A Duo of Deities

Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer is out now and receiving rave reviews. In case you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, here's an excerpt of what you're missing. I have a soft spot for Shelyn, since she was my first major contribution to the campaign setting, so here's the first official look at her, straight from the pages of the Gaz.

Shelyn

The Eternal Rose
Goddess of beauty, art, love, and music
Alignment: NG
Domains: Air, Charm, Good, Luck, Protection
Favored Weapon: Glaive
Centers of Worship: Absalom, Galt, Sargava, Taldor
Nationality: Taldan

An ancient story tells of how Shelyn stole the glaive Whisperer of Souls from her half-brother Zon-Kuthon in an attempt to redeem him. Obviously, this didn't work, but to the intelligent weapon's great frustration, neither do its continued attempts to corrupt or influence her.

All depictions of Shelyn, regardless of race or ethnicity, show her as a young woman barely out of her youth, with eyes of blue or silver.

Shelyn's ankle-length chestnut hair bears several strands colored bright red, green, and gold. She always wears tasteful clothing and jewelry that accentuates her beauty without revealing too much of it. Shelyn preaches (and practices) that true beauty comes from within, and she favors romances not based solely on lust. Clerics of Shelyn endeavor each day to create something of beauty, whether artistically or through unconventional forms, such as a gardener tending a flower garden.

And, of course, because their histories tie them together, here too is the foul Zon-Kuthon (who also appears in the upcoming Pathfinder #11).

Zon-Kuthon

The Midnight Lord
God of envy, pain, darkness, and loss
Alignment: LE
Domains: Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Law
Favored Weapon: Spiked chain
Centers of Worship: Belkzen, Cheliax, Geb, Irrisen, Nidal, Varisia
Nationality: Alien

The Umbral Leaves, which chronicle the history of Zon-Kuthon, claim that he was once the half-brother of the beauty goddess Shelyn, but that his envy over her talents led him to commit terrible acts against her and her works. For his crimes, the gods of Golarion banished Zon-Kuthon to the Plane of Shadow, there to reside for as long as the sun hung in the sky. Unfortunately, in the depths of the Age of Darkness, Zon-Kuthon emerged from his prison to a benighted Golarion and wept tears of joy. Here was a world ripe for the conquering, hidden from the light of the stars and cloaked in fear and entropy.

Zon-Kuthon is almost never depicted by his followers, but his presence manifests as a deep darkness lurking in the center of paintings, and as a standing doorway that leads only to emptiness.

The Midnight Lord wreaked terrible havoc upon the world in the Age of Darkness, but his malign influence has mostly been purged over the years. The lone exception to this is the Shadow Court of Pangolais, the secret rulers of Nidal. In this dark nation, the faith of the Midnight Lord still rules supreme, the leaders issuing edicts from their pitch-black council chambers.

Mike McArtor
Editor