Shelyn

**Shelyn** (pronounced SHEHL-ihn) is the goddess of art, beauty, love, and music, and the half-sister of Zon-Kuthon. She started life as a relatively minor deity of beauty, art, and music, but with the destruction of her unnamed mother, the former goddess of love, Shelyn gained her mother's portfolio. Shelyn continues to focus on beauty and the related areas of art and music, and has expanded upon her mother's relatively narrow view of love to include all forms of the emotion.

## History

The goddess Shelyn was born the daughter of the spirit-wolf Thron and an unknown ancient deity thought to have been a goddess of love, after the First Gods (including her half-brother Dou-Bral) had imprisoned Rovagug and agreed to leave humanity to its own devices. For a time, she and Dou-Bral shared the portfolios of beauty, love and the arts, and were worshiped by the early Taldans, until at some point they argued, and Dou-Bral abandoned Golarion for the far dark places between the planes.

When Dou-Bral returned to Golarion, he had become the god of mutilation, misery and torture: Zon-Kuthon. Believing that Dou-Bral still existed within Zon-Kuthon, Shelyn reached out him, but he pierced her hand with his black nails. When Thron, their father, tried to welcome him, Zon-Kuthon captured and tortured the wolf-spirit beyond recognition. It was for these crimes, and for other terrible acts he committed against Shelyn and her works, that the gods of Golarion banished Zon-Kuthon to the Plane of Shadow, there to reside for as long as the sun hung in the sky.[*citation needed*] In an attempt to redeem her brother, Shelyn stole his malign weapon, the *Whisperer of Souls*, but was ultimately unable to turn him to the light. She kept the glaive out of love for him, despite its negative influence.

Shelyn was worshipped by the ancient Azlanti as patron of the arts. She would send lillends to devout communities to serve as muses.

Later, presumably after the Age of Darkness, the siblings quarreled again. Zon-Kuthon responded to Shelyn's tears and her pleading with violence, until she wrested his weapon, a golden glaive, away from him, and a tenuous peace of silence and avoidance was established.

## Dogma

### Beauty

Before she became the goddess of love, Shelyn was flighty and shallow. Since discovering the capacity intelligent beings have for loving people and things that lack beauty, she tends to look for beauty in everyone and everything. "Beauty comes from within" is a relatively recent saying she introduced to Golarion, and it is a philosophy she not only practices herself, but she requires from her clerics. In this way, it is quite possible for a physically unattractive person to become a cleric of the goddess of beauty.

Shelyn focuses just as much attention on internal beauty as external, and she is considered also to have the most beautiful personality, which changed greatly when she became goddess of love. While lesser beauties might inspire jealousy in those who see them, she does not; nor does she herself feel jealous when another receives attention. She encourages the growth and appreciation of beauty, regardless of its source or admirers, and thus she is never jealous. However, she also warns her followers to not warp their own feelings of love into jealousy, greed, obsession, or self-endangerment in pursuit of their passions and art, and charges her followers to prevent others from doing so in her name. She surrounds herself with flowers, colorful birds, artworks, and other things of beauty.

She never uses her beauty as a weapon and she punishes that sort of behavior in her followers. Shelyn gently and kindly rejects all potential suitors. Some call her the Eternal Maiden, while others claim she is the lover of several gods, goddesses, and lesser beings. Darker rumors put her in the bed of her half-brother, but such whispered rumors never persist for very long, as Zon-Kuthon does not tolerate such things.

### Art and music

As aspects of her role as goddess of beauty, Shelyn also promotes the creation of art and the composing and performance of music. The art or music need not be particularly well done, just so long as the creator puts in effort. A naturally-talented person who does not try yet still makes beautiful art is appreciated, but not as much as an ungifted artist who struggles for days to create something mediocre. A naturally talented person who fails to try and creates something mediocre is shunned by Shelyn (and by extension, her clergy). Clerics of Shelyn frequently are artists themselves, although those with little talent more often become art critics or collectors.

Shelyn herself has an extensive collection of artwork, mostly gifts from potential suitors or worshipers, most of which portray her. She also has a massive collection of violins and a secret collection of glaives.

### Love

As the goddess of love, Shelyn encourages the proliferation of that feeling in all its forms. She is not the goddess of sexuality, lust, or fertility, and makes a very clear distinction between love and sexuality, although she does not in any way discourage erotic love. She also tends to promote relationships that are not based solely on physical attraction. The few paladins who worship her practice courtly love, with female paladins attempting to win the attentions of attractive young nobles. Shelyn and her clerics treat love shared between people of the same gender the same as that shared by people of opposite genders, and does not require any specific relationship structure or norms beyond sharing in passions and love.

Her continuing love for her brother, despite his many shortcomings, inspires her followers to persevere in the face of strong opposition.

## Relationships

An artist's depiction of the eternal conflict between Shelyn and Zon-Kuthon.

### Zon-Kuthon

When they first came into being, so very long ago, their mutual parent forced Zon-Kuthon to swear an oath to the forces of Law. Zon-Kuthon swore that he would never harm Shelyn, nor would he stand by if others tried to harm her in his presence. In exchange for making the oath, he received the glaive, *Whisperer of Souls*.

To this day, clerics of Zon-Kuthon never harm known clerics of Shelyn—doing so results in harsh punishments that do not end with death—but sometimes they actually try to protect such clerics. This behaviour earns them divine rewards. For their part, clerics of Shelyn return the favor by looking the other way when they meet known clerics or cultists of Zon-Kuthon. The exception to this rule is if the clerics or cultists are obviously harming innocents, defacing art, or otherwise being unforgivably evil. This arrangement might seem like a serious drawback for Zon-Kuthon, as other evil deities might take advantage of it to put him into a difficult position. However, no gods ever really move against Shelyn or her clergy.

### Other deities

Shelyn is respected and admired by all other non-evil deities, particularly Abadar, Brigh, Calistria, Erastil, and Shizuru. She is known to be a lover of Desna and Sarenrae. The relatively recently ascended god Cayden Cailean frequently attempts to win her over (and always fails), and has contributed greatly to her art and violin collections.

The god Aroden respected Shelyn because he considered that civilization required high arts to be successful—music, poetry and other art forms—and Shelyn inspired such endeavours.

The evil deities (and most evil creatures) are mostly neutral toward her, although she and Urgathoa frequently argue (and their clergies do tend to get into skirmishes). She and Pharasma tend to have long philosophical debates, which always end when Pharasma points out that beautiful things like flowers grow from dead things (Shelyn has no argument against this). For the most part, evil deities leave Shelyn alone (and by extension, their clergy tend to ignore her clergy). She is not a martial goddess by any stretch and tends to stay as far from battle as possible, thus she has built up no animosity from the evil deities or their followers. To this day, only Rovagug, god of wrath, disaster, and destruction can resist Shelyn's charms at all times. He alone opposes her on any long-term basis.