Remember us, Spirit, as we remember you.
Common prayer of the Temple of Zodo
Yu Yuri, the Spirit of Zodo, is one of the Three Classic Powers and the twin aspect of Ky Yuri, the Spirit of Kymara. Of all Zodo's aspects, she is the one who wanted least to be a god. What she wanted was to belong: to be wanted, to be needed, and to be part of the lives she had spent so long watching. For a short while, she had exactly that. She has never forgotten how it was taken from her, and she has never forgiven it.
Characteristics
Yu Yuri is benevolent and kind to those she sees as friends or worshipers. She is cold to those who cannot be swayed, and hateful to those who have wronged her. She does not desire destruction. What she desires is love, and revenge, in that order and often at the same time. She carries grief for the death of her mortal and divine sister, and anger at being awakened when she wanted nothing more than a normal life.
Yu Yuri enjoys praise, and she has always helped those who offer it more than those who do not. Those who know her best say that praise was never truly the point. Praise is a way of being noticed, and being noticed is a way of being wanted. Beneath everything, the Spirit of Zodo wants connection.
The Story of Yuri and Kileen
For most of her existence, Yu Yuri had no form and wanted none. She was content simply to exist, and to watch the lives of mortals unfold. Now and then she would step in to help, and those who offered her praise or devotion of any kind found her help came more readily.
In the late First Era, Yu Yuri followed Yu'Mara's example and chose to be born within a mortal. She came into the world as Yuri, with a twin sister named Kileen. Neither Yuri nor anyone else knew that Kileen was the mortal incarnation of Kymara for that age. Two spirits long called twins by theologians had been born as twin sisters.1
The sisters grew inseparable, as twins often do. They did everything together, and Yu Yuri let her mortal self become her whole identity. For the first time, she had found what she had always been looking for: she belonged.
They were both first-year students at the University of Pyrinus when a cult of El Anon's followers seized Kileen, mutilated her, and killed her. Grief tore Yu Yuri awake. The mortal girl became the Spirit of Zodo again, and every member of the cult was destroyed.2
Kileen's death echoed far beyond that night. It is widely believed to be the sacrifice Lector Clairstory used as the catalyst for his work with the Orb of Power.
Personification
When Yu Yuri walks on Nor'Ova, she does so as Yuri: a young woman in her twenties with light blonde hair that turns black at the tips. She has never taken any other form since Kileen's death. Some say this is because it is the only form in which she was ever truly happy. Others say it is so that anyone who ever wrongs her will know exactly whose sister they are dealing with. The Spirit of Zodo is a feminine aspect.
Powers
It is unclear exactly what powers Yu Yuri wields. Nothing is documented save her destruction of the cult that killed her sister. The only clues lie in what others claim to have experienced from her. Some say that Yu Yuri brings them absolute peace, a peace that nothing else can give and that cannot easily be broken or undone. Others say she fuels their passion and gives them a real sense of belonging. And then there are those who say that when Yu Yuri came upon them, they felt the deepest desire to end their own lives. What is certain is that her favor is real, and so is her wrath. Those who worship her tell of help that arrives unasked for. Those who have wronged her rarely tell anything at all.
Followers
Yu Yuri is the aspect most often worshiped by the Temple of Zodo, whose temples each devote themselves to a single aspect of Zodo. Her popularity there is no mystery. She answers devotion more warmly than any other aspect, because devotion is a form of connection, and connection is what she has always wanted most. Among her faithful are the lonely, the grieving, and those who have lost someone they could not live without, all of whom find in her someone who understands.
- 1. Scholars who work across both faiths have long noted the uneasy symmetry between Ky Yuri and Yu Yuri: one born of light and one of shadow, both present in the world at once. That the two would be born as literal twins has struck many as either divine design or cosmic cruelty. No one has settled which.
- 2. The cult almost certainly never knew that the girl they murdered was the mortal incarnation of Kymara, whom they would have counted among the holiest beings of their own faith. What they did know, in their final moments, was whose sister she was.
