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Mythology Monday: Ariannas, Goddess of Violence

Ariannas, Goddess of Violence

Other Titles: Rogue Maiden, The Bandit Queen, The Bloody Flame
Alignment: CE
Weapon: Heavy Spiked Flail (Bloodbreaker)
Major Domains: Violence, Banditry, Uprisings
Minor Domains:  Ruthlessness, Vengeance, Berserk Rage, Subjugation
Totem Animal: Bull

Holy Symbol: The Holy Symbol of Ariannas is a face with one half covered in a steel mask, and the other nude. The masked half of the face is of shining, gleaming steel with an Emerald eye, a wicked grin, and a bull’s horn. The unmasked half has long, flowing red hair with a wild green eye and a grin to match the mask. These two sides represent the two aspects of her personality. The masked aspect is that of her dedication to the art of war, particularly the crushing of your enemy, the ruthlessness of the battlefield and the subjugation of the weak. Her unmasked aspect represents her dedication to banditry, ambush, revolt and uprising.
Favored Appearances: Ariannas, in the time before the godswar, led her human servants and warriors against the forces of the other, powerful gods. In that time, she favored a towering, powerful Human form that was both beautiful and terrifying. Her powerful form moved gracefully and purposefully, her long red hair trailing behind her. She knew she was a beauty and used it to her advantage. In war, however, the beauty of her form was subservient to her terrifying armor, accentuating nothing of her physical form and built for protection and movement equally. A full helm with bulls horns graced her head, and her godly chain mail shone in the sun. When ambushing , she was as plain as anyone else, her hair tied back, her movements quiet and her leather and chain oiled into silence.
Ariannas is also one of the few Gods that feels a deep connection to one sex over another. While she has been seen and has used a male form, it is generally nondescript and boring, with a flat, tired face with a broken nose and scars on his face. He is neither bulky nor thin, and is uninspiring in every way. It is as if she puts no effort whatsoever into this form.

Warform: Ariannas’ Warform on the Iron Marches is that of Bull made almost purely of flame, with hardened ash hooves and a black-fire horns. Her Teeth are jagged obsidian and her eyes are blazing yellow flame. She leads the troops in battle from the front, goring, charging and rampaging through the enemy lines. She seems impervious to pain, with the wounds just stirring her to greater and greater feats of violence.

Personality: Ariannas is a violent, temperamental and wicked being. She is quick to be offended, hard to placate and swift to violence. She ruthlessly hunts down those who offend her to either kill or challenge them. She followers her own set of rules and has keep vendettas of her own for years and years. Within all of that chaos, though, is a dedication to her causes and her father, Takannas. She believes so strongly in subjugation of the week, and the uprisings of the conquered that she supports these events unconditionally. Knowing this, she was approached by Ferosh, god of ambition when he first hatched his plan to rebel. Though Ariannas originally considered their position, she felt such a strong tie to the subjugation of the lesser gods by her father that she stood by his side. However, she kept to herself the knowledge of the eventual rebellion, and that knowledge resulted in the deaths of many gods.

Teachings: Ariannas teaches a simple theology of retribution and violence. She teaches that violence, far from being an unnecessary solution, is the most simplest, direct and convincing solution to almost every problem. When you can’t beat the enemy in war, beat them in ambush and assassination. Kill the enemy however long it takes, however difficult it may be. Don’t make the end easy on them either.  Her domains of both subjugation and revolt seem to cause a conflict of interest, but her real calling is violence. If no one set out to conquer others, there would be little violence, and if none of those people who had been conquered revolted, there would be even less. Building on that theme, Ariannas very much differentiates resistance and governance from revolt and subjugation, respectively. You cannot revolt until you’ve already been subjugated, and you cannot subjugate that which you already rule. Though these ideas seem to conflict, the spread of violence, through whatever means, is her main goal.

Abode: The great, gleaming silver castle of Crushing Doom stands forbiddingly at the edge of the territory that the Paltonarchs control at the edge of the Iron Marches. From here she leads her forces into bloody ambushes and crushing pitched battles. Crushing Doom itself is a fortress filled with ruthless cutthroats, bloody warlords and victorious dictators all vying for Ariannas’ attention.

Clergy: The priests of Ariannas are great war-leaders and rabble rousers, delivering the message of power through strength in arms. They give their clergy hope no matter which side they take, and stride into battle with them, propelling them to great fits of violence, bringing the goddess directly onto the battlefield with them in spirit. Those who die in battle are glorified, being willing to shed not only the blood of others for her glory, but also their own lives.

Knightly Orders: The Children of Battle are Ariannas’ most famous knightly orders. These knights, if they can even be called that, turn into frothing berserkers at the first sign of conflict, raging against their foes, but often flying out of control and causing damage to their allies before being stopped. Together, these warriors find glory in death, violence, and the revolts of the conquered. The Children of Battle tend to offer their services to revolts and uprisings, as they tend to tolerate the ends justifying the means of the berserkers they have hired where armies of subjugation tend not to.

Clerical Attire/colors: Deep red cloaks adorn both the clerics and the Children of Battle while they tend to their flocks and enter battle. They adapt to the method of combat they are attempting, adopting gleaming, bright, silver armor, often adorned with great forward angled bull horns, in pitched battles and conquest while taking a more subdued, natural approach with greens and browns along side their deep reds.

Followers: The followers of Ariannas tend to be short tempered, and quick to violence. As such, she tends to patronize athletes, barbarians, and of course berserkers, in addition to Kings, emperors, revolutionaries and a few assassins and thieves.  She also has a sizable population of Orcs and Goblins with even dwarves under her purview.

The concept for Ariannas is that of a battle goddess that is one of the twins born to Takannas, the god of war. While he embodies the concept as a whole, his twin daughters represent the dark side and the honorable side of combat. His younger sun, Kalboras, represents the personal side. She should be chaotic, dangerous, and unstable.