High Elven Pantheon
The High Elven Pantheon, known to the Atarlie as the Divine Ancestors or the Elysian Princes are the objects of worship of the Atarlie State culture, a polytheistic belief system centered around an progenitor deity and a retinue of divine cousins, some descended from her and others ascended from mortal elves. The elven matron goddess, Pyria Valpetor, is held to be both the mother of many of these deities and the progenitor of the elven species - in common understanding the Atarlie specifically, who hold that all other elves are simply distaff cousins.
While many public holidays center Pyria's worship, most Elves take actual patronage from one specific diety within the pantheon, with the public worship of any of these being nominally legal within the Atarlie Empire - there is no unified church as compared to the contrasting Bastonian Pantheon. This includes the evil deities on the Pantheon, though most of their public worshippers are basically petitioning for mercy rather than for favour.
The collective belief among followers of deities within the pantheon is that all elves who die go to Elysium, with only the most wicked among them being turned away from the Cradle of the Wise and instead swallowed up by the Abyss.
Pantheon at a Glance
| Name | Portfolio | Worshippers | Domains | Alignment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pyria Valeptor | Families, Divinity, Fortune | Universal, Mothers of Large Families | Community, Protection, Sun, Weather | TN |
| Rophalin Imperitor | Royalty, Rulership, Authority, The Empire | Officials (Military and Civil), Clerks, Historians | Glory, Law, Nobility, Protection | LN |
| Feno Ilirel | Medicine, Alchemy, Wellbeing, Births | Doctors, Healers, Veterinarians, the Ill | Good, Healing, Plant, Magic | NG |
| Navarre Yesbella | Liberation, Welfare | The Poor, Some Magistrates, Philathropists, Some Thieves | Community, Liberation, Luck, Protection | CG |
| Merellien Chaebalar | Justice and Just Causes | Many Magistrates, Jailors, Paladins | Healing, Law, Protection, War | LG |
| Camus Inakas | Magic, Scholarship, Exploration, Discovery | Mages, Philosophers, Scholars, Adventurers | Artifice, Knowledge, Magic, Rune | CN |
| Lysanthir Lugolor | Death, Final Judgement, Passing of Seasons and the Ending of Days | Mortuaries, Necromancers, Assassins, Some Magistrates | Darkness, Death, Erosion, Repose | LE |
| Shalaevar Shamaris | Disease, Disasters, Crises | Assassins, Bandits, the Ill, Some Doctors | Destruction, Evil, Ruins, Vermin | NE |
| Hycis Uriris | Rebellion, Arcane Disasters, Wild Portals | Some Mages, Philosophers, Rebels | Air, Chaos, Earth, Fire, Water | CE |
| Immarra Hyacinth | Beauty, The Arts, Love | Artists, Lovers, Aristocrats | Charm, Glory, Good, Plant | CG |
Origins
"Even the oldest of gods knows not how the beginning of the beginnings began."
- Attributed to Anghara
This article discusses the setting from a perspective fundamentally outside it and shouldn't be considered necessarily-true knowledge as understood by the characters inside the setting.
While the worship and veneration given by the elves makes these figures true deities, in actual fact all of them are simply a princely family of elves who had lead the recolonization of Wisteria from Elysium during the Springtime of the Gods. In the many centuries since that age, however, this fact has now largely been eclipsed by other topics in Elvish education, and the Elysian Princes are now thought of as a sort of forerunner line, now extinct in the mortal world, to mainstream elvendom. It remains fashionable among the Atarlie upper class to maintain expensive family genealogies that show how and where they are connected to the Divine Ancestors, but even in these families, the attitude that one is "descended from the gods" in any way that confers special authority is exceedingly rare.