Selune: Goddess of the Moon

Good twin

Information about Selune

Characteristic	Information
Name	Selune
Gender	Female
Titles	Our Lady of Silver, The Moonmaiden, The Night White Lady, She Who guides
Pantheon	Faerunian
Domains	Moon, Stars, Lycanthropes, Purity, Love, Beauty, Marriage, Dreams, Autumn
Alignment	Chaotic Good
Home	Gates of the Moon
Siblings	Shar

Description

Appearance

Selune’s appearance changes over time and during different circumstances. Often, she appears as a slender, beautiful woman of silver hair, at others, a young child with dark eyes and dark hair. Typically, when she appears before mortals though, she takes on the appearance of a middle-aged, plump woman with greying hair. Her appearance is ever-changing (as the moon), always ageing but remaining ageless.

Personality

While essentially a being of goodness, Selune has an ever-changing mood and nature much like the waxing and waning of the moon. She can be exciting and vivacious or melancholy and subdued. She is also capable of intense bouts of sadness for past events or of being cold and merciless towards her enemies. Generally though, she is viewed as being a calm, measured and compassionate deity who demands little of her followers but is prepared to give much of herself.

History

Creation

Like her sister, Shar, Selune was created by Ao when the universe was still in its infancy and before life had been created. Shar and Selune were twins, but were so much aligned that they viewed themselves as 2 aspects of the same person. It was them that created the planets of the universe as well as the goddess Chauntea who brought life to the planets. But they disagreed when it came to bringing inhabitants to the planets. To promote life, they needed warmth, but Shar did not want to do this.

Selune disagreed though and plucked the essence from a fiery plane to create the Sun. This brought warmth and promoted life, but also brought Shar’s wrath as well as grave injuries to Selune. They battled with one another with Shar trying to prevent the warmth of the sun in order to destroy the life it had fostered. In desperation, Selune plucked a portion of her essence and threw it into Shar. This essence tore a part of Shar’s essence away as well to form the goddess Mystryl (who became the goddess of magic). She sided with her injured mother, Selune and negotiated a truce between the 2 sisters.

This truce was only temporary, but meant that both light and dark could have a place on the planets that had been created. Shar, though, continued to hold deep resentment for the perceived betrayal by her sister.

The Dawn War

When the primordials began to attack this realm, Selune and Shar formed an uneasy alliance to fight off the common enemy. Working with the other deities, they were able to defeat the primordials and save the realm.

The Dawn Cataclysm

During this time, Tyche, the goddess of luck, was corrupted by Moander, the god of decay. Upon returning home, Tyche was met by Selune, her close friend, Lathander, the god of the dawn and Tyche’s ex-lover and Azuth, the god of mages who’d come to mediate the discussion between the deities who wished to confront Tyche over her corruption towards evil. Selune wept at seeing her friend corrupted as she was and created a bolt of lightning intended to purify her, but instead, Tyche was split into 2 goddesses instead. One half of her became Tymora, the goddess of good luck and Beshaba, the goddess of bad luck. Selune had preserved all that was good from Tyche but wept for her dear friend, producing a single, crystalline tear that became a powerful artefact called the tear of Selune.

The Time of Troubles

During the time of troubles, the gods lost their powers and were forced to walk as mortals. Selune was no different and walked as Luna, an innkeeper. But Shar, in her cunning, had deceived the followers of Selune at the moon temple in Waterdeep and had fooled them into thinking that she was Selune. When Luna confronted Shar, she turned her own followers against her who imprisoned her.

Shar tricked Luna, making her believe that she was just a priestess of Selune and getting her to join the fanatical group of Selune worshippers, the Lunatics. Luna, served as an operative for Shar during this time until her friends managed to infiltrate the Moon Temple, discover Shar’s true identity and convince Luna she was in fact the mortal embodiment of Selune. Armed with this new knowledge and some of the powers of Selune, Luna confronted Shar and defeated her, exposing her as a fraud and taking her rightful place at the head of the Moon Temple.

Divine Realm

Selune dwells in a planar realm known as the Gates of the Moon which is found on the plane of Ysgard (or the Astral Sea). In the centre of the seas of her realm, she lives in a shining silver hall known as Argentil; a beautiful place that sits in the serene moonlight.