and Cull, to be put in real danger on the Material Plane. The truth is that Larea watches over the young goddess so carefully that the risk to Brenna is minimal. Larea is the perfect picture of a doting aunt when it comes to the North Goddess known as the Traveling Companion.
Dogma
Larea teaches temperance in the wilderness. It is against her wishes to hunt just for the sake of blood and the thrill. Animals and birds are your allies as well as your prey. Worshippers must pay respect to anything that they kill, which lived within the Tenets of the Balance. Evil monsters, dreaded fiends, and overreaching angels do not fall into this category. Law and chaos ate tools of the Balance and must always be tempered the brutal neutrality of the wild. Good intentions and pure heart must always, in turn, temper the Balance. Followers of Larea are taught that family is vital to surviving the wilderness and that children are especially important to life. A worshipper of Larea must never let a child come to harm but must also teach that child to fend for him or herself, as well as to respect the creatures of nature.
Clerics and Temples
The clergy of Larea is made up of clerics, rangers, and barbarian/clerics. Strangely, there are almost no druids amongst her faithful and those few that do follow the druidic path rarely gain her favor. None in her church know why or, at least, aren’t telling. Here faith accepts any race that lives within the Tenets of the Balance, but its ranks are filled mainly by humans, elves, and half-elves. Her faith is strongest amongst the barbarian tribes of the Northlands and they consider her one of the chief deities of the North Gods. However, she also has many worshippers amongst the races of lizardfolk, as well as the winged elves known as the ee'aar. These worshippers are almost never members of the Church of Larea, as they tend to live wilder than humans and elves.
Her faith accepts both male and female members but is strongest in its female members. The high priests of the faith are almost always women. Female clergy members in the Church of Larea do not have to be mothers, but many wish to be, in order to become closer to their goddess. Since Brenna was put into Larea’s charge, many consider being a good sister or sister-in-law is enough and to always spend time with and protect a sister’s children. Still, having children is a strong motivator for the followers of Larea, both female and male. Father’s are considered second-tier parents by this church. They are more important for the hunt.)
Temples to the Huntress Princess are rare, but not unknown. Worshippers are more likely to simply pay respect to her at the many small shrines, dedicated to the goddess, spread throughout the Lands of Harqual. The places that do have temples erected to the Huntress are rarely seen by the more civilized folk of the continent. They are fond throughout the Northlands but are never built from stone and wood. Instead, her ‘temples’ are pristine hidden glades, mounds of earth, or cave-like gorges in the earth that are open to the sky.
The most famous of these natural temples is the cave known as the Huntress-Watches-Over-Hansa. Located in the Twilight Valley near the city of Highhorn, this natural cave is nearly 100 feet deep with a dozen chambers. It is a holy place to Larea, as well as to Hansa and Brenna. The clergy here are of all three faiths, although the clerics of Hansa prefer worshipping their god at the temple known as the Rock of the Buried Soldier. The temple is surrounded by a small copse of tress, which are always filled with nesting birds.
Larea does have her ‘built’ temples in the civilized lands. These temples are rarely more then simple wood shelters built on the edge of the wilderness for her more family-oriented worshipers. Often these small temples will take in stray animals and orphaned children. The clergy will take care of these charges but rarely will the Church of Larea run true orphanages. More often it is an older, matronly cleric without any children of her own who will rescue one or two waifs from a life of begging. These lost children are raised as the clerics own children and are considered a blessing by the Huntress.
One of the few stone and mortar temples standing in dedication to Larea is Hunter’s Hold in the lands of the Monarchy of Avion. The temple is located less than a day’s ride east from Avion City. The temple is also dedicated to the trapped goddess, Hela. The clerics of the temple often make pilgrimages up and down the coast of the Sword Gulf, visiting the many shrines and temples still dedicated to the Flowing Peacebringer. This, the clerics of Larea do as a mother would the grave of a dead child. The clerics of Hela are always welcoming to their followers of their goddess’s mother and they always have these encouraging words for, the often, despondent faithful of the Hunting Princess.
“Hela is not dead, merely trapped in the holy waters of the gulf. One day she will be free and joyfully dancing and laughing in her mother’s arms once again.”
And while Hunter’s Hold is considered hallowed for a cleric of Hela, they rarely venerate her there, as the temple stands too far away from the sea for the clerics’ liking. More often, the clerics of Hela can be found at the many shrines and temples directly on the coastline of the Sword Gulf, such as the Lighthouse of the Peacebringer. However, once a year, on the Spring Equinox, the clerics of Hela, living in Avion, come too Hunter’s Hold and celebrate the bond between daughter, mother, sister, niece, and aunt with the clerics of Larea, Bast, and Brenna. The celebration is called the Festival of Sisterhood.
