Church of Shiallia

The church of Shiallia was the primary religious organization dedicated to the worship and service of the goddess Shiallia, the Dancer in the Glades. They were commonly called Shiallians, and sometimes called the Silent Helpers for the aid they secretly provided to those lost in the High Forest.

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.

Activities
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.

Though their focus was on forest creatures, their philosophy and assisstance extended beyond them and included non-evil humans and demihumans. 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.

Membership
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.

Hierarchy
There was no formal hierarchy among Shiallians.

Titles
Like with hierarchy, Shiallians eschewed formal titles. The clergy 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. Younger 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.

Classes
Shiallian clergy had to be either good-aligned or true neutral, and specialty priests had to possess a certain degree of wisdom and charisma. 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 relatively small group mostly situated 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. These 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.

Orders
Shiallia 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.

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.

Shrines & Temples
Shiallia limited her influence to the High Forest and was mostly unknown beyond its boundaries, though her Lady of the Woods aspect was venerated in the vicinity of the Neverwinter Wood and she had a few temples elsewhere. She was a favored deity of North Faerûn, but in general there was no central temple nor web of churches dedicated to her. Most of the year the majority of her clergy wandered the High Forest on personal trails with their own personal favorite places for worship in almost every area.

Notable Locations
Shiallia had two major holy sites: in the High Forest, she was revered 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 unmatched fey beauty to it. Though much of the clergy was based there, they only rarely returned, save for the most senior high priest, a venerable female korred that lived in a sylvan dell known only as Grandmother or the Dancer of Life. The korreds danced there every night, which Shiallia sometimes joined on Midsummer nights, avatars of the other four goddesses sometimes joining in.

Shiallia's other primary place of worship was an inn beyond the High Forest located in Silverymoon, called the Golden Oak. It was excellent, expensive, beautiful, yet simple lodge built from fallen oak timber and natural resins. At the time of the Year of the Prince, it was run by the priestess Izolda Three-corn.

Another place of worship, simply called The Grotto, was said to lie somewhere in the vicinity of Everlund.

Symbol
Shiallians wore golden acorn necklaces or pendants around their necks as their holy symbols.

Dress
There was little formal dress code for Shiallia's followers, though they always wear their hair long and untied, decorating it to be similar to their goddess. Most wore simple robes of brown and green, donning flowing white robes and simple reed sandals during festivities. They would not wear animal hides or forged metals, and so for protective clothing mostly made do with heavy, woven cloths sewn into surcoats to make padded armor.

Weapons
When needed to defend themselves they usually crafted cudgels from fallen oak timber and enhanced them with the shillelagh spell, though some copied the shears used by korreds.

Spells
A number of spells and prayers were unique to Shiallian clerics or were closely associated with them:
 * Ease labor
 * Endless dance
 * Fertility

Relationships
Shiallia's clergy was on friendly terms with the Harpers. The goddess herself gave her divine blessing to Master Harpers, granting them the power to speak to any forest plant or animal within the bounds of the High Forest and dance with all korreds without risk throughout Faerun.

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.