| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| varyar |
Posted - 30 May 2024 : 14:54:05
Here's the current draft of my upcoming Leira booklet for the DM's Guild. I tried to stick to the lore as much as possible, but there's really not much there as far as Leira goes. Much of the word count across editions focuses on her death, which is fine, but I wanted to offer more and had to conjure up a lot of original material. If I got anything actually wrong, or if you have any questions, please let me know!
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Leira
The Mistshadow, Lady of the Mists
Lesser Deity
Symbol: A downward pointing grey triangle with a loose spiral within
Home Plane: Ysgard
Alignment: Chaotic neutral
Portfolio: Deception, illusion
Worshipers: Illusionists, thieves, philosophers
Common Cleric Alignments: CG, CN, N
Domains: Arcana, Trickery
Favored Weapon: “Sumu” and “Varjo” (daggers)
Doctrine: Master illusion and you will hold the truth in your hand. In a world of lies, the honest one is not believed.
Raiment: Simple robes in gray, orange or brown. Veils of reflective metal discs that fully obscure the face are more popular than the mirrored masks of the old church.
Ritual: The Unmasking (a purification ceremony where bare-faced supplicants walks between rows of candle-bearing priests, reflecting pools and mirrors), the Invocation (a call on the Lady herself for guidance in which priests swing censers to create thick clouds of smoke from which she will speak).
Leira, the goddess of illusion, is one of the most enigmatic powers in the Forgotten Realms. Her origins are obscure, her goals unknown and her allies few indeed. Even the most learned sages of religion often shrug when asked who Leira is or what she really wants. Leira is not the only deity of illusion magic – her gnomish counterpart is Baravar Cloakshadow, while Sehanine Moonbow counts the subtle art as part of her portfolio and some sources claim the air goddess Akadi does so, too. Cyric the Mad God still insists illusion is under his control, but few outside his own church pay heed to these claims.
Leira has few known antecedents as far as human powers of illusion go. Even Netheril, a land perhaps more devoted to magic than any before or since, had none, and in those days, Shar claimed dominion over illusion. At some point during the five centuries between the fall of Netheril and the founding of Nimbral, Leira appeared in the Realms, and surviving records from the era often treat her presence as unworthy of significant remark, as if she had been there for much longer than 500 or so years – a presence utterly absent from any chronicles kept by Netherese sages or their counterparts in neighboring realms. The meticulous elves of Evereska, for example, make no mention of Leira or, indeed, any deity of illusion aside from Shar. A tale often told in Nimbral, allegedly one of great antiquity, makes the startling claim that Leira is the daughter of Shar and Selûne, born out of the same cosmic conflict that created her alleged sister Mystryl (an ancient predecessor of today’s Mystra) – the same story also says that Leira is somehow the child of Mystryl, too. For this reason, few pay it much attention except as a curiosity.
Leira herself was treated much the same way, except by her small number of worshipers. In Nimbral her church was the state religion and she had a modest following among the gnomes of Lantan, but otherwise, only illusionists worshiped Leira. She made little mark on the Realms as a whole, with her church founding no great militant orders or engaging in epic rivalries with other churches. And then, in the wake of the Time of Troubles, when the gods themselves walked Faerûn after being cast down by a mysterious higher power, Leira died. Most accounts (of which there were many, the topic being popular among playwrights and poets of the day) are in agreement. Leira’s friend Mask, the god of thieves, betrayed her as part of a pact with the mad god Cyric, who slew Leira and absorbed her divine power and portfolio. At the time, Leira’s fate was debated – most of her followers laughed at the idea she could have been tricked and murdered so easily, and a few religious scholars raised doubts about some of the details of the stories. But within a couple generations, Leira’s faith had almost entirely vanished. Most took to worshiping other gods, some continued to claim Leira was still alive long after it was clear Cyric was granting the prayers of those who still prayed to her, and a few even openly pledged loyalty to Cyric. And there the matter would have ended, with Leira just one more dead god like Auppenser or Ibrandul... except for one small detail. Somehow Leira returned.
