Verdant

Bountiful god of plants and animals

## The Verdant

### Other Symbols

A plant with three leaves, a seed with densely packed sprouts growing out of it forming a circle

## Worship

### Worshippers

Druids, Farmers, Gardeners, Horticulturists, Rangers, Expecting Parents

## Origin

Worship of The Verdant began in central Alorea. The Grenguin tribes in less settled areas of the region depended on her good graces to keep crops healthy and beasts at bay. The Verdant was the least known god to be added to the pantheon.

### Place within the Kippelian Pantheon

The Verdant is said to be the second god that The Prime pulled from the primordial chaos. All life across all planes can be attributed to her in some part.

## Worship

Verdant worshippers typically live symbiotically with the land around them. Most worshippers aren’t traditional spiritual leaders, but farmers or gardeners who rely on divine grace to provide for their families.

Some will eat vegetarian diets, or return a portion of each meal or harvest to the soil, but these aren’t steadfast rules.

The Verdant’s holy day is on the first day of spring, and all members of the Kippelian Church are encouraged to pick up litter, plant trees, and the like.

### Pastoral Priests

More organized worship typically takes place far from any settlements and consists of meditation, appreciating the lifeforms and spirits around you and trying to sense and commune with them.

These more traditional worshippers believe that everything has a spirit, even plants, rocks, and weather, and deserves respect even if they must be cleared away or eaten. As such their worship can often overlap with the portfolio of other gods, such as The Brumal, the god of the tundra, or The Current, the god of storms.

To achieve a mutual understanding with nature is the underlying dream of most Verdant devotees. To do so most will do their best to protect and serve their landscape, such as by removing an invasive species or exposing illegal pollution.

### Stewards of the Nexus

Especially zealous Verdant worshippers will live in nature instead of manmade structures, and leave the smallest footprint they can, only eating the bare minimum they need to survive. They spend their lives fostering wildlife.  When they sense they will soon pass on, they brew a special elixir that ends their life prematurely, but assures they will not rise as an affront to nature. Their body provides nutrition and their spirit joins those of the land.

Even those who cannot drink the elixir, due to an unexpected death, trepidation, lack of ingredients, etc. are prone to producing passive zombies that try to pay the same due diligence to nature as their body did in life, albeit much more clumsily.

### New New Agers

Since the creation of the Kippelian Pantheon, The Verdant’s worshippers became more diverse and consequently so did the methods of worship. Some see enterprises and ecological disasters as part of nature and are content with events running their course. This kind of worshiper chronicles these events as they happen, and appreciates the changes they bring as an extension of The Verdant’s will. They can be found in cities communing with the limited amount of wildlife that can thrive in man-made environments, such as ivy and rats. Most Verdant worshippers see these individuals as heretics, and openly admonish them.

## Rules of Nature

1. Life is life, equally precious regardless of the form
2. Life should only be destroyed in order to sustain or defend life
3. Life being misunderstood or deformed is a sad thing

These three rules were written by the Grenguin tribes that began Verdant worship. All beliefs and traditions related to the Verdant stem from these three tenants. Believers took these rules and extrapolated the best way to live by them, resulting in the modern form of Verdant circles.

For example, if a pack of wolves were to attack a village Verdant druids would have no issue wiping out as many as necessary to defend the village. But afterwards they would make sure to eat every part of the wolves they killed, as wasting the meat and eating plants or other animals when they could sustain themselves using wolf meat would be the unnecessary destruction of life. Because of these rules Verdant worshippers often fast, and never hold feasts.

## Boon: Chwinga’s Champion

When someone goes to tremendous lengths to help the environment, they may find that the environment returns the favor. Those who have earned The Verdant's favor will begin receiving aid from the spirits that occupy the plants and landscapes. These spirits, known as Chwinga, vary in appearance and abilities based on the environment they inhabit. Seeing and cooperating with these beings is the truest understanding one can have with nature, and the pinnacle of what most Verdant worshippers try to achieve.

