Worshipped throughout Fortitude and in particular The Empire of the Lady and the Greenwater
Empires where she is the patron god. Here I will return to the theological works of Elin who,
as usual, has the right words for the situation.
Until next time (when I hope to complete the series by detailing Adlef, the air god)
Your friend,
Gadsolme.
The Mother (Mataye, Shana, Goddess of Birth, Goddess of Water)
The patron god of both the Greenwater Empire and the Empire of the Lady and is also part of the elemental trinity worshipped in the Blackfly Empire. Unlike the other gods The Mother is portrayed quite consistently throughout the empires. She is a beautiful woman clothed in a simple fabric dress; a mass of auburn curls cascades over her shoulders, a look of compassionate wisdom permanently frames her face. She is always seen carrying a water vessel, an amphora or jug or even, on occasion, a large bucket (but this is often seen as blasphemy by some of the more religiously sensitive member of the Empire of the Lady). The Mother herself, like part of the trinity to which she belongs alongside Adlef and Tolem, exists in a perpetual cycle. In the morning she rises to greet the new day, clutching her pitcher she walks down to the stream that runs at the foot of her garden. Dipping the pitcher into the waters she fills it and takes a long draught. With every gulp her stomach grows and swells until in the evening her belly is heavy with the waters from the river. Unable to move she rests and from her stomach a new life is born, another soul to populate the world with. Once more unencumbered by the life she has created she returns to her bed to begin the process anew the following morning.
Although The Mother is worshipped greatly in both the Greenwater Empire and the Empire of the Lady they tend to focus on separate aspects of her being. To the Greenwater Empire she is embodied more in her identity as the water goddess, that it is her aspect as such that that brings divinity. For Greenwater citizens the connection between The Mother and the fish aspect of Fin fuses their sacredness together; both dragon and goddess exist as manifestations of some basic elemental truth.
The Empire of the Lady concentrates more on feminine traits that both The Mother and The Lady Whitefoot share. The reverence that they pay to the divinity of both forms of their patron goddess and dragon lies along similar lines to the Greenwater Empire, that their natures and thus their sacred natures are interlinked in their form.
It is considered extremely bad luck not to pay reverence to The Mother across all races and Empires of Fortitude and thus she is probably the most consistent deity in both her worship and existence.