There was no great revelation or manifestation. Over the course of a considerable period of time before, during and after the Second Sundering, various illusionists across the realms were visited in their dreams by a mist-shrouded figure who called on them to revive Leira’s church. Those who refused were visited three more times and then left alone. Those who accepted began to do just what they had been charged with doing. At around the same time, Nimbral, once the foundation of Leira’s church, reappeared after being absent almost as long as Leira herself. The situation there is unclear, with some travelers insisting Leira’s faith is the state church as it once was, while others are just as certain the church was outlawed and its followers driven into hiding. Divinations suggest that both claims are true or at least honest.
Leira herself is not what she used to be, nor is she where she used to be. After her return (or perhaps before it), Leira moved her divine realm from the chaos of Limbo to the slightly more orderly and equally vibrant plane of Ysgard. Some sages believe this migration is an indication that Leira’s inner nature changed during the century or so she was apparently dead. Some believe that Leira was absorbed by Cyric, but maintained some of her own self, and was set free by the chaos of the Second Sundering. This would align with some statements by her clergy that preach an ethical line different than whimsical mystery as before. She certainly has severed ties with Mask and many of her followers take it upon themselves to hunt Mask’s devotees down or, better still, make them the targets of elaborate and often vicious games of trickery and deception that end in a suitably ironic punishment. Cyric’s followers suffer the same fate in an even grimmer fashion. Aside from these two burning grudges, Leira has distant ties at best with the other gods of Faerûn. She seems to be willing to cooperate with Mystra when needed for the greater good of magic, has an aloof relationship with Azuth and a mutual antipathy with Savras (divination and illusion rarely being aligned in purpose) and Tyr (a rigid, or at least determined, power of honesty and truth), while sages can only speculate about Leira’s relationship with her alleged mothers Selûne and Shar.
As far as Leira’s church in the Realms goes, it would be more accurate to describe it as Leira’s churches. Her faith, never all that organized before, is almost completely ruptured now, with each local temple or shrine operating on its own. As there are very few of these at the moment, no squabbles between rival sects have emerged, but many outsiders believe it is only a matter of time. Leira seems to approve of this situation, as she has not manifested to favor any given temple head let alone sanction the establishment of a hierarchy. The Mistkeep in Presper, once the most prominent of Leira’s temples outside of Nimbral, was one of the last bastions of true believers after the goddess’ death, but it was eventually seized by Cyricists (who discovered the temple’s fabled collection of magical items had vanished – many of those items have since appeared all over the Realms, often right on the doorstep of hew new worshipers). As with her churches, so with her holy days. Previously, Leiran priests would gather six times a year in secretive Conclaves where, ironically, they would speak no lies to each other. If any Conclaves have been held since Leira’s return, they have been kept very secret. Her return itself is celebrated in all her churches, but on different days and with different degrees of solemnity or revelry depending on the church. The Mistkeep in Presper (a much smaller and humbler temple than the first one) celebrates it on the Winter Solstice with grand ceremonies full of dizzying clouds of incense and long recitations of the exploits of Leira’s clergy and folk heroes over the centuries, while the Seeking Order of Spellbinders (a self-declared guild of illusionists in Waterdeep) marks Leira’s return on the first new moon of Alturiak with quiet debates about the nature of truth and illusion.
These debates are typical of the reborn Leiran faith. While Leira has issued no pronouncements about the structure of her church, she has apparently made it known that her followers should follow a new path – illusion and deception are not ends in their own right, but means to a greater end. The world we perceive, her priests proclaim, is just a veil over the truth. Those who can truly master illusion simultaneously gain the ability to perceive the hidden truth. What that truth is remains a mystery...
The Blind Men and the Manticore
(by Jonagos of Nimbral)
IT was six men of Halruaa
To magic much inclined
Who went to see the Manticore
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Manticore
And, happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"Azuth bless me!—but the Manticore
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of a fang,
Cried "Ho! What have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of a Manticore
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal.
And, happening to take
a deadly spine within his hands.
Thus boldly up and spake:—
"I see," quoth he, "the Manticore
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee;
"What most this wondrous beast is like.
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'Tis clear enough the Manticore
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth who chanced to touch the wing,
Said, "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of a Manticore
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Manticore
Is very like a rope!"
And so the men of Halruaa
Disputed loud and long.
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong!
