Melora, the Wildmother

Titles: The Wildmother, the Untamed Home: Arvandor

Alignment: Chaotic neutral

Portfolio: Wilderness, the sea, nature, forests

Domains: Nature, tempest, life

Symbol: A blue spiral, often adorned on a seashell or animal bone

Favored Weapon: Spears

Teachings

 * Protect the wild places of the world from destruction and overuse.
 * Oppose the rampant spread of civilization.
 * Do not fear or condemn the savagery of nature.
 * Hunt aberrant monsters and other abominations of nature.

Followers and Clergy
Melora is popular among druids, rangers, and others that tend to wild places. Melora is not opposed to civilization, as it is a part of natural life, but her followers seek her guidance to avoid overuse and ensure a proper balance with nature. Melora is an especially popular goddess among wood elves, forest gnomes, and firbolgs, and she often appears alongside Sehanine and the Raven Queen as a triumvirate of goddesses. Sailors and caravaneers often ask for Melora’s guidance and protection in their travels. Melora’s clerics are largely unorganized, and they tend to follow the guidance and organization of druid circles.

Melora’s faith is extremely popular among coastal communities. As goddess of the sea, she is prayed to by sailors and fishermen alike, and the Order of the Sacred Tide maintains her worship in coastal regions. These are the few areas where her worship is organized and actual temples are erected.

Clothing and Symbols
Melora’s clergy generally lack regulated uniforms, preferring to dress themselves in the bounty of nature. They are allowed to wear furs and hides, but the use of fur as a status symbol is fiercely condemned. Most bear her holy symbol painted on a seashell or animal bone, avoiding symbols that are professionally crafted.

Among the Order of the Sacred Tide, priests wear light blue robes fringed with white lamb’s wool, and they carve holy symbols from seashells, whalebone, and driftwood.

Traditions and Practices
After a forest fire, a priest of Melora inspects any stands of unburned trees. If the three most sacred trees—oak, ash, and hawthorn—are each represented, the townspeople decorate the trees with ribbons and wooden wind chimes. Each participant makes a wish when he or she adds a new decoration. If at least three of the wishes come true over the coming year, the local priest of Melora declares the grove sacred.

When winds blow through the trees, twisting the leaves on the branches to reveal their lighter colored undersides, people see it as a warning of an imminent strong storm. The people of the forest refer to leaves in this state as Melora’s eyes. Legends speak of a time when Melora wandered through the forest in the form of a gust and used the shifting leaves to spot unnatural creatures such as aberrants and undead.

Places of Worship
Shrines and memorials to Melora dot the wilderness, and her followers designate places of exceptional beauty and vitality as sacred sites.