Goddess of Love, Beauty, and Passion
Alignment: Neutral Good
Domains: Charm, Community, Darkness, Glory, Liberation
Favored Weapon: Katana
Divine Animal: Deer
A cheerful deity who finds love in many things. As a goddess who favors beauty and love she, to the surprise of many, also favors passion. She enjoys her life to the fullest and enjoys helping people find the things that bring out passion in them. She seems to dance around in interests to many, but her love of beauty leads to her noting it almost everything. She is skilled in several areas, but finds the greatest joy in helping people find love and passion. She is still associated with the moon and some favor her as a goddess of the moon over Aracelli.
Find your passion for life. Find the beauty in life. Look for those who hide beauty behind ugliness and encourage them to show their true beauty. Any may love others and that in itself can help bring them to the light. Help people find what brings them passion and pursue it without harming others.
Shashi upholds the duty of helping celestials and mortals find love. She ensures there are many young to raise and love. She delights in watching loving couples come together. She also helps many find their truest passion and ensure that they live their lives with joy and happiness.
Her followers tend to be across the board. The only thing they hold in common is a strong defense of love and beauty. All tend to be very passionate as well about various things. Most have learned to never cross some of her followers due to her encouraging martial prowess as well as the gentler aspects of life.
Shashi shows her favor in small things. Her symbol may appear on the person to grant them small bonuses. Her interventions can be things like the sound ringing bell-like hooves leading to a needed area.
Shashi favors the appearance of a centaur as she was originally one of their goddesses. No matter what her form though she has skin the same shade of the night sky. Her hair is shimmering dark silver. Her eyes seem to be made of the night sky as well. When in centaur form her hooves have the same shimmering silver color. Her hooves tend to have the sound of bells when they strike anything hard enough to raise a sound from them (including roads, rocky areas, buildings, and wood).
Shashi's holy symbol takes the form of a red rose at an angle acorss a silver moon.
The Church
Her church tends to promote beauty and love. They frequently hold marriage ceremonies and find ways to help people out of loveless match or find ways to be with the ones they love. They also help encourage passions to the best of their abilities to ensure people are happy with the life they lead.
Priests are generally absorbed in their tasks of spreading beauty. They gather at churches to sometimes some new item they found or to ensure it's protection. The temple is known to hold many works of art and fiercely guarded from destruction
Temples can be found almost anywhere. Generally they are most easily found in large cities, but are also found in places of immense beauty.
The church frequently acts as a patron of the arts. They also offer aid in crafting magic items. Their magic items tend to be very beautiful and are highly valued even more than the standard magic items.
Temples and Shrines
Her temple is always laid out like a full moon with the center holding a very rare type of rose. The rose is called the Lunar Rose and it only blooms under the light of a full moon. The temple seems to shimmer under moonlight no matter what material it is made of once it has been blessed and consecrated to Shashi.
A Priest’s Role
A priest has a very specific job to help with the fostering of love and passion. They also must foster beauty in all of its forms. They wish people to see the beauty that lies beneath the surface. They do all the can to ensure this. In this a priest could be of any non-spellcasting class.
The priest could have the task of defending the temple. They could be given any type of task to ensure the goal of the church is met. This means that one never knows what a priest could be doing at a given moment.
There are very few things typical of the day. The main thing noted to happen regardless are very simple. They maintain the various pieces of art they have within. Various people have skills to maintain all the different pieces. The temple is kept looking immaculate as well along with any art done on the walls (painted or carved, sometimes both). They also have time set aside to craft the various magic items they create.
Clerics normally perform marriage ceremonies over the standard priest. This is normally due to the fact that clerics are able to cast a spell to bless the couple as a part of the marriage ceremony. They also provide the magical ability for some item creation.
Inquisitors seek out those causing harm to love and beauty. They hunt down any holding others back from following their passion. They are relentless in their seeking to root out all of the potential evil and sometimes are tasked to root out evil hiding behind kind or beautiful facades.
Paladins commonly seek to guard love in any form. They also weill guard beauty in any form.
I shall guard beauty in all forms
I shall not judge by the outer appearance
I shall guard love in any form
I shall encourage all forms of love, beauty, and passion so long as it harms none
Adventurers
The desire to see all the beauty the world holds. This frequently means they must travel to see it. They use this as inspiration later when they retire and settle to creating items. They also travel to guard beauty or aid in people finding what their true passion is.
The church tends to find adventurers great fun to chat with. They also enjoy watching as they build legends that seem to inspire others to follow. Many are also very good at outing extreme ugliness behind fair facades.
Clothing
Ritual garb tends to be a beautiful black with silver trim. The black seems to shimmer with stars and comets. This reflects her original position as a goddess of the night.
There are ceremonial katanas worn at various occasions and roses are common within the temple and any ritual or holidays being celebrated.
Most just wear standard clothing with her holy symbol upon it. The standard cleric vestments are silver with black trim. Sewn on is the holy symbol.
Holy Texts
Rose of the Moon: Talks about the creation myth of the centaurs. It also contains much of the advice on how varied love can be and to encourage positive passion. At the back is advice on a successful marriage. Some various regions also include courting customs unique to the region.
Holidays
Silver Moon: 12/25 A favored day where the moon seems to shine brighter than any other. On this day all of the Lunar roses bloom in numbers to allow everyone in attendance to walk away with one. The rose lasts until the next festival and seems to bestow a small bit of protection to the holder of the horse.
Relations with other Religions
Shashi loves all the other deities even if they get frustrated with her. She has been known to spend centuries plotting for the person another can love. Though it grates most deities hold no grudges as she sometimes also ensures people end up in their service if it is a good fit.
For all their arguments and the incident with being cursed into her sword Shashi is still very good friends with Appaliunas.
Oddly to some she is great friends with a pair of dwarves. Moradin, Lord of the Dwarves, and Sparrow, dwarven goddess of spies. Moradin shares brew and crafting secrets with her. Shashi in return crafted the beautiful Star Adamantine in the colors or her beloved stars and added in more colors so he could enjoy using it for a wide variety of uses.
Sparrow has been friends with Shashi since she was a child. The two frequently get into mischief together. The two work hard to guard each other.
Many archfiends would dearly love to kill Shashi. She represents too much that is positive to them. The only one they hate more is Aurora.
Realm
Shashi's celestial realm looks like a beautiful portion of the night sky and filled with beautiful landscape. It greatly resembles a more beautiful version of the centaur homeland of Altai.
On the mortal realm Shashi lives in the capitol of Altai normally when she wants a base to dwell. Otherwise she can befound hiding herself amongst the various nomadic tribes.
Planar Allies
Delina: Celestial deer. This deer looks like a portion of the night sky. She has antlers sometimes if they are needed for battle. Normally though she has none. He hooves (and antelers when she has them) tend to be silver. The hooves have the same bell sound as Shashi's.