The Misthall
In as much as Leira has a ‘high temple’ in mainland Faerûn, the Misthall in Berdusk is probably it. Even after the fall of Presper’s Mistkeep, the Misthall remained in the hands of her dwindling number of true believers. After the last of the clerics passed away, the Misthall was preserved by a small band of illusionists who fended off attempts by worshipers of Cyric and Shar, as well as followers of other, friendlier powers who sought to ‘protect’ the temple – and, coincidentally, no doubt, its archives of magical lore. The illusionists, few in number but quite powerful, were among the first to be called by the reborn goddess, and remain the core of her church in the Sword Coast. The established faiths of Berdusk, especially the militant ones who form the core of the kingdom of Eltugard’s Companions, are wary of Leira’s return, but that is of little concern to her faithful.
The temple, a rounded, domed structure surrounded by grey sandstone columns permanently topped with swirling mists, is not very large or ostentatious. It stands next to Azuth’s House of the High Hand and Savras’ Hall of the Third Eye, and not far from the temple of Deneir and Twilight Hall, one of the Harpers’ main strongholds in the Realms. A few of the local Harpers have taken to worshiping the Lady of the Mists in recent years, a fact which dismays some and alarms others.
The fact that the Misthall also holds one of the greatest collection of illusion spell books and lore in all Faerûn is even more alarming to many outsiders, and a constant lure to thieves of all sorts. The Red Wizards and the Zhentarim in particular have often sought to plunder the temple’s archives, but their efforts have very rarely succeeded. The Misthall’s defenses are not as dense or robust as, say, Candlekeep’s, but they are still potent. It also contains a sizeable, and publicly accessible, library of texts concerning the planes of Arborea, Ysgard, Limbo, Pandemonium and the Abyss (with rumors of a much larger and private collection of similar matter).
Among the items of note in the archives:
* an illustrated manuscript about the “Great Menausus Deception” which depicts the ‘realignment’ of part of a plane of benevolent law into a more rigid sphere as the result of a cosmic game gone horribly wrong or perhaps gloriously right.
* a long scroll listing 101 “Absconditors” – allegedly (and outside of the scroll unheard of) Leiran counterparts to the Magisters, Mystra’s champions, tasked with spreading the use of illusion just as the Magisters spread the use of magic in general.
* a treatise on how to create magic spectacles with colored lenses that allow the wearer to see into other planes without being observed in return; each combination of lens color and type of crystal is keyed to a specific plane.
* a set of eight spellbooks supposedly written by Galin Korel, a Nimbrese archmage of the 7th century DR, each one containing lost illusion spells.
The Courts of Illusion
Little was known about Leira’s planar domain, the Courts of Illusion, before her death and even less is known today. In the past, the Courts of Illusion were part of the ever-shifting planescape of Limbo. Aside from her most faithful servants, who journeyed there in secret and almost never spoke of what they experienced, Leira saw very few visitors. Unlucky planar travelers who blundered into the Courts thanks to the difficulty of navigating Limbo were usually tricked into departing by means of subtle illusions without even realizing where they’d been, while more persistent or lucky wanderers tended to be entangled in less-subtle spells instead of destroyed outright. Voices from the mists that filled the realm would interrogate the trespassers, often in a whimsical or sarcastic fashion, and then they would find themselves ejected into another part of the plane. (The fate of those who were not expelled, of course, remains a different and unanswerable question.)
Today, Leira’s new home on the plane of Ysgard is less hidden but no less obscure. Silvermist (or Silfrnifl, as many of the plane’s inhabitants call it) is a vast earthberg, a floating island of stone and earth that drifts through an infinite and often stormy sky. Unlike the rest of the plane, Silvermist is not dominated by an endless sequence of battle, revelry, rest and renewed battle. That, at least, is the somewhat scornful consensus of the people of Ysgard, who generally regard the new realm with bewilderment and disdain. The ‘scribe’s battlefield’ is said to be a place where the clash of steel is replaced by dueling spells and battles of wit. One traveler, a powerful sorcerer named Ástríðr of Jernträd, said she witnessed a ‘battle’ where a masked priest of Leira wandered through what seemed to Ástríðr to be an empty field filled with a light mist, interacting with things and beings she could not see, until they let out a cry of joy and, now clutching a large and ornate scroll, stepped through a doorway that apparently led back to some mortal realm.
