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Ysandra

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BySuraia Silverbell

Goddess of Care: Ysandra

Lady of Lanterns, Keeper of the Hearth

“Where a hand is offered, Ysandra is already there.” — Common saying in the Xaverion Islands

Ysandra is the gentlest of the New Faiths, the quiet goddess of care, learning and mutual support. Her followers believe that she rarely grants miracles outright; instead she places the right people, skills and tools in reach so that folk can help themselves and one another.

Among the four new gods she is the soft voice that says: share what you know, give what you can, and no one need face the dark alone. Her season is autumn, when harvest is shared, lamps are lit early, and communities lean on each other against the coming cold.

Quick Facts

Type: New God
Domains: Help, learning, healing, community, generosity, everyday wisdom
Season: Autumn
Pronouns: She / her
Titles: Lady of Lanterns, Keeper of the Hearth, She-Who-Provides-Means
Symbols: Open hand with a sprouting plant, single leaf cupped in both palms, lanterns and small cluster-lights
Colours: Soft brown (earth, home), teal or sea-green (growth, kindness) — shown on a brown banner with a teal hand-and-sprout emblem
Favoured People: Healers, teachers, midwives, scribes, charity-workers, the poor and displaced, women and feminine folk who love men

Symbols & the Absent Face

Symbols

Ysandra’s most common symbol is a stylised hand, palm up, cradling a small sprout. It appears on banners, clinic signs, and the worn pendants of healers and wandering teachers. The hand may be drawn in teal on a soft brown field, echoing the official Church banner.

Other motifs include:

  • A sprouting seed or three leaves in a circle, embroidered on aprons and shawls

  • A book and lantern together, painted above doorways of schools and hospices

  • Simple clay lamps lit in windows at dusk, “for those who still walk in need”

Appearance (or Lack Thereof)

Unlike the Old Gods, the New Faiths do not encourage images of the gods themselves. Ysandra has no agreed-upon face. In illuminated manuscripts, a robed figure with hidden features may be shown passing a loaf, book or lantern to outstretched hands, but priests insist these are “any helper, not the Lady herself”.

For most people, Ysandra is the helping hand: a neighbour sharing soup, a medic binding wounds, a stranger giving directions in a storm.

Ysandra in the Fifth Era

Since the arrival of the New Faiths and the end of the Age of Darkness, Ysandra’s cult has intertwined itself with towns, villages and city streets.

  • Most cities maintain at least one House of Ysandra — part temple, part free clinic and soup kitchen.

  • In Enville, Lord Elijah Galahan famously funded a medical centre under Ysandra’s banner for the healer Elisabeth White, cementing the goddess’s image as patron of hospitals and practical charity.

  • Refugee shelters, orphanages and poorhouses often hang a rough copy of her hand-and-sprout symbol even when they cannot afford a proper shrine.

Among the four gods, Thoron’s followers police and fight, Envylon’s rule and judge, Myalanna’s dream and interpret — and Ysandra’s soothe, stitch and teach, patching together what the others’ zeal and ambition may tear.

Worship & Temples

Everyday Devotion

Most of Ysandra’s worship is quiet and practical:

  • Saying a short prayer before tending the sick or beginning lessons

  • Sharing food or tools “in Ysandra’s name” with those who have less

  • Lighting a lantern in the window at dusk for travellers and late workers

Formal temples are often humble, converted houses rather than grand halls. The focus is on kitchens, infirmaries and classrooms, not altars. Services tend to include communal meals, the sharing of news, and short lessons in letters, numbers or craft-skills alongside prayers.

Clergy & Orders

Priests and priestesses of Ysandra dress in practical robes of brown with teal trim, often stained with ink, herbs or cooking. They are expected to:

  • Maintain a public kitchen or storehouse

  • Offer basic healing, midwifery or counselling

  • Organise mutual aid when disaster strikes

Many of her sworn servants are layfolk: midwives, scribes, schoolmasters, and travelling healers who have taken simple vows to “share what I know and give what I can”.

Paladins of Ysandra are rare but respected — warriors trained on the Landing of the Gods who swear to protect the innocent, escort refugee caravans and defend hospitals and shrines rather than lead crusades.

