Aulasha

Aulasha
Aliases	The Librarian
Alignment	Lawful Good
Divine Rank	Demigod
Pantheon	Illumian
Portfolio	Learning, Books, Grief
Domains	Good, Knowledge, Law
Home Plane	Wanders
Worshippers	Illumians, Knowledge-Seekers, Sages, Librarians, Morticians
Favoured Weapon	Warhammer

Aulasha is the second-oldest of the illumian gods in Dungeons & Dragons; a childhood friend of Tarmuid, she ascended to join him in godhood a mere twenty years after his own ascension, such was her skill as a loremaster. For her domain. Aulasha chose to continue her lifelong efforts by becoming the caretaker for the illumians' vast store of knowledge and lore. If the spoken word is central to Tarmuid’s faith, then the written word is Aulasha’s province. Her would-be clerics spend hours poring over religious tomes, memorizing their contents. Many spend time as scribes, creating new—and impressively illuminated—copies of important books.

With her faithful, she built the Library of the Sublime, an unparalleled library-city in the depths of the Astral Plane, teeming with powerful and esoteric lore on virtually anything you can imagine.

...And which was ultimately sacked by githyanki armies, who destroyed much and looted more, with Aulasha only managing to save a fragment of priesthood.

Ever since that day, Aulasha has relentlessly hunted the contents of her library across the cosmos, with her followers vowing to aid her by ultimately rebuilding the Library bigger and better than before. Those who encounter Aulasha in the flesh report the demigoddess as taking the form of a white-haired, kindly-natured illumian crone, one with tiny books dancing around her head in place of the normal sigils.

Such was her misery after the sack of the Library of the Sublime that Aulasha's portfolio expanded to include grief and sorrow, and now she is venerated whenever an illumian mourns a lost friend or suffers a similar tragedy. As a side-effect of this, in addition to their primary duties of trying to build a new Library of the Sublime in the shadow-metropolis of Elirhondas, her high-level clerics are responsible for dealing with the illumian dead, both in the sense of performing funeral rites and in the sense of reviving those whose souls have unfinished business. In this, they have begun to usurp one of the traditional rites of the clergy of Glautru; Aulashan funerals emphasize audience participation, with each friend and family member offering a blessing, a favorite memory, or a comforting word to the survivors.

Aulasha has set down several books of written prayer, known as the Volumes of Sacred Liturgies (or the Crimson Books, because of their traditionally red lettering). Aulasha’s worshipers read the liturgies silently or recite them with the book open—even if they have the words memorized.

A small altar to Aulasha usually adorns a cabal enclave’s library; her simple rites demand little in the way of space or ceremony. Even librarians who aren’t particularly devout genuflect in the direction of the shrine when they’re tackling particularly difficult research—or when they can’t seem to find a mislaid book.

Aulasha’s herald, a solar, died defending the Library of the Sublime from the githyanki, and Aulasha hasn’t appointed a replacement. Her favorite planar allies are hound archons, trumpet archons, and planetars.

The destruction of the Library of the Sublime was the illumian people’s greatest tragedy, and not every illumian has forgiven Aulasha for “letting” the githyanki overrun it. An active cult of illumians tries to destroy Aulasha’s faith and even end her divinity because they feel she betrayed the illumian people. The cult, known as Respect Only the Brave, claims adherents in dozens of cabals, and clerics of Aulasha are always on their guard against plots or outright attacks from cultists.