Yssarel, the Wildmother

Greater Deity

Domains: Life, Nature

Yssarel is the goddess of life, nature, healing, and the wild. Creation traditions credit her with filling Eldareth with its first living things and establishing the cycles through which life continues from one generation to the next.

Since the death of her sister Lyrael, Yssarel is said to have chosen silence. Her followers still seek her guidance, but no accepted account records her speaking aloud since that loss.

Symbol

Yssarel's symbol is a crown formed from flowering vines. Its living branches represent the abundance and renewal of life.

Depictions

Yssarel is commonly depicted as a tall woman with reddish or auburn hair and skin in green or earthen tones. Living plants grow through her hair and clothing, with details that often reflect the environment familiar to those portraying her.

Some traditions give her features drawn from local wildlife or show her at an immense scale.

Divine Realm

Yssarel resides in the Emerald Wilds within Arborea.

Her realm stretches across a natural passage between Arvandor and Aquallor. Inland forests and cultivated country gradually give way to the coast and the living waters beyond, without a clear boundary between the two layers.

The Wilds are always changing. Animals migrate, rivers shift, forests spread or recede, and generations of living things replace those that came before.

Hunting, cultivation, fishing, and harvesting all have a place there. Those who dwell within the Wilds are expected to leave enough for the land and its creatures to recover.

Origins and Divine Role

During the earliest ordering of creation, Lyrael shaped the lands and seas and Yssarel filled them with life.

Many traditions also place Yssarel among the creators of mortal peoples, though no complete account survives of how widely her hand shaped the earliest inhabitants of Eldareth.

She is credited with establishing the cycle through which living things grow, reproduce, die, and sustain what follows. Death has a place within that cycle. Predators take prey, crops are harvested, and old growth gives way to new life without standing against her order.

Yssarel opposes destruction that leaves no room for recovery or takes more than the surrounding life can endure.

Healing also falls within her care. Her followers see recovery from injury or illness as part of the same natural capacity by which living things endure damage and continue.

The Silent Goddess

Yssarel ceased speaking after Lyrael's death.

Her followers have long debated the reason for her silence. Grief and a deliberate vow remain among the most common explanations, but Yssarel herself has never clarified it.

Her faithful believe she still makes her attention known through the living world, especially through the wind. Such signs are treated cautiously and are rarely understood as direct commands.

Silence plays an important role in her worship. Many rites include periods in which those present simply listen to the world around them.

Worship and Practice

Yssarel is commonly worshipped in living places rather than enclosed temples. Sacred sites may be tended for generations while remaining part of the surrounding landscape.

Many offerings reflect an expectation of care after taking from the land. Worshippers may plant after a harvest, restore damaged ground, or allow depleted land time to recover.

Her followers often become involved when continued use is damaging a place faster than it can recover.

Healing holds the same importance in her faith. Those devoted to Yssarel commonly care for people and animals recovering from injury, illness, or hardship.

Yssarel and the Triad

Yssarel was among the strongest divine opponents of the Triad during the final conflicts of the Age of Divinity.

Vorandor's Creeping Rot was especially abhorrent to her because it spread through living places and prevented natural recovery. His later Scab-Rot Plague carried that corruption into mortal populations and resisted many forms of healing.

Yssarel ultimately stood with the other gods who drove the Triad beyond the mortal world.

Teachings

• Protect life from needless destruction.

• Take only what can be replenished.

• Learn how a place lives before changing it.

• Care for the wounded and vulnerable.

• Do not treat the living world as something to be mastered.