Symbol: Sun rising above the horizon.
Alignment: LG
Portfolio: Birth, Daylight, Life, Wilderness
Domains: Air, Animal, Good, Healing, Plant, Sun, Travel
Favored Weapon: None; Dawnbringer expects her clerics and followers to be total pacifists.
Dawnbringer and her church are unique among the myriad of religions that exist in the Empire of Elaan and surrounding lands. Most temples and shrines contain at the very least a small altar to her, but they are rarely visited. She is one of the world's oldest goddesses, but warfare and treachery has reduced her church to near-extinction. It is well-known that Dawnbringer and her clerics can grant worshippers powerful blessings, but few are willing to grant the boon the church and goddess demand in payment: a total rejection of violence and force. While different branches of the church take this demand to greater or lesser extremes, virtually all most clerics of Dawnbringer do not see the soldiering profession or most adventuring activities as necessary evils . . . they seem them as just plain evil.
Dawnbringer is honored primarily by common folks, such as farmers and midwives. Among the adventuring folks, excluding clerics, she is mostly worshipped by members of a monk discipline devoted exclusively to her honor, sorcerers dwelling with a clan of silver dragons on islands far out into the southern sea, and a small number of rangers and druids (although this last group is torn between honoring the peace-loving Dawnbringer and her increasingly aggressive daughter, Fahlerene the Howler). Generally speaking, however, the majority of the citizens of the Empire will only interact with Dawnbringer's clergy when seeking blessings for a pregnant woman who will shortly give birth.
Dawnbringer's clerics have not been known to travel widely in the past. Instead, they remained in local churches and enclaves, serving the communities around them. Within recent decades that has been changing, as the goddesses church was nearly wiped when followers of the evil god of darkness, Morgott, launched an unholy crusade against her and her followers. Clerics of all levels have been taking to the roads, hoping to spread her message of peace and harmonious co-existence among man. They have been traveling increasingly far from their homes, because Morgott's minions continue to hunt them in the lands north of the Empire; worshippers of the Howler are growing ever-more frustrated with the instance that peaceful existence between Man and Nature can only be achieved through pacifism; and the lords and ladies of the Imperial Court increasingly question the sanity of worshipping Dawnbringer. Pacifism will not stop the evil of the Lichlords, and the fact that Dawnbringer's church lies broken before them should be ample evidence of that fact.
At one time, Dawnbringer's church was organized in a pyramid-like hierarchy. Dawnbringer was at the top, with each region duplicating a structure that had existed since the world's religions had first been established. Each region was home to a Herald of Light, who was recognized as speaking directly for Dawnbringer herself. Under these were High Priests, who in turn managed clerics and non-clergy workers of the church. A parallel structure exists among an order of monks, and, in the modern world, it is the only place the structure still exists. The last Herald of Light died over a century ago at the hands of Morgott's dark prophet, and Dawnbringer has not seen fit to anoint a new one. The remaining clerics and High Priests focus almost exclusively on missionary work. Clerics of Dawnbringer are almost never multi-classed, as their commitment to honoring their goddesses' decree of total pacifism makes it virtually impossible for them to pursue other adventuring interests. The exception are for those who put down their arms after converting later in life.
The order of monks have always been wanderers, although no matter how far individual members roam, they return to their holy sanctuary high in the World's End mountain range at least once every three years, to celebrate the High Holy Day of Dawnbringer.
Dawnbringer is among the oldest divine entities in the world, having helped create it with her husband, the Master Builder. She is also the mother of several of the other gods and goddesses, evil and good ones alike. As her children divided into warring factions, and, worse, the intelligent creatures of the world she had helped create did likewise, Dawnbringer came to despise all violence inspired by fear, hatred, and greed. She knew that some creatures had to kill others in order to survive, but it pained her greatly to see how so many intelligent races seemed to delight in inflicting pain and suffering upon other beings just because they could, or, worse, because they wanted to take something that they possessed. It hurt her even more that even gods and goddesses were not above such behavior.
Dawnbringer set about to organize the mortals who worshipped her in a way that would further her agenda of creating a world without violence. She led many of them to a distant part of the world where resources were abundant, dangers were few, and no creatures or other intelligent beings needed to be displaced to create a new society. With the help of some of her children, Fahlerene and the Four Winds, she created a community where men and women of all races lived and farmed along side the beasts of the wild. Here, she encouraged them to build a city that would serve as an example to what harmonious existence with nature and other races could accomplish. From here, they branched out, spreading the attitudes bred in their cities to churches and enclaves established throughout the northeastern regions of the world and even into the heartlands of what would some day become the Empire of Elaan.
However, Dawnbringer's optimism could not overcome the fact that some mortals and gods are just plain evil. The dark god Morgott, who is everything that Dawnbringer is not, rallied these evil people to his faith and cause, unleashing them at Dawnbringer's city. He hoped to show that their high ideals and pacifistic lifestyle would crumble when they were threatened with certain doom. They held fast, however, and all throughout the Northlands, Dawnbringer's worshippers either fled or fell before the hoards of Morgott. Followers of Fahlerene rose to their defense, but they too were overwhelmed. Within a decade of first unleashing his armies, Morgott's followers had established the capitol of their new empire within the ruins of Dawnbringer's city, and Morgott's prophets in the mortal realms, the Lichlords, spread their darkness where once Dawnbringer's light had shined.
Dawnbringer's church now exists only in isolated regions of the Empire of Elaan. Most of her clerics wander the world as missionaries, spreading her word and staying one step ahead of Morgott's minions.
In areas where the other deities of the pantheon to which she belongs are worshipped, Dawnbringer's church is well-respected by most good-aligned faiths, and evil and neutral ones also tend to have a grudging respect for the unfailing dedication the church and its members have to their pacifistic beliefs. The most notable exception to this are the followers and church of Morgott, who continue their unholy crusade against Dawnbringer and her followers.
Interestingly, the near-eradication of Dawnbringer's church in the mortal realm awakened a number of other gods to the large power base that Morgott had been building in the shadows. A coalition of deities and churches now stand arrayed against him and his goals of plunging the world in to eternal darkness, and these deities hold a subtle hand of protection over Dawnbringer as she tries to regain her former strength. Her eldest daughter and former staunch ally, Fahlerene, however, has all but turned her back on her mother.
All beings should live in harmony with nature and with one another. There is no excuse for greed and violence motivated by greed, envy or fear. Everyone should share what they have with those who have not, and no one should ever take actions that harm another living being. The only way to achieve peace is to practice peace. No one who practices violent thoughts, violent deeds, or who uses fear or violence to deny other living beings what they need can never fully know peace themselves. Only those who practice peace and harmony in every aspect of their lives can fully know the blessings of the Dawnbringer.
Dawnbringer does not demand praise from her worshippers, but she does expect them to pay homage to nature. Hymns must be sung as the sun rises each morning, when it is at its highest, as it drops beneath the horizon, and when night is at its darkest.