The Dryad Queen Mother - October Patreon Post

Dmitry Khrapovitsky

I was playing around with the fantasy pantheon generator on Abulafia by Dave Younce, and ended up with this in the results:

Kendryalara, mother of gods, a rotting young woman with leaves for hair.

There’s no way I’m letting a description like that just sit there and not be used. Let’s go.

The Tree of Life

Long ago the world was a waste of bare red stone. There was no water upon it, and the sky was empty. So it remained for ages uncounted until a star fell from the heavens. It came to rest in the highlands, and there it cooled and became a great metal flower. From the flower there rose a tree, and this tree was Kendryalara. It was her appointed task to bring life to the world, and so she did.

Birth of the Gods

Kendryalara did not arrive alone: with her came her consort Iathemis, who lived above the sky and filled it with clouds, so that rain might fall on the world and the oceans be filled. Ice was thrown down from the heavens to melt and flow in rivers. Here Kendryalara planted her garden of paradise, and tended to it as the bare red waste turned green.

Through this intercourse with Iathemis, Kendryalara conceived the gods. When the time was right, she released them into the garden of paradise and gave them her instruction: the gods created man and the other creatures of the world according to her direction, and ruled over them so that there was no conflict between the peoples. This was the great age of the world.

The Collapse of Paradise

The end of the great age did not come from a single event, but instead a slow collapse of interwoven causes. At the first, the heralds of the tribes beyond the sky ceased to sing, and the heavens were silent. At the second, there was grumbling among the gods, and the new fear caused many of them to act rashly or foolishly, bringing forth vendettas and hatreds that had long been kept under control. This led the peoples they had created into conflict with themselves, each other, and their gods. Great injuries were made to Kendryalara during the conflict and several of the gods perished, and it became clear to all that there was no means of preventing the world from returning to the red waste it once had been. So mankind sought out secret gods of iron and silicon and raised cities and split atoms in service of their survival: they still revered Kendryalara and the surviving gods, this is true, but they knew a day would come when all of them had died.

The Worship of Kendryalara Today

Man’s relationship with the gods is tenuous in the modern age. They were designed for the garden of paradise and so have adjusted poorly to the reddening world and the cities of man. For all of them the primary form of worship is the sending of praise-songs by way of a messenger- scribe-shrines dedicated to the gods may be found commonly but not blatantly: it is considered unfashionable to be too overt in ones religious practices, even though nearly everyone still makes offerings.

Kendryalara in particular is worshipped through what are essentially long-term funeral rites in preparation for her final death. There is a lightly-organized priesthood but little barrier to entry beyond appropriate practices. They may be identified easily, wearing brown robes and a green or orange stole.

Kendryalara has a few servants remaining in the world; radiant angels like spiders or cuttlefish made of smoothed, petrified wood.