Vestale

“While all things that live yet die, the sanctity that comes with being alive is shared amongst all creatures despite whatever else my separate them. This immutable truth is all one needs to claim that their life is sacred and that they possess the same right to live as everything else.”

Vestale the Benevolent, Patron of Life, The Mother. Much has been said about the Goddess of Nature throughout the ages, but none can deny the value her tenets bestowed upon the world.

In a land where all too often might makes right, it is kindness, love, trust and empathy that shine with divinity’s luster most. Such is her truth, thus such is the truth of the world.

Some say that life existed before Vestale, while others say that from her come all things. Whatever the truth may be, all agree that she is the gardener and caretaker that would see all life flourish, in whatever way that may mean.

But, much in the way an arborist would prune the branches of a tree, so too does her mercy allow the chaos that brings. Some view the acceptance of pain and suffering as hypocrisy, whilst others understand that the charred remains of a forest fire provide the nutrients necessary for new life to bloom and grow.

Accepting the duality of life is no easy thing, yet understand it all who study her teachings must. For those who struggle with the simple complexity of life’s ravaging mercy need to look no further than the bonds shared between her halfling race of sypor and Ronto’s beast-men race of argol to see the wisdom of her beliefs.

The argol: fierce, proud, ruthlessly voracious carnivores. The sypor: gentle, humble, boundlessly generous herbivores. Where the argol fight and kill to establish dominance and authority, the sypor feed and aid all who are in need. Separate, each can survive, but together they thrive.

Such is the way of things. Serenity and bedlam. Humility and hubris. Benevolence and malevolence. All life is sacred and must be allowed to take its course for that is the only way for the world to grow and prosper.