Shantara, the Lady of Guile

is one of the five Lords of the Pentacle and a member of The Great Pantheon
== Summary ==
Once an archangel of the Elvish Triad, Shantara rebelled against her masters, with the help of Valdos and Dalthad.  Why she chose to turn on the Triad is unknown, but theirs is a mutual hatred with depths incomprehensible to mortals.  Shantara was first taken into Dalthad's hierarchy, but Valdos used her to then free Thalran from Kirva and place him under her mastery: Dalthad, wary of Shantara's history and doubtless maneuvered by Valdos, released her as an equal Lord of the Pentacle, provided that Thalran should also be released from her hold.  Thus, the Pentacle was formed. Shantara's angels are often corrupted servants of other gods, or minor gods who have sold themselves into her protection; they are a motley collection of renegades and traitors, and can be expected to act accordingly. Shantara's mortal servants are most often brought into her power by desperation, joining secret cells and cults to advance their goals and hers; given the fractious nature of Shantara's hierarchy, it is unsurprising that in the modern age she and Qualos have the weakest churches.
While associated strongly with betrayal and a certain voyeuristic sadism, Shantara is also a deity profoundly committed to freedom from tyranny, to aesthetic beauty (especially in or associated with death, so that death is something to be done well, and to be done well must be practiced), and to individualism of expression and achievement. In aesthetics especially, she may be said to take the finest traditions of the Enclaves, but with the deeply woven belief that these traditions are knowable to those willing to initiate themselves, not merely the nobility or other innate elite (a Triad worshipper might counter that their deities care for their followers more directly, and more gently than any other, while Shantara reserves little love or patience for those who cannot excel in her cutthroat cults). Her followers have produced exceptional cultural works in every medium, and several Shantaran legendary heroes are beloved not only by Shantarans themselves but by non-Shantarans who remember them for deposing the most horrific regimes (and mercifully leaving rather than staying behind to concoct some sort of avant-garde anarchy).
Similarly to Thalran, Shantara is seen by many scholars as a mirror of her progenitors in the Elvish Triad, and many elvish exiles have drawn uncomfortable parallels between Shantaran espionage and the double-dealing of Enclavers. 
Category: Major Gods