Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 2 1 2
Joined: Jan 2021
BeeBee Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2021
I have been reading a bit of D&D lore lately, and have a question -- aren't Shar and Selune (and Mystra and Elistrateteblabalbal the drow one) basically aspects of the same goddess? In the case of Shar and Selune, weren't they the same entity, divided in two and set against each other?

There are so many goddesses of the Moon / Magic / Night in here that it gets a bit confusing who does what and whether they are just aspects of the same force (dare I say... Absolute) or rather greedy horny independent gods like the ones in the Greek Pantheon.

On a related note, I just watched Over the Moon and I would like Larian to provide us with a Shar / Selune musical number set on the Astral Plane --- thanks, I'll go hide in a moon crater now.






Joined: Jan 2021
BeeBee Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2021
Or do they work more like saints, what with the whole "ascension", miracle-making and kind of random portfolios?

In that case, who's the boss? Ao?

Still scratching my head.

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Mystra is more a goddess of the night sky/the stars than the Moon. Shar and Selune were once one, so yeah, you could say they are aspects of the same thing. I like to think of it as Selune being the goddess of the shining moon and Shar being the goddess of the dark side of the moon.


Optimistically Apocalyptic
Joined: Feb 2021
apprentice
Offline
apprentice
Joined: Feb 2021
Originally Posted by BeeBee
I have been reading a bit of D&D lore lately, and have a question -- aren't Shar and Selune (and Mystra and Elistrateteblabalbal the drow one) basically aspects of the same goddess? In the case of Shar and Selune, weren't they the same entity, divided in two and set against each other?

There are so many goddesses of the Moon / Magic / Night in here that it gets a bit confusing who does what and whether they are just aspects of the same force (dare I say... Absolute) or rather greedy horny independent gods like the ones in the Greek Pantheon.

On a related note, I just watched Over the Moon and I would like Larian to provide us with a Shar / Selune musical number set on the Astral Plane --- thanks, I'll go hide in a moon crater now.

Selune is the goddess of the light side of the moon.

Shar is the goddess of the dark side of the moon.

Mystril is the god of magic, created when Selune weaponised her Magic domain against Shar. Selune lost Magic and Mystril and the Weave were created. Mortal mages use the Weave (a universal magic field) to cast spells. Later, Mystril died when (I think his name was Karsis?) attempted to become One with Magic, and once the chaos settled down, Mystra formed from the Weave to replace him.

Then Mystra died in the Time of Troubles and gave her powers to a human wizard called Midnight, who took the name Mystra in honour of her predecessor.

Shar, jealous of the close friendship between Mystra and Selune, created the Shadow Weave, which can be used instead of the Weave as long as you worship Shar or can withstand the maddening effects she would otherwise shield you from. Shadow Weave magic is better at illusion, enchantment and necromancy, but much weaker at... evocation and a couple of others I can't remember off the top of my head.

So then you have the Elven Pantheon, a bunch of gods who followed the Elves to Torill when they migrated from Oerth. They brought their own moon goddess with them, Sehanine. There was a bit of negotiation, but Sehanine agreed to submit herself to Selune, becoming an aspect of the local moon deity while retaining personal autonomy.

As for Eilistraee, she's not a goddess of the moon so to speak. She's Corellion and Lolth's daughter. When Lolth went evil and took the dark elves with her, eilistraee rebelled against her mother and sided with her father. Since the Illithiri were cursed to be unable to withstand the sun's light, as the goddess of good drow Eilistraee has a lunar aspect because surface drow are only comfortable outside at night.

Of course, it's made more complicated by the fact that after the Time of Troubles, Ao (the overgod / chief deity) broke the Tablets of Fate that listed all the gods and their portfolios and domains. He decreed that gods would be powered by the belief of their worshippers instead of existing by divine right. So Sehanine gained some of her old power back, because the elves still worship her directly.

