The Lands of Warlderia

Ehlonna, the Anwyn Sect

The worship of Ehlonna has long been central to the people of the Golden Woods of Anwyn. Ehlonna is goddess of the woodlands, animals, fertility and the living natural world. Her followers honour her in the deep forest and the cultivated field, in wild creatures and domesticated animals, in birth and growth, and in those who protect living things from destruction. The form of her worship practised within Anwyn has developed its own distinctive character. It is particularly associated with the Half-Elven communities of the Golden Woods and has been shaped by their history, their close relationship with the forest, the presence of unicorns and Fey, and eventually the extraordinary passage of the Woods themselves from one world to another. The people of Anwyn do not claim that theirs is the only proper way to worship Ehlonna. It is simply their way.

The Half-Elven Goddess

Older traditions depict Ehlonna in several forms. Among many human worshippers she is portrayed as a dark-haired human woman, while the Elven tradition of Ehlenestra commonly represents her as an Elven maiden with golden hair. Within Anwyn a third image gradually became prominent. Here Ehlonna is most commonly depicted as a Half-Elven woman, reflecting the people amongst whom her worship developed. She is usually shown with long dark hair, deep blue eyes and subtly pointed ears, dressed in green and carrying a longbow. The image is not intended to suggest that Ehlonna is literally Half-Elven, any more than her human or Elven manifestations imply that the goddess belongs exclusively to either people. Rather, the people of Anwyn believe that the goddess allows herself to be understood in forms familiar to those who worship her.

For the Half-Elves of the Golden Woods, a goddess who appears to share something of both their human and Elven heritage has particular significance. It also reflects a broader characteristic of the Anwyn faith. Ehlonna is not regarded as belonging to one race. Humans, Elves, Half-Elves, gnomes and others may all worship her. The goddess of the living world has little reason to concern herself with mortal arguments over the purity of blood.

ble horse, the ranger guarding a lonely path and the mother holding a newborn child. All are part of the living world. All are within her care

Ehlonna and the Living World

To the people of Anwyn, Ehlonna is not merely a goddess of untouched wilderness. The ancient forest is sacred to her, but so too is the meadow where animals graze, the orchard heavy with fruit, the field from which a family draws its food and the garden carefully tended beside a cottage. Wild animals fall within her care, but so do the horse, hound and other creatures which have chosen or accepted lives alongside mortal peoples. This understanding lies at the heart of the Anwyn tradition. Nature is not valuable only when mortals are absent from it.

People are themselves part of the living world. The task is therefore not to preserve some impossible separation between civilisation and nature, but to live within the natural world without needlessly destroying it. Hunting is accepted. Wanton slaughter is not. Trees may be felled. A forest should not be destroyed through greed. Animals may work alongside mortals. Cruelty towards them is abhorrent. Fields may be cultivated and homes built, provided those who do so remember that the land upon which they depend is not inexhaustible. This practical understanding of Ehlonna is one reason her worship has spread easily amongst the scattered communities of the Golden Woods.

Horses and Unicorns

Horses occupy a particularly important place within the Anwyn tradition. Many of the people who settled around Merilrond were rangers, travellers or warriors accustomed to living and working with horses. The small but hardy forest horses of the Golden Woods remain important for travel, patrols and ordinary life. Care for a horse is consequently regarded as something more than simple maintenance of a useful animal. Deliberate cruelty towards one is taken particularly seriously by followers of Ehlonna. Above even horses in religious significance stand the unicorns. Unicorns are sacred to Ehlonna throughout many traditions of her worship, but in Anwyn they are not distant creatures known principally from religious imagery and ancient stories.

They are neighbours. Herds of unicorns inhabit the Golden Woods, and their presence has profoundly influenced local worship. They are respected as intelligent, independent beings rather than treated as possessions of the Sisterhood or convenient sacred mounts. A unicorn goes where it chooses. On rare occasions a unicorn forms a particularly close bond with a mortal woman. Such women are known as White Wards, or more informally as Unicorn Riders. The bond cannot be commanded by a priestess, arranged by the Sisterhood or demanded by the prospective rider. The unicorn chooses.

The White Wards

The White Wards represent one of the oldest and most distinctive traditions associated with Ehlonna in Anwyn. A woman chosen by a unicorn may accept the bond and the obligations which accompany it. Traditionally these include chastity, reflecting the particular ideas of purity historically associated with unicorns. These vows belong to the White Wards. They are not a requirement of Ehlonna's faith generally, nor are they imposed upon the Sisters of Anwyn as a whole. This distinction has sometimes confused outsiders, particularly because Dîmeril Laeghartha herself spent part of her life as a Unicorn Rider. Her personal history has therefore occasionally been mistaken for a model which other followers of Ehlonna are expected to imitate. It is not. White Wards occupy an honoured place within Anwyn, but their calling is an unusual one and no woman is considered less devoted to Ehlonna because no unicorn has chosen her.

Explore: The Sisterhood of Anwyn

Love, Fertility and Family

Ehlonna is a goddess of fertility and new life, and the Anwyn tradition makes no attempt to disguise that aspect of her nature. Love, sexuality, conception, pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood are regarded as natural parts of the cycle of life. The most prominent advocate of this aspect of Ehlonna is High Priestess Lusara Elmare. Lusara's faith is strongly associated with hearth, family, fertility and the continuation of life, and these themes feature prominently in many of the ceremonies she oversees. Blessings may be sought by couples hoping to conceive, while pregnancy and childbirth receive particular religious attention. Children are welcomed into the community with blessings acknowledging both the family into which they have been born and the living world of which they have become part. Marriage is honoured but is not regarded as the only legitimate expression of love or sexuality. Nor is motherhood considered an obligation imposed upon women.