Faction: The Seeking Order of Spellbinders
The Seeking Order of Spellbinders are an aspiring guild of illusionists in Waterdeep. As Waterdeep already has an well-established, powerful and well-connected wizards’ guild in the form of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, the odds of the Spellbinders obtaining guild status are extremely low. Even the most optimistic of the spellbinders recognizes this now and so the Order has instead adopted broader, more philosophical ambitions in line with the tenets of Leira’s faith.
Spellbinders have two goals. The first is inward, a desire to master the art of illusion and perceive the truth hidden behind the veil of ‘reality.’ The outward goal is to help spread Leira’s faith and bolster the reputation of illusion as something more than the domain of tricksters and charlatans.
Motto. “Pierce the lies and perceive the truth. The honest understand deception.”
Beliefs. The Seekers’ beliefs can be summarized as follows:
* Illusion is the purest form of magic and path to truth.
* The truth will remove the shackles the world has placed on you.
* Guide others by your deeds, not your words.
Goals. Recover lost magic, uncover hidden truths, and strengthen the reputation of Leira in the Realms.
Typical Quests. Quests for the Spellbinders typically include searching old Leiran temples for hidden magic books, scrolls and items, covertly supporting Leira’s friends or undermining her foes, and upholding the reputation of the Art of illusion and its practitioners.
New Magic Item
Isana Meester’s arcanabula
Wondrous item, legendary
Isana Meester was an ancient elvish illusionist of great talent and an impish nature, and this arcanabula (as tradition-minded illusionists refer to their spellbooks) reflects that. The arcanabula seems to contain several very potent spells: arcane gate, contingency, demiplane, Drawmij’s instant summons, etherealness, guards and wards, mass suggestion, maze, planeshift, symbol, true seeing, and weird. This is just a ruse to ensnare the overly eager magic-user who might get their hands on the book. There are very subtle mistakes in each spell entry and if copied into a spell book, the spells as written will not work. Fortunately, there were limits to Meester’s mischievousness. Any wizard attempting to practice a spell found in the arcanabula will very quickly realize something is wrong before inscribing it into their own spellbook. The arcanabula’s actual spells can be perceived with a see invisibility spell. Unless a character knows Ruathlek, a comprehend languages spell will be required to understand the contents so that they can be copied.
The actual spells in the arcanabula are arcane eye, banishment, confusion, contact other plane, creation, dimension door, greater invisibility, legend lore, locate creature, mislead, programmed illusion and true seeing.
Glamers
Glamers are a rare type of spirits that are shrouded in illusion or invisibility but resemble will-o’-wisps in their natural forms. They are minuscule fragments of divine power that emerged in the wake of Leira’s death at the hands of Cyric and Mask. The glamers were ‘born’ near Leira’s major temples but soon spread across the Realms in a haphazard and utterly unpredictable fashion. Some 15 years after Leira's death, a large number of glamers congregated near the Whamite Islands and used their illusionary magic to make them disappear. At the time, Leiran believers eagerly speculated the glamers were preparing the islands to be the site of a ritual of unimaginable power that would either destroy the wretched Cyric or rescue Leira's astral corpse and revive it. Cyric remains and if Leira’s plan was to use the glamers to revive herself, it was done with great subtlety. More importantly, although fewer in number than a century ago, glamers still exist all across the Realms. Some religious sages speculate Leira has yet to gather all her former power and that she cannot absorb the remaining glamers until she is strong enough to do so, a notion that has inspired many adventurers to hunt down glamers in an attempt to imbue their alleged divine essence – this has resulted in many dead glamers and many more dead would-be gods.
Those glamers that remain today are whimsical, deceptive, elusive and manipulative – much like Leira. If treated with courtesy, they will generally refrain from too much mischief. Sometimes, especially when addressed in Ruathlek, the language of illusionists and the church of Leira, or by someone who otherwise makes their faith in the Lady of the Mists clear, they will even offer advice or the way to a hidden arcane treasure of moderate value. Very rarely, they will make seemingly cryptic declarations that resonate with divine power, such that those who hear them are better able to perceive the truth thereafter (in game terms, 1d4 days worth of resistance to illusion spells and effects).
