Erathis

Erathis
Upper half of a clockwork gear
Alignment	Lawful Neutral
Divine Rank	Deity
Pantheon	Dawn War
Portfolio	Civilization, Invention, Law
Domains	4E: Civilization, Creation, Justice 5E: Knowledge, Order
Home Plane	Astral Sea (Hestavar)
Worshippers	Minotaurs, Inventors, Rulers, Judges, Pioneers
Favoured Weapon	Any

Erathis is the unaligned goddess of civilization, inventions and law in the Nentir Vale setting of Dungeons & Dragons. Rulers, judges, pioneers and devoted citizens worship her, and her temples are present in most major cities of the world. She is the patron of the minotaurs after having defeated the primordial Baphomet. She lives with Pelor in Hestavar, where they are known as "the King and Queen of Light" and rule the city.

She is said to be in a relationship with Pelor, and is allied with Moradin and Ioun. She is perhaps the only god on cordial terms with Asmodeus, King of the Nine Hells, as tyranny and dystopia are forms of civilization. Her antithesis is Melora, the unaligned goddess of wilderness, nature and the sea.

Details on Erathis beyond that given in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide mostly come from Dragon Magazine, with details on Hestavar appearing in issue #371 and a dedicated Channel Divinity appearing in issue #387. The latter issue also presents details on a secret order of Erathisian avengers, the Unbroken Circle, who seek to protect civilization by violently purging corruption. Both the Manual of the Planes and The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea provide some insight into Erathis, especially the latter.

Erathis commands her devoted followers with three of her many laws:

• Work with others to achieve your goals. Community and order are always stronger than individuals.
• Tame the wilderness to make it fit for habitation, and defend the light of civilization against darkness.
• Seek out new ideas, inventions, lands and wilderness. Build machines, cities and empires.

The Secret Plan of Erathis

Erathis had a great vision before the Dawn War; to unite the different divine realms (or dominions) of the Astral Sea from what had been effectively a divine equivalent of widely scattered city-states into something resembling a single densely populated and integrated nation. This plan to unite all the realms through instantaneous communication and transportation was called the Lattice of Heaven. Even though that plan was violently disrupted when the Primordials devastated the Astral Sea, she hasn't given up on the idea of rebuilding the Lattice of Heaven and restoring her vision. To this end, she has begun a wide-reaching plan to achieve this goal - which may not be entirely for benevolent reasons, since the other gods haven't quite worked out just what effect turning the Astral Sea into a singular integrated heaven will have on the goddess of civilization...

The primary step, which occupies her exalted, is called "The Game of Making". This is a veritable fever of invention and craftsmanship that is upheld by all divine servitors and petitioners of Erathis; by learning how to create everything that can be created, Erathis will master the current laws of creation, in order to codify and improve the final laws of creation. This is actually not as morally pure as it may sound; knowing everything means knowing things that others would consider quite dark. Poetry, oratory, watercolor, tea ceremony, combat magic, invention, siege work, dance, creating new rituals, creating new life — all these forms of creation are of utmost importance to Erathis’s mission. As such, she often has to subcontract the Game of Making, holding experiments off of Hestavar and forming alliances with morally dubious sorts - such as Vecna - to understand this dark lore. Creating warforged and Broken Ones is as much part of the Game of Making as is creating indoor plumbing and magitek.

The secondary and tertiary aspects of her plan are simple; the restoration of the destroyed and abandoned dominions and the elevation of new gods to rule over them. Whilst comparatively simple compared to the Game of Making, this is still not easy; the lost dominions have become infested with all manner of monsters, to say nothing of the dangers that may come from poking around in the realms of gods like the Raven Queen and Tharizdun.