Shiallia

Shiallia was a minor Faerûnian deity of fertility and woodlands mostly worshiped within and in the vicinity of the High Forest. Prior to the Time of Troubles, she could occasionally be found in the Neverwinter Woods as a figure rumored to be a powerful druidess, going under the alias "Lady of the Woods". She was the patron goddess of the korreds and a caretaker of pregnant forest creatures, a planter of trees and a nurturer of seedlings.

"Shiallia, a local deity tied to Silvanus and Mielikki. (Be careful not to wantonly destroy seedlings or harm any animal babes while in Silverymoon or the High Forest lest you direly offend her.)"

- Volo

Description
Shialla appeared as a beautiful, voluptuous female korred somewhere between tall depending on her whims. She had long, blond hair, (although without the beard most female korreds possessed) riddled with garlands of oak leaves and golden acorns. She wore a short, gauzy, flowing tunic that hung from one shoulder secured around her waist with a belt. She had a low, throaty voice, yet her divine beauty was such that all sentient mortals, male or female, were left stunned upon first laying eyes on her.

Shiallia's guise of "Lady of the Woods" was known to appear as a misty apparition of a beautiful woman in a green, flowing gown.

Manifestations
Shiallia took on many animal forms recognizable as her by the fact that each was a paragon of their species. One of her favorite forms was that of a large but graceful doe, often surrounded by several bucks who neither make direct advances nor fight for her affection, entirely acting in accordance to her will.

Shialla also took more abstract forms, sometimes manifesting as whirling, dancing light motes shining with green faerie fire. The warm, relaxing radiance acted as a heal spell while also eliminating any pregnancy related pains or complications. She was also known to manifest as a shower of 2-20 acorns in the middle of a korred dancing circle in the High Forest, with a consumed nut tripling the chances the consumer would conceive (if under the appropriate conditions to do so) if it was eaten within 24 hours, though they remained perfectly edible indefinitely.

Personality
Shiallia was a charming, carefree, and giddy goddess who delighted in dancing and frolicking amidst the trees, playing with the creatures of the woods when not seeing to their needs. Contrastingly, she was also remarkably unabashed, at times behaving like the satyrs her patron people resembled; for example, while she enjoyed making clever retorts when in conversation, such rejoinders were often crudely suggestive. At the same time, she had a more mysterious aspect to her, possessing hidden depths of characters incomprehensible to creatures as forthright as satyrs. Often these unexpressed qualities were related to the protection of children.

Shiallia not only rejoiced in life, but also protected against death, remaining fiercely protective of those under her care. However, she was also a fairly passive goddess, staying out of matters that didn't directly concern her, such as those outside her sphere of influence, unless ordered otherwise by Mielikki or Silvanus. Though neutral good in alignment, she was known (at least under her Lady of the Woods alias) to allow the occasional wicked being to wander into her woods. She was also known to allow periodic visits, but any permanent occupation by creatures good or evil, especially intelligent ones, were not allowed. She would prefer mortals deal with each other, and would rather use environmental conditions, summoned creatures or earthly agents than directly confront offenders.

Powers
Shiallia was incredibly quick and her strikes with her open palm (her usual method of attack) not only damaged her foe but inflicted them with Otto's irresistible dance for somewhere between 4-10 minutes. Besides stunning those who glimpsed upon her, her beauty was so great that all sentient mortals had to resist being transfixed upon her and subsequently charmed (with elves and half-elves resisting the effect as normal). She was capable of casting spells of any school or divine dominion, yet focused on those related to charming, healing, creation, or plants and animals, or spells of abjuration, conjuration, and transmutation. Her "Lady of the Woods" aspect had access to spells of the all, animal, elemental, healing, plant, and weather spheres, as well as minor access to the divination sphere.

Shiallia had enhanced versions of all druidic abilities, including resistance to fire and electricity, the power to perfectly identify plants, animals, and pure sources of water, and pass through normally impenetrable overgrowth normally and without leaving a trail. She knew the tongue of all woodland creatures and moreover could make herself understood by a mixed group in their native tongues simultaneously. She could turn into any natural animal at will as often as she wanted (recovering from somewhere between a small fraction and the totality of the injuries she sustained beforehand), was immune to all magic cast by forest creatures, and no forest creature, normal or otherwise, would harm her, furiously fighting in her defense if they saw or heard her being harmed until the assailants fled or died or otherwise interposing themselves between any attack aimed at her.