A woman who never marries, never takes a lover or never bears a child is no less complete in the eyes of the goddess. Fertility is sacred because life itself is sacred, not because every individual is required to reproduce. This is one area in which Lusara's interpretation of Ehlonna can appear strikingly different from the traditions surrounding the White Wards. Within Anwyn, no contradiction is seen. The unicorn and the newborn child are both expressions of the goddess. They simply represent different mysteries.

Guardianship and the Wild

If Lusara most visibly represents Ehlonna's associations with fertility, family and new life, Dîmeril Laeghartha embodies another important aspect of the Anwyn faith. Dîmeril's relationship with Ehlonna has always been rooted in the wilderness and its defence. For her, worship is expressed as readily through protecting a threatened settlement, guarding a forest path or defending an animal from needless cruelty as through formal prayer. This has strongly influenced the Martial tradition within the Sisterhood of Anwyn.

Dîmeril and Lusara therefore approach the same goddess from rather different directions. Neither regards the other's path as lesser. Their friendship, and their occasional disagreements, have helped shape a religious tradition broad enough to contain both.

Worship in Anwyn

The worship of Ehlonna in Anwyn tends to be relatively informal. The goddess is honoured in sacred groves, gardens, woodland clearings and small shrines rather than exclusively within great temples. A ceremony conducted beneath living branches is generally considered every bit as legitimate as one performed before an altar. Many prayers and ceremonies are conducted in Anwyn Elven, reflecting the history of the Golden Woods and the large Half-Elven and Elven population. Common is nevertheless used freely where appropriate, particularly when worshippers do not speak Elven. Clerics traditionally favour pale green robes, although elaborate vestments are uncommon in everyday life. Many priestesses wear practical woodland clothing outside formal ceremonies. The unicorn or unicorn horn is widely used as Ehlonna's holy symbol and is commonly fashioned in silver. Personal worship is equally important. A ranger may offer a brief prayer before entering dangerous country. A farmer may thank Ehlonna for rain. A child may leave fruit beside a woodland shrine. The faith does not require every act of devotion to become a ceremony.

The Sacred Year

Religious life in Anwyn follows the changing seasons. Festivals mark the rhythms of growth, flowering, fertility, harvest, decline and renewal, bringing together communities which may otherwise spend much of the year scattered throughout the Woods. Some observances are solemn. Others emphatically are not. Food, music, dancing, courtship and communal celebration sit comfortably beside formal worship. Ehlonna is the goddess of living things, and the people of Anwyn see little virtue in celebrating life miserably. The great seasonal gatherings also serve a practical purpose. Families and settlements exchange news, marriages and relationships begin, goods are traded, disputes are settled and people who may live many miles apart renew old friendships. Religion and community are not easily separated within Anwyn. Nor is there much desire to separate them.

Explore: The Sacred Year of Anwyn

Ehlonna and the Fey

The Golden Woods possess unusually strong connections with the Fey World, and Fey creatures form an accepted part of life within and around Anwyn. This has inevitably influenced local religious thought. Ehlonna herself, however, is not regarded as a Fey goddess. The distinction is important. Powerful Fey may be respected, befriended or feared. Some possess powers which to ordinary mortals can appear almost divine. The people of Anwyn nevertheless distinguish between such beings and the goddess they worship. At the same time, the presence of Fey has reinforced the belief that the natural world contains mysteries which mortals do not fully understand.

Not every ancient tree requires an explanation. Not every strange light should be followed. And not everything encountered in the forest which claims to be helpful necessarily is.

The Passage to Warlderia

The arrival of the Golden Woods in Warlderia was one of the most extraordinary events in the history of the Anwyn faith. An entire landscape, its people and many of its creatures had been carried from one world to another. For some worshippers the event raised profound theological questions. For others it answered one very simple one. Ehlonna was still there.

The trees continued to grow. Animals gave birth. Clerics received their spells. Sacred rites retained their power. Prayers spoken beneath unfamiliar stars were heard just as they had been in Erdian. For the people of Anwyn, this became powerful confirmation that Ehlonna was not bound to one land, one people or even one world. Their surroundings had changed. The living world had not ended.

The Sisterhood of Anwyn

The most visible organised expression of Ehlonna's faith within the Golden Woods is the Sisterhood of Anwyn. The Sisterhood includes Martial and Spiritual Sisters and combines worship with healing, teaching, ranging and the defence of the communities of the Woods. It should not, however, be mistaken for the entirety of Ehlonna's worship. Many ordinary people throughout Anwyn honour the goddess without belonging to the Sisterhood. Men may worship Ehlonna, serve her as druids or otherwise participate fully in the religious life of the community despite the Sisterhood itself being exclusively female. The Sisterhood serves the faith. It does not own it.

Explore: The Sisterhood of Anwyn • The Sisters of Anwyn

The Goddess of Anwyn

There is no single act which completely defines devotion to Ehlonna. Planting a tree may be worship. Healing a wounded animal may be worship. Standing between a frightened family and something hunting them through the forest may be worship. So may delivering a child, tending a field, riding beside a trusted horse, celebrating beneath the summer trees or simply allowing a wild thing to remain wild. 

To the people of Anwyn, Ehlonna is present in the ancient tree and the newly planted field, the wild unicorn and the stable horse, the ranger guarding a lonely path and the mother holding a newborn child. All are part of the living world. All are within her care.