my setting notes

goddess: Nyvanke

   In most depictions Nyvanke is a childlike goddess who's innocence is often mistaken for naivety. However any devot enough to follow her, knows that she is in fact a goddess who's wisdom is boundless and her advice always stands on the side of neutrality.

    Throughout legend, Nyvanke has earned herself the titles of being a goddess of Wisdom, peace and order, and one of nature. If one wanted to find a temple to worship her, they would do better to simply find a place where nature has taken over. Some temples have been built in the past, but they seen neglected by her divine energy, any devot soul would know that to truly create a space meant for Nyvanke, it should not be a well kept and domesticated building or garden with trimmed hedges.

     Her true origins aren't quite known to society, thanks to one of the gods part of it. But in short the original gods (elemental gods and a few others) seemed to create a planet with order and intelligence. As such they forged a scale, one which would set the standards of what was right and what wrong, fluctuating over time. But just before the scale was complete, it exploded into three divine beings. These were Sirdohr, Lyther, and Nyvanke.

    Sirdohr became a generous god of light, healing, justice, and even life itself. Lyther was given the designation as a god of evil, misfortune, and greed, while Nyvanke would become the only one who could talk to both of them without eliciting an argument.

    During the Era of Reformation, when Lyther was banished from the pantheon and wiped from all scripture, Nyvanke offered him sanctuary. So did Sirdohr but Lyther would only accept help from her, because he knew Nyvanke understood what he did. She wouldn't agree with him, nor would she oppose him, but rather than leave a crippled former-god on the mortal plane to die she took him into her realm to rest and recover. Many of the other gods, especially the one at the center of Lyther's conflict, ridiculed her for her decision. But given her stance in pure neutrality, not even the goddess who's worshipped in the courtroom could disrupt her realm.

(More on that conflict in Lyther's chap)

      In the present day, followers of Nyvanke typically include druids who's ultimate goals are to find a place they may call their own realm. Some are even negotiators who travel around, attempting to solve conflicts where both sides "win" without opinion. This doesn't mean a follower is without opinion themselves, but rather they're wise enough to be able to solve conflicts that may involve their opinions.

      Nyvanke has a realm that only she can control, a plane of existence which is as much a part of her as she of it. The name I haven't come up with quite yet, but Era's Garden or Dominion through Eons are temporary names. The plane includes many thousands of biomes where every animal, every plant, every insect, every kind of rock and every catastrophe occur. This realm is not always peaceful and beautiful, predators hunt prey here, mountains erode and crumble, the sea destroys cliffs and trees get choked to death by invasive vines. Nature is beautiful, but in that beauty must also lie danger and death, otherwise it wouldn't be natural at all. Nyvanke herself doesn't touch this plain, she doesn't prune the thorns off the roses, she doesn't part the bushes for a path to the creek, she doesn't save the rabbit caught in the underbrush from a wolf. She remains at the center of this domain, on a Dais of crystals where the only entry point in or out of this plane exists.

      So yeah, I wanted this written down for eventual DnD or writing shenanigans involving the party needing to come here to get a specific resource or to ask Nyvanke a question.

     As for her personality, she's kind of boring. Not in a badly written way, but because that's the point. Nyvanke doesn't exactly have opinions, she doesn't have a least favourite colour, or any food preferences, or even a certain animal that she would let accompany her. If someone wants her help, she may offer it, but they will rarely get more than the bare minimum. However they will be punish if they try to disrupt the natural order of her realm. To contrast her lack of opinions, she certainly doesn't enjoy the company of mortal folk, their natural cycle of unnecessary destruction and acts of greed confuse and sometimes disgust her. To cut down a tree to build a house makes perfect sense, even to dig up the earth to lay a trap for your enemy makes sense. But why poison the water over the actions of someone who simply has a different way of thinking? Why slaughter your people so that no one else can slaughter them first? This mortal cycle disgusts her, so she does not grant passage into her domain to anyone but someone with enough wisdom not to destroy what they do not need.