Then there's the case of many cultures having their own beliefs and names for the gods, so the Untheric people (for example) worship Nanna-sin as the god of the moon. He died a few thousand years ago, but he was recently resurrected as a non-deific immortal (Thanks, Asmodeus!) and is slowly gaining power again as the Untheric peoples devote prayers to him.

More information can be found at https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page which, while a wiki, is pretty well maintained.

Last edited by FuryouMiko; 14/02/21 10:51 PM.
Joined: Jan 2021
BeeBee Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2021
Thank you all!

So they work like a mix of saints / local deities fueled by belief, like Tinkerbell, gotcha. hehe

Joined: Oct 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Maybe there's a deity for every phase of the moon. Would fit in with the moon puzzle in the Goblin camp.
For a moon musical theme I would go for the strange story of the hijo de la luna


Joined: Jan 2021
BeeBee Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2021
I love Hijo de la Luna, but it fits much better with Auntie Ethel's storyline :_D

What about J'ai Demandé à la Lune for a bitter new Shar convert? It's literally about a person in pain praying to the sun and the moon, and the moon mocking them and dismissing their case as "insignificant".


Joined: Oct 2020
stranger
Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
Mystra is the Goddes of Magic, she has no Business with the Moon.

Eilistrea is the Drow Goddess of Art, Beauty and the Hunt. Her Rituals heavily Involve dancing naked in Moonlight, but the Moon doesnt belong to her Portfolio.

Shar is the Goddess of Darkness and Shadows, and Night but not the Moon.

Leaving Selune as the only Moon Deity.

Joined: Feb 2021
apprentice
Offline
apprentice
Joined: Feb 2021
Originally Posted by Holokom
Leaving Selune as the only Moon Deity.

Sehanine Moonbow - Elven moon goddess
Hathor - Mulhorandi moon goddess.
Sharindlar - Dwarven moon god
Malar - God of evil lycanthropes.

Eilistraee also offers the Moon domain, despite not being explicitly a deity of the moon.

Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
I always thought Sehanine was the goddess of the moon's penumbra. Since sehanine is god for mystics it only makes sense that she would be in charge of something ethereal. I made a up a fanfic once to explain how the division took place.

It's never been clear how the human gods and gods of the demi humans have been able to share the same porfolio. Death, sun, love, time . . . . Lots of examples of humans and demi-human portfolio overlap.


I the 3rd ed faiths and pantheons it was sometimes implied that at least some gods that shared to same portfolio were really just aspects of the same deity. The human and eleven goddesses of beauty share both bathe in the same pool for instance.

Mulhorandi deities are interloper gods and so a conflict could take place at some point.

Joined: Feb 2021
apprentice
Offline
apprentice
Joined: Feb 2021
Elven, Mulhorandi and Untheric deities are all interlopers.

Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Savage North
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Savage North
Ao wants the gods to have distinct portfolios. In principle, you can't have several gods and goddesses for the same thing. But ...

a) There can be a lot of small prints.
Tempus is the god of war. But not military strategy : that's the Red Knight. And not destruction : that's Talos.
Umberlee is the goddess of the oceans (but not other water things, like rivers or lakes, and water is an element, there's no god for it, but an elemental lord). Selune is the goddess of stars and navigators. Valkur is the god of sailors, naval combat and favourable winds. Not at all the same !
Selune is the goddess of the moon (and other things), Shar the goddess of night and darkness (and other things). Do not confuse them !

b) There are some exceptions, with documented and acknowledged overlapping portfolios.
Talos handles storms (all of them), while Umberlee also handle storms (on the oceans). My guess is that Auril handles snow storms and Talos also handles them, but that's written nowhere.
Tempus and Garagos are also an exception since they are both gods of war, though a bit differently.

c) Gods of different pantheons can cover the same things.
Sune and Hanali Celanil are goddesses of beauty, but in the human and elven pantheons.

d) The world-building of the Forgotten Realms is a big messy thing that probably shouldn't be taken too seriously.
When you have dozens of authors writing world-building elements over four decades, and retcons are permitted and massively used, you shouldn't expect a neat and clean canon.
As a matter of fact, the authors of the FR would tell you that it's fuzzy because it's only told tales and such. Mortals don't know all the things the deities do. In addition, we people of Earth only get news from the FR when Elminster visits Ed Greenwood and gives him the latest books of Volo and co ...

