The goddess shivered and flinched.  
She felt her body growing numb--not 
from fear, but from a distant and wistful 
sadness.  The feeling was remomte, 
and she took no great notice of it.  Gradually, 
though, she began to recognize
the numbness for the dire threat that it
was.

With an effort, she forced herself to
stir. Hesitation now, she knew instinctively,
would be fatal. The call she sent
reverberated through the earth,
thrumming deep within the mountains
&& hills, even rolling along the bottom
of the sea.

Hoping that it was not too late, the
goddess tried to awaken her children.

-- From Darkwalker on Moonshae

The goddess of the Moonshaes is an
aspect of the benign goddess Chauntea
(Chawn--TEE--ah), who is worshiped
throughout The Realms as the NG goddess of agriculture.
As she is worshiped in the Moonshaes, however,
her aspect is shaped differently than it
is in any other part of the Realms.

Where Chauntea is generally worshiped
as a goddess of agriculture, the
earthmother is much more a goddess of
NATURE. Agriculture as an aspect of NATURE
she regards kindly, but agriculture as
an attempt to master the land becomes a
grave threat to her existence.

The earth goddess does not have a
physical form in which her worshipers
can see her, other than the world that is
all around them. Her symbols, however,
are myriad. The tiniest swallow is a
favored messenger of the goddess. A
broad oak, gnarled and weatherbeaten,
but alive and flourishing, symbolizes
her ageless strength. A towering pine,
rising arrow-straight toward the heavens,
marks the precious neutrality of
her being, so necessary to preserving
the Balance. The thorny, bright green
cluster of mistletoe is another of her
symbols, showing the Vitality and
harshness of her existence and mirroring
the extremes inherent in her two
most dramatic seasons, the winter and
summer.

Her deepest symbols, incorporating
all of the contradictions inherent in the
Balance, are the moon && the sun.
Those periods when the moon is full
are nights of high power, when druids
rejoice and the land itself seems to
share in the celebration of the goddess's
power. Midsummer's Eve, the night of
the summer solstice, is a period of great
magick. This is when the druids harvest
the mistletoe for their most potent
rites, and when all the communities of
the Ffolk pause to celebrate their life
and prosperity.

The full moons near the vernal
(spring) and autumnal equinoxes are
also festive occasions. In spring, the
festivals are affairs of frenetic drinking,
dancing, and romance as, after the long
cold winter, the return of warmth and
sun to the land is welcomed by the
Ffolk. Spring festivals are ribald affairs,
but the Ffolk are congenial even in the
throes of drink, so the only real drawbacks
are suffered by the celebrants
the following morning.

The autumn festival is a more sober
affair, for the Ffolk know that a cold
and dangerous winter waits close in the
wings. In autumn, feasting rather than
drinking is the order of the day, and the
better the annual harvest, the more
elaborate the feast. Nearly all ports of
the isles bid their last departing ships
farewell following the autumn festival;
they are not likely to receive another
visiting vessel for six months, until
spring once again rolls across the land.

The night of the Winter Solstice, or
Yuletide, is an eve of deep reverence for
the Ffolk and their druids. Locked within
the icy grip of winter, they quietly
acknowledge the might of the land
around them and celebrate the beginning
of longer days and the gradual
arrival of spring. The celebrations are
somber, for the Ffolk know that many
months need pass before the sun
returns with enough strength to drive
winter from the land.

The nights of the full moon are the
times when the goddess?s power is at its
height, but these are also the times
when her world is most chaotic.
Through the Moonwells and the druids,
she has the might necessary to control
the Balance, but she also faces some of
her gravest threats. Lycanthropy, in
particular, grows into its most dangerous
manifestations during the periods
of the full moon.

The vehicles through which the goddess
sends her power to the world, and
through which her druids perceive her
needs, are the Moonwells. These precious
pools of clear water are located
throughout most of the isles, but are
most common on Gwynneth and
Alaron. The waters of the Moonwells
have several beneficial properties that
are known to the druids alone.

The water, when drunk directly from
the Moonwell by a character's cupped
hands, serves as a potion of healing.
This effect can benefit a character only
once per day. If the character drinking
the water has acted in a way that
threatened the Balance within the
month prior to drinking, the water
actually sickens him, inflicting 1d8
points of damage.

Examples of actions that endanger
the Balance include SLAYING animals
without putting the meat and skin to
good USE, chopping down living trees
for any reason, or initiating attacks
against peaceful beings. Characters
who entered a dungeon to punish a
group of raiding goblins would not
imperil the Balance, but those SEARCHING
for treasure and attack goblins in
their lairs to gain this treasure would
not benefit from the favor of the goddess.

When a druid bears a rod, staff, or
other chargeable magickal item, a
Moonwell can be used to recharge that
item. The druid must dip the staff into
the well at midnight, under the light of
a full moon, and cast a shillelagh spell at
the same Time. The staff will receive
1d6 charges from the power of the
water. This recharging can only be performed
once a month, and a given
druid can only recharge 1 item per
month.

The druids earn these benefits, however,
for without their tending the
Moonwells would cease to hold their
power. On some of the northern isles,
where the northmen have already driven
the Ffolk and the druids away, the
Moonwells have dried up, or become
stagnant, or merely turned into mundane
wells. This is one cause of the
waning of the goddess's power.

Each Moonwell is entrusted to the
care of a druid of at least 12th level. A
great portion of that druid's activities
involve the ritual care and cleansing of
the Moonwell.

Animals of the isles, when they are
injured or sick, often seek out the
Moonwells. Sometimes, the healing
strength of the water will bring the
creature back to a state of health; other
times the waters peacefully put the suffering
creature out of its misery. Those
animals that die at the shore of the
Moonwell are taken by the water quickly
and cleanly, leaving no carcass to
decay and pollute.

The animals of the Moonshaes are
favored creatures of the goddess. The
majestic deer she regards fondly, and
the sly old trout is another of her favorites.
The rare faerie dragons that buzz
through her wildest forests give her
great delight.

The goddess is nearly immortal--as
immortal as the land that is her body.
She is not given gaming statistics as she
does not interact with the creatures of
the world in a way that would make
such stats meaningful. She has agents,
however, that can perform such
interaction--creatures of might, and
timeless grace, who prowl her surface
and seek to further her ends. These are
detailed here. Unlike the goddess herself,
her agents can kill and can be
killed.

These agents are the children of the
goddess.