## Bane: Godbeast: Blight

Individuals responsible for wanton destruction of ecosystems run the risk of becoming the very thing they selfishly sought to destroy. Blights are humanoids cursed by The Verdant, their flesh and blood is turned into vegetation and chlorophyll. Blights can take several different forms, but always reflect the ecosystem that the individual was cursed for destroying. Someone who torches an entire forest to build real estate could find themselves with woody skin and branch-like arms, whereas someone guilty of illegally dumping in marshlands and poisoning an entire swamp might have their body turned into a mass of vines in the shape of a person.

It is very difficult to adapt to such a change, and many die due to improper care. They effectively become a sentient houseplant, however the sort of people who end up in this state typically have no idea how to properly care for such a thing. Additionally, most find any physical or arcane talents that they had as humanoids nearly impossible to perform. However, those who manage to take care of their new forms can thrive. As long as they maintain themselves they can live indefinitely, some even manage to live long enough to accomplish impressive feats and gain incredible talents.

The Verdant’s motive for such a punishment is to force these individuals to have the same kind of sympathy for the life around them that her devotees strive to achieve.

## Plane: Feywild

Due to the diversity, vitality, and density of life in the Feywild it is believed that the plane is the physical body of The Verdant herself, and all life throughout the Planarverse sprung from it.

According to this theory, the core of the Feywild is a seed and the ground is made of densely packed brambles instead of soil. This seed is the heart of The Verdant and all the rooted plant life in the Feywild are extensions of her physical form.

## Afterlife

The spirits of people who cultivated a close bond with nature before they died give rise to the Chwinga that inhabit the landscape. Verdant worshippers don’t become Chwinga when they die, but just as their body can join the soil and foster the growth of vegetation, their spirit will join the countless spirits that they have spent their lives trying to better understand.

## Relationships with other gods

### Enemies

The Mellifer- The Mellifer’s Curse prevents people from rejoining the natural cycle as seamlessly as plants and animals can. The Verdant hates seeing her children become foul distortions of the life she created. This hatred extends to all undeath, though her contempt isn’t as deep as The Egress’.

### Allies

The Unguis- Since The Unguis’ is the embodiment of hunting, one may expect that he would be constantly at odds with The Verdant. However, at his core The Unguis' is simply the natural drive to sustain oneself. Over hunting, fur trading, etc. are not condoned by The Unguis. Both gods operate outside of structured civilization, and the most zealous devotees of both gods live similar lives, far from any settlements.

The Valor- As the sun, The Valor provides life sustaining light to the world’s plants, which in turn sustain animals, fungi, and other living things. The Valor also embodies righteous violence, which aligns with the Rules of Nature. They also share similar temperaments, and stories that feature the two of them together typically portray them as kindred spirits.

The Brumal- The Brumal is similar to The Verdant in a lot of ways. They are both good-natured gods that request reverence towards the environment and deplore wastefulness and greed. There are even recorded instances of Brumal followers receiving aid from the Chwinga that inhabit the Frostlands, unintentionally earning The Verdant’s favor by carrying out The Brumal’s will. Though The Brumal is only concerned with frigid environments and, unlike The Verdant, focuses on people more than other forms of life. The Brumal also has a colder attitude than The Verdant, if The Verdant is a nurturing mother then he could be thought of as a stern father.

### Other Gods

The Philomath- The arcane has a tendency to corrupt nature. The most notorious example of this is the Twisted Woods of Zagis. Arcane experiments are also believed to be responsible for other monstrosities such as Owlbears and Bullettes. The Philomath embodies the arcane and encourages such experimentation for the sake of expanding knowledge, making him diametrically opposed to The Verdant.

The Current- Both The Current and The Verdant have some overlapping aspects, namely storms and water. However, their other aspects are in conflict with each other. The Current embodies civilization and technological progress, both of which regularly threaten the environment and encourage people to violate the Rules of Nature.

The Umbra- The night is essential for many living things. It provides cover for creatures to either safely rest, or search for food. However, Umbra’s embodiment of greed and disregard for the lives of others is nearly impossible to reconcile with the Rules of Nature.