Feno Ilirel

Feno Ilirel is a goddess in the Noon-Sun Court, held as the patron goddess of the healing arts and alchemy. She is the Celestial Doctor, and a direct child of Pyria Veleptor, birthed to keep watch over the Atarlie Empire's population of elves when it was clear that they were more frail than originally realized. She is known by a variety of epithets including the Secret-Keeper, the Speaker of Illness, and the Queen of Herbs. Among the Carcolie, she is known as the Second Mother, since it was her direct action that created the Carcolie subculture as a distinct branch of Elvendom.

Her symbol is a crysanthemum flower viewed head-on. As a neutral good deity, she grants her followers access to Good, Healing, Plant, and Magic domains. While not being warlike herself, those in her church who go into battle do so with a sickle as her divine weapon.

History

Feno was born to Pyria Valeptor shortly after the creation of the elves and her older cousin, Rophalin Imperitor. She appeared in visions to philosophers among the elves, granting them the secrets of healing magics, natural medicines, and alchemy. She is credited with appearing at various times throughout Atarlie history to intervene in various disasters with her own arts. In terms of the relative history of the most recent Vergence, she is the founding ancestor of Gen Ilirel. When the elves reappeared in the Springtime of the Gods, her household founded the Uplands Province, between the Atlas Mountains and the Imperial Province. Five centuries into that period, she sent the Carcolie to live in the mountains and start a new culture with values, customs, and sciences settled on the foundation of Ahren as it was, rather than bringing the civilization of Elysium with them. As with all the First Ancestors, she returned to Elysium at the close of the age.

Relationships

Feno is a daughter of a kind to Pyria Valeptor, and the mother of Merellien Chaebalar through a dalliance with Rophalin Imperitor. Quite naturally, given her capabilities and portfolio, she is a staunch enemy of Shalaevar Shamaris and unfond of Hycis Uriris. She and Immarra Hyacinth worked together to create the elven god of charity, Navarre Yesbella.

Though created as a counterbalance to Lysanthir Lugolor the two get along fantastically well, and an affair of their own produced Camus Inakas. It is said that they continue to interact with one another mostly in passing, though in the legends of such meetings, Feno is often depicted as flirtatious toward Lysanthir, who himself is depicted as falsely coy back toward her.

Feno's council is said often sought by San Sylvester, who considers her to be the superior alchemist.

Appearance

Feno stands head and shoulders above the mortal elves he once ruled, but otherwise appears to be a member of their kind, with a head of long, golden hair, and wise eyes that make her seem older than he otherwise looks. She wears the green-and-yellow robes common among healers and other philosophers, and smells strongly of medicinal herbs.

Realm

Feno is part of the elvish divine family, and so has a portion of the realm of The Cradle of the Wise, a fortified city in the plane of the Elysium. She is also believed to have access to the plane of Vita, but as with many divinities cannot handle prolonged exposure to the Fires of Creation and so rarely visits it, preferring to channel from the plane indirectly instead.

Providence

Feno is often credited with the sudden breaking of a chronic or serious illness, or the dying out of plagues. She has been said to whisper to philosophers and other followers in their dreams, providing cryptic formulae to answer some riddle or unlock some knowledge they were otherwise stuck upon.

Servants

Azatas in particular serve Feno, who will send them to her followers in times of need to act as protectors or mentors.

Unique Servants

Caduceus

An enormous emerald snake with angelic white wings, Feno's divine herald rarely appears in Ahren, but occasionally appears in visions to her followers offering plain and at times dire warnings.

Church

Feno is effectively a god of split churches. Within the Atarlie Empire, she is honoured as the First Ancestor in lands controlled by Gen Ilirel, and venerated by members of that aristocratic milleau, their servants in the Legio Ilirel, and by the peasantry in their lands, and the border regions of the Uplands Province. In addition, doctors, healers, and natural philosophers empire-wide are known to venerate her, as are Carcolie elves who have assimilated into the empire.

Among the Carcolie, she is considered a guiding figure and key ancestor who is worshiped universally as the founder of the culture.

Worshippers

Doctors, alchemists, and apothecaries all commonly worship the Queen of Herbs and the Mother of Medicines, as do those who minister to the health of animals and those who suffer from severe or chronic illnesses and injuries. Her worshippers often seek relief or guidance from their patron, who is generous with her gifts in exchange for their prayer and sacrifices of various incenses, some more affordable than others. Members of Gen Ilirel or the Legio Ilirel venerate her as their ultimate progentor (or at least adoptive matron).

Clergy

Known as philosophers, the clergy of Feno Ilirel are more often than not medical professionals, in one sense or another. Whether developing deep understanding of natural remedies, plumbing the arcane depths of Alchemy in search for cures and restoratives, or channeling her healing power directly, Feno's pious followers are among the finest healers in all of Wisteria. Such clergy have pastoral duties of care as well as spiritual duties of observance, and the bulk of their ranks are clerics and druids.

Her clergy wear rich robes of largely green and yellow coloration and are often set apart from the public by their broad adoption of squared-off pilbox hats known as Philosopher's Crowns.

Temples & Shrines

Throughout her province and the province's borderlands, any town of the size of "small city" or larger will likely have a temple to Feno Ilirel, and she has temples in the Imperial City and "temple schools" across the fullness of the empire. Such temples are as much hospitals and schools of medicine as they are places of worship. They eschew the grand fora common in other Atarlie temple architecture in place of being complexes, fronted with a place of worship, comprising operating theaters, recovery wards, laboratories and libraries.

It is not uncommon in large towns to have something more akin to a Shrine dedicated to Feno, which provides a place for the recovery of the sick and a venue for the veneration of the Mother of Medicines, but rarely has the facilities to train more than one or two apprentice clergy at a time.

As with other members of the Noon-Sun Court, wayside and household shrines to Feno are common in the regions the Atarlie Gen she founded rules or has ruled historically. Given the broad appeal of her portfolio over healing and medicine, she enjoys this privilege to a greater degree than most of her divine cousins.

The Carcolie are known to occasionally create large stone idols of Feno from the living rock of their mountain homes, and the precincts around these statues are sacred spaces for her specific worship.

Holy Texts

Feno Ilirel gifted mortals a document known as the Codex Medicamentum through dictation to one of her earliest followers, Heptus Septim. This book details a basic understanding of the practice and ethics of medicine and alchemy and is considered the foundational document of both practices, though huge bodies of work exist that expand upon both disciplines.

Church History

Feno's churches have stood as a remarkable testimony to the advantages of adaptability and diplomacy over sheer conquest in terms of the ability for religious organizations to have influence that goes beyond ordinary secular limits. Though her province is bordered on two sides by the naturally impassible (the Atlas Mountains to the west and sea to the north) and a third by the Imperial Province, she has somehow spread her influence across the entire Atarlie Empire, and thorugh the Carcolie, even beyond the reaches of her "parent" culture.

Holidays

The Festivals of Smoke are monthly observances held throughout the Empire on the night of the new moon, when ceremonies involving the use of perfumed smokes created from a specific formula of herbs and alchemical compounds are carried out, said to prevent the spreading of miasma and so, the outbreak of plague. While most universally practiced in her home province, any major city in the empire will make careful observance of these ceremonies as a measure of hygiene considered vital in Imperial culture.

Favoured Animals

Snakes, whose venom are the root of the cure for their venom, are considered sacred to Feno Ilirel, and often snakes native to the area are kept in her temples for the production of the same antivenom or similar alchemical compounds.