The Nature of Her Faith

Followers of Ysandra often summarise her teaching as: “Use what you have, learn what you can, and help where you’re able.”

Key ideas include:

  • Provision through Means, not Miracles
    Ysandra is believed to “answer” prayers by placing the right people and opportunities nearby, not by shattering natural law. A new skill, an unexpected teacher, or a stranger’s generosity are all seen as her work.

  • Mutual Aid Over Charity
    Giving is not meant to create debt or pride. Those who receive today are expected to pass kindness on when they are able. In this way, her followers say, a single loaf may feed a whole town over time.

  • Learning as Sacred Work
    Teaching someone to read, to bind a wound, or to repair their tools is treated as an act of worship. Many village schools began as Ysandra shrines with a single donated book.

  • Suspicion of Greed and Cruelty
    While Envylon’s priests speak of rightful place and privilege, Ysandra’s quietly insist that talent and knowledge belong to all. To hoard skill or let others suffer through neglect is whispered to be “turning your back on the Lady”.

Myth & History

The formal stories of the New Faiths claim that Ysandra descended with Thoron, Myalanna and Envylon during the last days of the Age of Darkness, pledging to tend the wounded world while the others ended the wars and purged the undead.

Where Thoron’s legends tell of battlefields and burning fortresses, Ysandra’s are quieter:

  • Travelling with healers into plague-ridden towns,

  • Guiding carpenters rebuilding flooded villages,

  • Whispers of a brown-cloaked woman who appears at a disaster, teaches a remedy or trick of engineering, then vanishes.

Scholars argue whether these tales are literal encounters or parables invented to explain why so many relief efforts, clinics and schools now march under her banner. The Church does not insist either way; what matters, they say, is that people keep doing the work.

Festivals & Holy Days in Her Season

Autumn — the season of Ysandra — is full of overlapping festivals that mix her themes of remembrance, sharing and quiet endurance with older traditions and other gods’ observances.

Amberveil / Feast of the Fields (Envylon & Ysandra)

Amberday, cycle of Noent

A harvest festival older than the New Faiths, now framed as giving thanks for Envylon’s abundance and welcoming Ysandra’s coming care. Long tables are set in the streets, everyone contributes food, and lanterns are lit as night falls. Offerings are left at field-edges “for Envylon who gave and Ysandra who helps us keep”.

The Night of the Veil (Ysandra)

Twillday, cycle of Milimi

A night when, people say, the boundary between the living world and the Spirit World thins. Families light candles in doorways, tell stories of the dead, don masks of beasts and shadows, and walk with lanterns through the streets or along crossroads. Some honour their ancestors; others revel in mischief and eerie games. Ysandra’s followers frame it as an evening of remembrance and gentle guidance for wandering spirits.

The Snowdance Ball (Thoron within Ysandra’s Season)

Amberday, cycle of Noent

An elegant human ball marking the deep of winter, technically dedicated to Thoron yet held in Ysandra’s season. Nobles dance beneath glittering lights and icy chandeliers, each step a wish for beauty and unity through the hard months ahead. For common folk watching from afar, it is simply another sign that, even in the cold, people gather together — and Ysandra’s priests often arrange warm meals and blankets for the poor on the same night.

Thoron’s Blessings & Ysandra’s Tables

Vicday & Esmayday, cycle of Noent

On the eve called Thoron’s Blessings, families host a generous dinner, praising one another and looking back on the year. The next morning gifts are exchanged as tokens of appreciation.

In practice, much of the organisation and extra food for the poor comes from Houses of Ysandra, who see these days as perfect excuses to ensure no one eats alone if they can help it.

Lantern Night (Turn of the Year)

Liday, cycle of Noent

The last day of the year is spent in relative quiet. As darkness falls, people walk with lanterns through streets and graveyards, “lighting the road for the old year as it departs” and symbolically sending away wandering spirits.

Though the rite belongs to no single god, Ysandra’s followers embrace it wholeheartedly: a final gentle duty before the hard work of a new year begins.

Where Thoron tests, Myalanna guides and Envylon divides, Ysandra stitches the world back together in a thousand small, unseen ways. Her stories may be soft, but in the long winters of the Fifth Era, it is often her lanterns that keep the dark from feeling quite so cold.

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