Possessions
Shiallia used a gnarled, phandar wood staff of the woodlands as a walking stick, and on rare occasion used it in combat. A large pouch hung from her belt that acted as a sort of divine bag of holding from which she could pull out any normal item smaller than in diameter that wasn't a weapon or piece of armor. Often, she used it provide her faithful with pre-mixed healing herbs for poultices or teas, though she could also pull out any size-appropriate spell component she desired to give out.

Shiallia was known to bestow acorns of desire upon her favored followers by having them fall from the sky and land at the feet of the chosen recipient. By closing their fist and concentrating, the intended subject's request was fulfilled as close to how they wanted as possible within the bounds of a limited wish (and sometimes even wish) effect of the acorn before it vanished, leaving a permanent, gold-hued tattoo in an acorn's shape on the user's palm.

Divine Realm
Shialla's divine realm was called the High Glade and was located on Krigala, the first layer of the Beastlands, in the Great Wheel cosmology, and in the House of Nature in the World Tree cosmology. It lay next to Mielikki's Grove of the Unicorns. She was also believed to dwell in Bytopia at times.

Activities
Aside from her revels with and duties to the living beings of the forest, Shialia was known to interfere with the results of spells unique to her. If the casting of a fertility spell would not work (due to age or magical impediment for example) she would know if the blessing shouldn't be performed and secretly tell the cleric as such, having them cast a similar, non-magical blessing to spare the couple embarrassment if it was going to be public. Her will also prevented the use of Ease labor (the reversed form of her ease labor spell) to be used on pregnant creatures. The more powerful the caster of her endless dance spell, the more likely her avatar would appear and aid the caster as needed.

Relationships
Shiallia was an ally and servant of Mielikki, and by extension, Silvanus. The relationship between them all, as well as Mielikki's two other servitor-deities, Gwaeron Windstrom and Lurue, was quite familial and supportive. She acted as Mielikki's midwife and local agent within her mortal domain and worked closely with Lurue. She was said to be the sister or daughter (she claimed the former) of the collective forest spirit of the High Forest known as the Tree Ghost and rumored to be the child of the korred god Tapann by way of a brief dalliance dwarven goddess of dance Sharindlar. She was allies with all her alleged relatives and was specifically known to have great kinship with Sharindlar. Her other allies included Chauntea, Eldath, Shaundakul, Nobanion, Corellon, Baervan Wildwanderer, Sheela Peryroyl and Yondalla.

Shaillia counted her enemies among those commonly despised by the gods of nature, the Gods of Fury (save for Umberlee) and Talona, all of whom sought to destroy what she protected. Of them, she had a particular dislike of the plague goddess Talona, who constantly worked to kill what she had struggled to bring to life, and murderous Malar, whom she regarded as insane and hopelessly divorced from The Balance as a result of his emphasis on a minor, aberrant part of the natural world.

Shiallia's herald was Ausuriel, the patron angel of lost children who took the form of a gnome-like woman with long hair and goat-like legs. She was known to serve Shiallia by nurturing and protecting said young ones.

Worshipers
Shiallia's had worshipers of all alignments outside of evil ones. The korreds in the glades south of the Lost Peaks honored and worshiped her alongside Tappan, and she was further venerated by many beings of the forest. Despite this, her actual clergy was rather small, the ranks of which were occupied by humans, elves, half-elves, halflings, and korreds. Clergy had to be either good-aligned or true neutral, and specialty priests had to possess a certain degree of wisdom and charisma.

The clergy of Shiallia were commonly referred to as the Sisters of Life and Mercy (although Brothers of Life and Mercy were not unknown). Most priests were female, but this was only a requirement in the case of human members. The church eschewed formal titles and hierarchy; young priestesses were called Daughters, priestesses of similar age were called Sisters, and older priestesses were called Mothers. Priests were instead called Sons, Brothers, and Elder Brothers (rather than Fathers) respectively.

Shiallia's followers normally focused on only a single discipline. Before the Time of Troubles, Shiallia's clergy was fairly evenly split between her clerics, who resided on the edges of the High Forest, and her mystics and druidic specialty priests, who wandered the deepest reaches. Since then however, most new initiates (a relative few, particularly in the southern reaches of the forest) became unique specialty priests known as woodwives. Elves and half-elves of gold, moon, or green ancestry, forest gnomes, halfling, female humans and korreds were all eligible to become woodwives, who received many nature-related spells, the power to weave entangling korred ropes from their hair, and to heal by touch by attuning with the natural healing process of all life.

