Yaerna

The Queen of Thorns

> "You misunderstand your position, noble knight. You are not the hunter here."
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## Forms

### **Base Form**

Yaerna is a being of many forms, commonly appearing as a sizeable wolf, a great stag, or a bear. Her most common form and that in which she most commonly interacts with her peers is that of a pale humanoid woman. Her clothes are a mixture of tattered rags, leaves and feathers, and on her head of stripy blonde hair rests a gnarled wooden crown of branches and roots.

### **True Form**

Yaerna's true form, a great canine-shaped entity of shadow and ichor, is the ultimate predator. Her presence strikes wild panic into creatures of a lesser mind, her howl sends a death knell into the minds of all who hear it. Rational thoughts vanish and all in her presence realize they are but prey gathered for the hunt. Their hearts bang loudly in their ears, and the world slowly stops making sense – all paths seemingly just a nestled maze impossible to navigate.

## Domain(s)

***Wilderness*** – With the absence of civilization comes the wild. The untamed, dangerous, and bestial lies beyond the border of known places, in the blank spots on the map, and the deepest heart of the forest. The wilderness is the unclaimed swathes of land, where reason and logic begin to take a backseat to the unknown, the dark, and the wild. Tangles of endless thorns, dark forests, desolate wastes. The shadow in the corner of the civilized world, that refuses to be understood even as society progresses around it. Here there is no place for societal norms, the laziness of sedentary life, or reflection of the mortal condition. The wilds are a place of instinct, hunger, and brazen competition. Communities form, but your die-hard packmate one day is your enemy the next. You can trust only yourself, and your will to survive.

Yaerna claims dominion over the primal and forgotten, the unexplored and untamed. She calls out the most primal of natures in beings, demanding all forsake their civilized false realities and return to the true, brutal way of life. She spreads mist, vine, and underbrush, turning safe paths back into thick, dense vegetation. Simple woods twist to dense forest, where each footstep alerts great new predators. The open prairie turns to hostile and empty steppe, where food is scarce and vultures circle. People are beholden to simpler ties, and the needs of a village seem less important than that of one’s family, and ultimately oneself. She hosts hunting parties and grand tournaments, where beasts and heroes alike compete in savage and blood-fueled rampages for glory, power, and survival.

## Myth

*A young man came from the valley yonder, to our celebratory summer flame. He came in search of glory; he came in search of fame. He searched far and wide for challenge before taking himself a wife. He cut wood, he toiled the fields, he brought a child to life. Still, he was not satisfied; village life made him go berserk. His legacy was menial tasks, old rites and harvest work. He decried our tools as ancient, our effigies as foul. “How can anyone live like this?” he uttered with a scowl.*

*When nightfall came his bride so fair stole into the forest brush. Her child had been a son and so to the glen she'd rush. Her husband from another land saw his lover’s locks of auburn hair, and swiftly followed suit. He witnessed how his newborn child cried like an ill-toned lute. She had left him there upon a rock, a crown of flowers ‘pon his head. The man stole the child and hurried back, leaving nothing in its stead.*

*The child did scream and the man as well; he shamed us for our ways. Nothing we could have said would have brought him from his haze. Least of all his wife begging to return the child. The mere thought of it made his eyes go wild. We warned him of the forest's clarion call. Those same horns that sound each fall. The child needed to face the wild, or forever live locked inside. Fervently, the man defended his child, until he heard the tears of his bride. He learned then of the forest queen. Her pact promised safety against all things green.*

*He heard her words but not her pleas; finally, a challenge for him to seize. Life resumed as the man began to plan, his child and bride kept in his home. The queen became his obsession, each night the forest he did roam. ‘til one fateful eve the horns called out, and the woodlands came to life. “The Forest Queen hunts, this night is not safe,” warned his dutiful wife. The man gave no word and went on his way; so determined was he to capture his prey.*

*Mist took the village and hid the forest from sight, as the man vanished into the brush for his quest. Howls of wolves and cawing birds warned the entire woods of this foreign guest. We held his wife in her crying fit as she waited for her man; amidst the sound of drums and howling, for him she did yet yearn. Yet as the forest quieted, a mocking silence to bated breath; all knew he would never return. True enough, soon after came a scream most foul; it twisted and warped ‘til it sounded like a howl. For the man’s soul we can only pray; he left his glory and his woman all alone. His child pays for his folly to this day; for a slight against the queen he will forever atone.*

*Now each year when the horns in the forest blare, we lock our doors, bar our windows, and beware. A manic beast wanders through the mists, scratching at our doors. It howls and growls and barks and yowls and roars. It leaves deep marks on the woman’s home, searching for the child. Who can tell if the queen still desires the ritual that was defiled? With the break of dawn the beast is gone, and all returns to peace. Though the young son’s fate is done, from his father’s curse he may never find release.*

## Persona

Yaerna is not unlike the animals she lords over. Like a cat she enjoys toying with those she perceives as weaker than her, and between taunts and impromptu challenges she can be downright oppressive to an unwilling subject. A firm believer in might-makes-right, she has a love for pushing others to embrace their more primal behaviors.

She is acutely aware of her own divine capabilities and enjoys executing her authority over others through pacts, demands of tribute and bizarre acts of fealty. When up against an equal, she is considerably more cautious and calculating, sizing up the opposition. Despite that, she maintains a proud and regal air over her position as a goddess. She is rarely rude or outright unpleasant, rather than brazenly honest about being in it for her own ends.