Glamers are not malicious and almost never initiate violence. If attacked, they will teleport away, often to the nearest Leiran temple, where they are sure to be protected. The ability to teleport at will is one of their few remaining powers. Written accounts from the last century suggest that glamers were once possessed of a great range of magical abilities and able to use them quite often, but modern glamers can do little more than can create lights or other simple illusions. It is possible their waning is connected to Leira’s return and that in time the last remaining glamers will be little more than intelligent illusions, unable to interact with the world at all.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to James Holden, A.J. Kelly and the Scribes of Candlekeep
“The Blind Men and the Manticore” is based on “The Blind Men and the Elephant” by John Godfrey Saxe
Aside from the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual, this work also draws from the following sources:
Faiths and Avatars by Julia Martin with Eric L. Boyd
“The Horrors of Cormyr” (Dragon magazine #299) by Thomas Costa |
| 3 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| varyar |
Posted - 31 May 2024 : 18:21:19
Oh, very good catch - thanks! I'll adjust the text accordingly!
(inserted after the discussion of Nimbral)
The mountain-girded kingdom of Samarach on the Chultan Peninsula was another stronghold of the Leiran faith. It was destroyed during the Spellplague and sank along with much of the rest of Chult. The land has risen again, but its present condition is likewise unclear – powerful illusions cover the mountain passes connecting Samarach to the outer world and completely mask the realm itself. It is rumored the current High Phantasmage, ruler of the country, is old enough to have worshiped Leira before her death, and might be even be Meleghost Zoaster, who reined before the Spellplague. |
| varyar |
Posted - 31 May 2024 : 18:11:49
Oh, very good catch - thanks! I'll adjust the text accordingly! |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 31 May 2024 : 15:54:19
Just to note, even though Nimbral was the Leirans main stronghold... even after her death, the realm of Samarach on the Chultan peninsula still was strongly beholden to her. Info on this realm can mainly be found in Serpent Kingdoms (3.5e product)
some snippets below from Serpent Kingdoms on Samarach
The isolated realm of Samarach was once the western half of Thindol. At that time, its populace was dominated by Tashlutan immigrants who settled the Sanrach Basin after the Tashalar Campaigns (circa 300 DR). (See the Regional Histories of the Tashalar and Thindol, below, for more details.)
In the Year of Many Serpents (60S DR), the Thindolese in both the Chultan-dominated east and the Tashlutan-dominated west unmasked a host of yuan-ti infiltrators in their midst. During the months of anarchy that followed this event, roving bands of ophiophobes attacked anyone they suspected of possessing serpentine ancestry. Unlike the eastern Thindolese, the folk of western Thindol fled en masse, marshaling a great flotilla of ships and sailing for the fabled isle of Nimbral.
After a great storm dashed much of this slapdash fleet against the Beacon Rocks, a legion of pegasi-mounted Knights of the Flying Hunt appeared above the remnants of the fleet and ordered the Thindolese to return to their homes. After listening to their pleas for mercy, Lord Samar, a Nimbral Lord and the commander of the Nimbran legion, agreed to return to the Chultan Peninsula with the refugees and drive the yuan-ti from the Sanrach Basin.
Once the survivors returned home, the archmage Samar cloaked the mountain passes and roads of the realm in veils of illusion, then began a decades-long hunt for the agents of the yuan-ti. In time, the western Thindolese began calling their isolated land Samarach, after the first Nimbral Lord to rule it actively, and the inhabitants of the realm came to consider it a vassal state of distant Nimbral.
Samarach is governed by an individual known as the High Phantasmage. The position rotates among Nimbran archmages, each of whom assumes the title and rules from a few years to a few decades before surrendering the rulership to another. The current ruler, High Phantasmage Meleghost Zoaster (CN male human illusionist 20/archmage T), has already governed for many years, and whispers among the Nimbrese nobility suggest that he has no intention of returning to Nimbral. Some attribute this decision to the burgeoning power of the Leiran (Cyricist) priests, who settled in Samarach in large numbers after the Time of Troubles, when the Nimbral Lords banned any state religion or organized priesthood in the Seahaven. |
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