Shiallia's clergy was split almost perfectly between the four types of casters, though she did have others, such as spellsingers. Her tree-friends (those of faiths that revered dryads) were more playful and motherly (but no less dedicated to their work) than those of Silvanus, and used by the goddess to protect the wilds and guide those lost within them. She also gave her divine blessing to Master Harpers in the High Forest, (their organization being on friendly terms with her own clergy) granting them the power to speak to any forest plant or animal within its boundaries and dance with all korreds without risk throughout Faerun. She sponsored no martial orders herself, but an elite sisterhood of Mielikkian swanmay rangers known as the Shields of Hope wandered the High Forest in triads, escorting Shialla's clergy through its more dangerous regions so they could tend to goodly creatures within.

Dogma
As a whole, Shiallia's clergy were similar to druids, but with a greater emphasis on fertility. According to her teachings, all life, particularly new life, was to be encouraged and nurtured whenever and wherever possible, and since nature, for better or worse, determined the course of the world, continued survival was the only concern of the creatures that lived in it. The true goal of all life forms was to give birth to new life, but death was not to be feared, for it too was part of the cycle. Though their focus was on forest creatures, their philosophy extended beyond them and included non-evil humans and demihumans.

Shiallia's followers spent their days planting, nurturing, tending to the ill or injured, calling upon the weather, or otherwise taking care of the natural world. Her priests were vagrant, traveling for hundreds of miles wherever natural life was in need of aid before moving on once they did all that they could, almost always returning to check on the fruits of their labor and possibly further cultivate their work. Her clergy was said to watch over those who wandered into the High Forest unaware of its dangers, whether they be lost children or simply fools, thus earning them the occasional mantle of the Silent Helpers.

Rituals
Clerics and druids of Shiallia prayed for their spells when the moon was at its highest since it governed the reproductive cycle. The holy days of her faithful were those that marked the passing of seasons, Greengrass and Highharvestide in particular celebrated as holidays of birth and fruition respectively. All holy days (including Midwinter, Midsummer, and the Feast of the Moon), saw the clergy invite all friendly creatures to a revelry of song, dance, and feasting, with weddings being welcome and even solicited on such days. Her followers mustered as much faerie charm magic and romance to such occasions as possible to create a fantasy atmosphere beneath a starry sky, to the point where many non-worshipers set their wedding dates to be on such days in the hopes of receiving Shiallia's blessings and hospitality.

Temples
Worship of Shiallia was largely limited to the High Forest and its immediate vicinity.

Shiallia had two major temples: in the High Forest, she was revered at a holy site called the Glade of Life, which she shared with Chauntea, Mielikki, Eldath, and Lurue. The Glade was located at the the foot of the Star Mounts, near the village of Khle'cayre, and in the center of the Glade was the Fountain of Unicorns that fed the headwaters of the Unicorn Run. Circled by great oaks over a millennium old, the Glade had a fey beauty and avatars of the five goddesses were sometimes seen there.

Another temple, simply called The Grotto, was said to lie somewhere in the vicinity of Everlund. Outside of the High Forest, Shiallia's biggest temple was an inn called the Golden Oak, located in Silverymoon. At the time of the Year of the Prince, it was run by the priestess Izolda Three-corn.

History
In 1150 DR a plague struck Silverymoon and nearly halved the populace, which was soon followed by a resurgence of attendance at groves sacred to Shiallia (as well as Lurue, Mielikki and Silvanus), and then sparked the construction of many new temples.

Shiallia aided Gwaeron in his efforts against Malar during the Time of Troubles, spending much time repairing the damage caused by his rampages while the Master Tracker focused on pursuing the Beast Lord.

Rumors and Legends
A legend told by both sages and bards said that the headwaters of the Unicorn Run were really the Font of Life and the womb of Chauntea from which every natural race emerged, with some claiming that Shiallia served as the midwife of the process.

It was generally agreed that the bard Olithard from The Tale of Olithard's Tune survived wandering through the High Forest due to being secretly shepherded by a trio of Shialla's faithful.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dungeon #28, "Visitors From Above"
 * Video Games
 * Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford
 * Neverwinter Nights: Darkness over Daggerford