The Raven Queen

The Raven Queen Rules over: Death, Fate & Winter

History

In the early ages of the world, the souls of mortals unclaimed by the gods were not free to pass to the great beyond after death. Instead Nerull, the god of the dead, held them in his gray, cheerless dominion. The dead were fated to spend eternity as powerless shades, haunted by the memory of life’s rich sensation and vigor. Nerull’s dominion grew ever greater, as each day myriads of mortal souls came to his kingdom of Pluton and never departed. The god of the dead set his sights on making himself king over all the gods, and began to send blights and plagues into the world to speed the passage of mortals into his realm. Thus he built his army.

Then an especially powerful mortal died and came to Nerull’s domain. She was a beautiful and proud sorcerer-queen. Among the gray shades of mortals held in Pluton, her ghostly form glowed with the fierce power of her will and ambition. Her name in life is forgotten now, but Nerull deemed her a worthy consort, and gave her form and substance so that she could rule at his side.

The Queen discovered the means by which Nerull held mortal shades in thrall, and seized that power for herself. Strengthened by countless souls, she challenged Nerull and strove with him for mastery of Pluton. Although she was mighty indeed, Nerull was an old and strong god, and even shorn of his dead legions he was too strong for her. In order to defeat him she had to expend the souls she held. Each one she released gave up a tiny surge of strength as it passed from bondage, and by freeing almost all the souls held in Pluton she grew strong enough to destroy Nerull and seize his dominion over death.

In her victory, the sorcerer-queen thought to take Nerull’s place—but the other gods intervened. Rather than rising as new goddess of the dead, she became goddess of death instead. Mortals who did not put themselves in the power of gods or devils in life were no longer bound to eternal existence as shades under her dominion, but instead were free to pass into the infinite, beyond the power or knowledge of the gods. She abandoned Pluton, and founded a realm of her own in the mountains of Letherna in the Shadowfell. From there she oversees the loom of destiny, where each being’s fate is determined, and sits in judgment of the dead.

While her motives for overthrowing Nerull were driven by selfishness, the outcome of their strife helped mortals who are no longer doomed to spend eternity as slaves in Pluton. She once resented the gods who denied her the full power of Nerull, but she has come to an understanding with them and even aided them many times.

Appearance

The Raven Queen appears most often in the form of a human woman. She is most often depicted as a tall woman with skin as white as bleached bone and midnight-black hair, wearing either dark courtly dress or a long cowled black robe. Her eyes reveal her true nature: they lack whites, pupils, or irises, being instead a blackness filled with pinpoints of light, a reflection of the stars in the night sky.

She has other appearances, as well. Among the barbarians of the far north, where she bears the title Old Mother Winter, she is depicted as a crone, bent with age, dressed in white save her cloak of raven’s feathers. Despite her seeming frailty, she has an unbreakable grip, and she has been known to choke the life out of even the bravest and strongest of warriors who gets lost among the snow and howling winds of the storms she brings. She is said to spin each snowflake on her loom of fate, encoding a small portion of destiny within its unique pattern, and many barbarian shamans practice the art of divination by reading snowflakes. The fiercest storms, they claim, reveal the most of the future, for those who can withstand them.

In the vast deserts, where winter never comes, she is titled both Leafblighter and Peacebringer, and there she is depicted as a blind young girl in dark robes, whose footsteps cause the most fertile ground to decay to desert sand. The brush of her robe causes a living thing to die, yet the touch of her hand cures all manner of sickness and infirmity and ensures a long life. She walks among the villages and the nomadic tribes, doling out health or death as she will.

When the Raven Queen takes animal form, she usually chooses to be embodied either as a large raven, or as a white wolf. These animals are thus considered sacred to her followers, but many mortals see them as omens of death. Her weapons are the spear and the scythe, and she is fearsome in battle; one myth tells of a duel fought between the Raven Queen and Bane that went on for a full century without respite or victor — the pair chose to call a draw in order to return to their other duties.

The Raven Queen is a mercurial being. Sometimes she is as callous as Asmodeus himself; other times she is kind, even loving. She is as implacable as death itself, yet she has been known to show mercy, or even, on occasion, to be swayed by a mortal’s plea. At times, too, she will bargain over mortal lives; there are several tales of the Raven Queen accepting a woman’s life in place of her lover’s. At least one tale in this vein has a twist: in exchange for a woman’s life, the Queen takes not the man’s life, but his memories of the woman. Then, too, there are those who try bargaining with the Raven Queen to extend their own lives. But no matter what they offer, the Queen eventually refuses the bargain — for she allows none to escape fate.

Because of her knowledge of destiny, the Raven Queen is sometimes petitioned for information. While she will bargain for this as well, there is often a trap for the unwary in what she reveals. She might omit some important detail that was not directly asked about, or provide detailed information about an extraneous point. She will not lie, but she might mislead. She takes a dim view of those who attempt to circumvent fate, but she does delight in watching the “foreknowledge” they gain from their bargain with her ultimately lead them to the fate they had been trying to avoid.

Domain & Afterlife

The Raven Queen’s domain of Letherna is a glittering palace of obsidian and silver, located at the very center of the Shadowfell. Letherna is the place to which all of the spirits of the dead come before ultimately proceeding on to their final fate. Within its confines, they regain some semblance of form, and they pass their days in the court of the Raven Queen until they receive their final judgment. Letherna is in a constant state of winter, though the spirits who dwell there feel no discomfort because of the fact; to them, it may as well be midsummer.

To some spirits, Letherna is a place of revelry, and its inhabitants dance and feast for eternity. Other spirits find it a daunting fortress in a frozen wasteland where they will be imprisoned for eons before being released into the great beyond. The spirits swiftly lose track of how long they’ve spent there; time passes strangely in the Shadowfell. A hero a thousand years dead might be encountered there, swearing he had just recently arrived, while another, dead for only a day or two, might feel a century had passed. In this way, Letherna is very similar to the courts of the fey.

The Raven Queen is empowered to both escort the newly dead to Letherna and to sit in judgment of them. Once they are judged worthy, she gives up spirits of the agents of other gods. These spirits then go on to dwell in their gods’ dominions. She is considered by the other gods as a necessity, though she is somewhat separate and a more primal being then themselves. Most do not begrudge their faithful turning to the Raven Queen occasionally, for information on the future or to beg reprieve from death. Even the other Gods do not know what the Weave of Fate holds unless they ask The Queen.

Worship

Priest and Priestesses of The Raven Queen are usually older, and this has led to many inaccurate assumptions by outsiders. Many claim that the Goddess sucks the life from her followers to speed their arrival to her kingdom. This is not the case. Younger, able bodied followers are required to serve the Goddess as Paladins. It is only in their old age or after injury that these warriors retire to the life of the priesthood. The tradition of the Paladins honors the Raven Queen’s war and victory against Nerull, which liberated the souls of mortals. The followers of the Goddess often turn to her after suffering a great loss or a brush with their own mortality. Dark colors are preferred by Her worshipers, and they usually have raven feathers somewhere on their person so show their loyalty. The rites and rituals they perform are shrouded in secrecy. It is a tradition throughout the lands to make an offering or say a prayer to the Goddess on the eve of the New Year, asking for her to weave prosperity on her loom of fate and to hold off death for another year. Other than this, there are no holidays or major days of worship for the Nameless Lady, for fate and death are constant forces that apply to each of us, every day. Serving the Raven Queen means ridding the world of the Undead and Nec

Serving the Raven Queen means ridding the world of the Undead and Nec