Shallya

Shallya is the goddess of mercy, healing, and compassion, the gentlest deity in the harsh pantheon of men. Daughter of Morr and the goddess of wisdom, she is said to weep endlessly for the suffering of the world, and each of her tears is a balm against pain. Her symbol is the white dove, and her colour the pure white of the innocent.

Her priestesses, who by ancient custom are all women, devote their lives to tending the sick, the wounded, and the dying. Across the Empire of Man their hospices and shrines offer care to any who suffer, be they noble or beggar, and they alone dare walk among the plague-ridden when all others have fled. To raise a hand against a servant of Shallya is held to be among the vilest of crimes.

Yet mercy is a hard vocation in a merciless age. The healers of Shallya labour against wounds, fevers, and pestilence that no prayer can always mend, and their compassion is forever tested by the sheer scale of misery around them. The foul god of plague counts their order among his most hated foes, and where his contagions spread, the daughters of the dove are the last and only hope of the dying.

To the common folk, Shallya is the small, stubborn light of kindness that endures even in the darkest corner of the world, proof that compassion has not wholly abandoned the children of men.