Last edited by Drath Malorn; 14/02/21 11:45 PM.
Joined: Feb 2021
apprentice
Offline
apprentice
Joined: Feb 2021
I mean, there are some pretty damn pointless gods in the setting too.

Did you know that the Realms have a goddess of "the right of the nobility to rule over the peasantry"?

They do. Her name is Siamorphe and all she does is go around patting entitled twits on the head saying "good job."

Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Originally Posted by FuryouMiko
I mean, there are some pretty damn pointless gods in the setting too.

Did you know that the Realms have a goddess of "the right of the nobility to rule over the peasantry"?

They do. Her name is Siamorphe and all she does is go around patting entitled twits on the head saying "good job."

Not so pointless in a world with different political systems. smile Up in the dales the people elect representatives and make decisions during town halls. Siamorphe is strongest in Tethyr. Thehyr's neighbor is Amn which is an Oligarchy / Plutocracy. Who knows what trouble could emerge if the gods of feudalism and the gods of imperial plutocracy were ever to find themselves at odds.



Edit: @Drath Malorn
Quote
d) The world-building of the Forgotten Realms is a big messy thing that probably shouldn't be taken too seriously.

True. Still fun to talk about. smile

Last edited by KillerRabbit; 15/02/21 06:52 AM. Reason: make english moar pretty
Joined: Jan 2021
S
addict
Offline
addict
S
Joined: Jan 2021
There are racial pantheon's, on top of the 'realms' pantheon...

Joined: Oct 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Oct 2020
I vote yes hehe

If the moon doesn't have at least 3 aspects, D&D is selling us short.

Maybe 5 just for good measure, the waxing moon, the full moon, the waning moon, the new moon, the lunar eclipse?
But yeah, 2's not enough

Joined: Jan 2021
BeeBee Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2021
Originally Posted by FuryouMiko
I mean, there are some pretty damn pointless gods in the setting too.

Did you know that the Realms have a goddess of "the right of the nobility to rule over the peasantry"?

They do. Her name is Siamorphe and all she does is go around patting entitled twits on the head saying "good job."

Ew, do they have guillotines for gods in the Realms?

Joined: Nov 2020
P
addict
Online Content
addict
P
Joined: Nov 2020
Considering it was a part of the previous two Baldur's Gate games, this might be relevant knowledge for later in the story.

The Dark Moon Heresy.

Joined: Jan 2021
BeeBee Offline OP
enthusiast
OP Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2021
Originally Posted by Piff
Considering it was a part of the previous two Baldur's Gate games, this might be relevant knowledge for later in the story.

The Dark Moon Heresy.


Oh, fascinating! Thank you -- I guess that I would be one of the slaughtere, would absolutely fall for that.

The associated novel looks really good too, the artwork is fantastic: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mistress_of_the_Night_(novel)

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by FuryouMiko
I mean, there are some pretty damn pointless gods in the setting too.

Did you know that the Realms have a goddess of "the right of the nobility to rule over the peasantry"?

They do. Her name is Siamorphe and all she does is go around patting entitled twits on the head saying "good job."

A grave misdepiction. Siamorphe is the goddess of the duty of nobility to govern justly and selflessly, and to not abuse their entitled status. She has more in common with say the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legends (or similar pure-beyond-humanity beings and archetypes) and would do excellent as a patron for a question Paladin or knight errant who never let up in their struggle to protect people who cannot protect themselves.

What you described is more the territory of Band, the god of Tyranny, or Gargauth, the god (and former arch-devil) of Corruption and Greed.

Also, Siamorphe aside, FR doesn't have enough gods by far. Just look at real world religions -- if people could think of a concept, there was a god for it. FR needs at least a hundred gods more.


Optimistically Apocalyptic
Page 1 of 2 1 2

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5