Cernunnos: Difference between revisions
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{{Infobox Deity | {{Infobox Deity | ||
|Name = Cernunnos | |Name = Cernunnos | ||
Revision as of 22:47, 18 March 2022
| Cernunnos | ||
|---|---|---|
| Stag Antlers in a Circle | ||
| Aliases | The Horned God | |
| Alignment | True Neutral | |
| Divine Rank | Greater God | |
| Pantheon | Celtic | |
| Portfolio | Animals, Nature, Life, Fertility, The Earth, Wealth, and the Underworld | |
| Domains | (speculative) Animal, Death, Earth, Healing, Plant, Fey, Greed, Hunt, Cavern, Darkness | |
| Home Plane | Prime Material | |
| Worshippers | Druids, Rangers, Nature Lovers | |
| Favoured Weapon | Staff | |
Cernunnos is a Celtic deity... and that is actually as much as we know about him! No, seriously; Cernunnos survives only in various Celtic artistic depictions, which show a male figure with the horns of a stag, and a name on the Pillar of the Boatmen, a 1st century Gallo-Roman monument. Whilst figures like him appear throughout various Celtic splinters, no real information survives; from his surviving depictions, it has been theorized that he may have been a God of any or all of the following subjects: Animals, Nature, Life, Fertility, The Earth, Wealth, and the Underworld. In fact, so little information on the deity survives from the actual Celtic faiths that he is instead mostly known through the use of his name to identify the "Horned God" figure in various branches of Neopaganism, predominantly Wicca, where he is considered the God of Seasons and the Cycle of Life. He has also been named as one of the gods leading the Wild Hunt in some sources... but then, so too have Odin, Woden, and even his fellow Celtic god Arawn.
Such is the obscurity of Cernunnos and the limited amount of information presented on him that Gygax left him out of both of the original Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks on deities, with Cernunnos failing to appear in either OD&D's Book VII: Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes or Deities & Demigods for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons! Instead, the only time that Cernunnos has unarguably appeared has been in the article "Tuatha de Danan: A Revised Celtic Mythos" in Dragon Magazine #65 for AD&D 1e (where he is called Cerunnos).
After this one entry, Cernunnos vanished into the aether. The Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition deity called, simply, the Master of the Wild Hunt could be looked at as a representation of Cernunnos, but it could just as easily be any of the other gods associated with the Wild Hunt. Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition did use an alternative spelling of the name, Cerunnos, as the name of an Archfey based on the Master of the Wild Hunt.
Pathfinder
| Cernunnos | ||
|---|---|---|
| Stag with Jeweled Antlers | ||
| Aliases | The Horned Lord, the Stag Lord | |
| Alignment | Chaotic good | |
| Divine Rank | Empyreal Lord | |
| Pantheon | Golarion | |
| Portfolio | Fertility, Seasons, Wild Animals | |
| Domains | Animal, Chaos, Good, Plant Subdomains: Azata, Feather, Fur, Growth |
|
| Home Plane | Briarbough (Elysium) | |
| Worshippers | Intelligent plant creatures/Animal kin, Good fey, Mortal druids/rangers, & Some elven fighters/rogues | |
In Pathfinder 1e, Cernunnos appeared in the splatbooks "Chronicles of the Righteous" and "Bestiary 4", the latter of which presented his physical stats. In the Great Beyond, Cernunnos is an Empyreal Lord of Azata stock. Known for his mercurial temperament, The Stag Lord aims to set right natural balances that are out of kilter and indulge in his passions. Cernunnos favors decisive action and, though he rarely makes a rash decision, he will sometimes let his anger overcome him and descend himself into Hell or the Abyss to exact revenge on demons and devils he has a personal vendetta for. Cernunnos is a wise and powerful Empyreal Lord and is thought to be almost a god.
Cernunnos was one of the first beings the Fey Lords created and he was the first one to leave the First World. When war comes to the outer planes Cernunnos is usually counseling action and decisive moves, while his counterpart, Korada, is usually counseling caution.
Cernunnos gets along well with most deities and demi-gods, but evil deities are treated with distrust. Cernunnos is a powerful supporter of Desna, as well as all of the other nature gods and most of the good gods too.
Cernunnos lives in Briarbough, a demi-plane connected to Elysium. It is filled with trees and bears a strong resemblance to the First World.
Cernunnos presents himself as a muscular elf with dull fur clothes that bear drawings of birds in flight or leaping animals.
The faithful of Cernunnos are mainly intelligent plant creatures or animal kin, good aligned fey, mortal Druids or Rangers, and some Elven Fighters or Rogues.
Darklands
Similar to Slaanesh, Kernunnos is a god of debauchery and hedonism. His largest contingent of followers are made up of Britons and Cornish who were cut off from their brethren by the invading Anglo-Saxons, and turned to him for aid. Warriors pledged to Kernunnos have abnormally large muscle growth and often go into battle without armor, or wearing nothing at all.