Praise the Life. Praise the Mother.
Common blessing of the Marani — The Quiet Faith
Yu'Mara, the Life of Zodo, is the most gentle and the most puzzling of Zodo's aspects. She is benevolent where the others are corrupt, and she observes where the others scheme. She is also the only aspect said to remain pure. Yet her place among the aspects has never been settled. Many theologians question whether she was ever truly part of Zodo at all, or whether she is something else wearing his name. Those who worship her rarely agree on the answer, and many never ask.
Characteristics
Yu'Mara is benevolent, though her desires are not always known or clear. She was once the stabilizing, good part of Zodo, until the Soul of Zodo drove her out. Now that the Soul has itself been driven out and sealed in Xodod, Yu'Mara desires only to return to Zodo. Her followers find that desire hopeful. Others find it unsettling, since a Zodo made whole again is widely agreed to be a catastrophe.
She is most often a quiet presence, an observer rather than an actor. When she does act, she acts decisively. She is capable of guilt, grief and even vengeance, as the forging of Haen Mara shows. She is not merely a gentle spirit; she is a goddess who has chosen gentleness.
Personification
Yu'Mara has no known body of her own. She is born within a pure-spirited individual, who becomes her Oracle for the rest of that person's life. She typically surfaces once per era, sometimes more. When she does, Kymara is reborn as well: every reincarnation produces a split, leaving both Kymara and Yu'Mara alive at the same time. The two are nearly identical in appearance and power. Yu'Mara can recall the long dead, while only Kymara can free souls.
Few Oracles are known to history by name. The best documented is Calista Xerxes, who carried Yu'Mara through the final days of the Great Magic War. Oracles rarely announce themselves, so whether one walks Nor'Ova today, no one can say.
Between Oracles, Yu'Mara has been known to walk Nor'Ova in a form that is not material, yet very much present. The Dweller Elves remember her as a woman waiting in the dark during the final days of the Great Magic War, soon after she departed the broken body of Calista Xerxes. She sheltered them from the fires that covered the world, and she changed them forever, darkening their skin and hair to hide them from El Anon.
Powers
Life is but one of the many gifts given to the faithful. No matter how many seasons pass, the dead can surely walk again, breathe again, and offer praise once more.
Incantations of Promise, Incantation 5 — The Divine Incantations
Yu'Mara is the goddess of Life, and it is for healing and restoration that her faithful most often call upon her. Her gifts go well beyond mending wounds, however. She can call back the long dead, a power even Kymara does not seem to share1. She is also a maker: Haen Mara was forged by her own hand. Where her brother aspect, the Will, binds the minds of others, Yu'Mara's work breaks bindings and illusions. The forging of Haen Mara showed that she is willing to turn that power against the rest of Zodo.
Kymara or Zodo?
A weapon of life is given to you, ye who suffers the weight of deception, for ye are worthy.
Incantations of Promise, Incantation 4 — The Divine Incantations
No question about Yu'Mara is debated more than what she truly is. The case that she is an aspect of Zodo rests on her name, on her place in the Divine Incantations, and on her own desire to return to him. The case that she is another incarnation of Kymara rests on their near-identical nature, on the split that accompanies every rebirth, and on Haen Mara, which Yu'Mara modeled on the Sword of Legend, Kymara's own blade.
Both faiths claim her in their scriptures. The Divine Incantations promise a weapon of life to those who suffer deception. The Yurie Scropa foretells a sword of life that will sever the bonds of deceit. The Church of the Holy Body counts her among the aspects of Zodo, while many devoted to Kymara see her as a strange echo of the Sol Anon. Her own followers are divided: some believe she is Zodo's pure heart, some believe she was never his at all, and many simply worship the Mother and leave the question to scholars.
The Dweller Elves' own history offers the starkest verdict. When they emerged from beneath the earth a century after the war, celestial servants of El Anon met them with swords of fire and named the Mother's shelter "the protection of Zodo." Whatever the scholars conclude, El Anon's servants seem to have made up their minds.
The debate is more than academic. In lands where the worship of Zodo is outlawed, whether Yu'Mara is Zodo can decide whether her worshipers live or die.
Followers
Yu'Mara has no cathedrals on the surface of Nor'Ova, but she does not lack a people. The Dweller Elves revere her as the sacred Mother, the only god who answered them when the skies burned. In her honor, dweller society is matriarchal: women are its warriors, thinkers, healers and priestesses. Each dweller tribe is led by an oracle, a priestess the dwellers believe is chosen by the Mother herself, for they hold that she has never left them. Every oracle answers to the Mother. These tribal oracles are not the Oracle, the one soul in whom Yu'Mara is born each era, though few dwellers would draw that line as sharply as outsiders do. Her promise to them still binds the race: "As long as you serve your mothers, I too shall be your mother."
Above ground, her faith survives as the Quiet Faith, practiced by those who call themselves the Marani. It is a personal and largely hidden devotion, made up of small, scattered circles rather than cathedrals and hierarchies. To an outsider, a Marani at prayer is almost indistinguishable from a devotee of Kymara. Only their reverence for the Divine Incantations sets them apart, and it is a detail they take great care to hide.
Where Zodo worship is forbidden, the Marani meet in secret. It is rumored that in some such lands, certain nobles know of them and look the other way. Not all who worship Yu'Mara connect her to Zodo at all. Among some peoples, her faith is simply a gentler path, chosen by those who have seen enough of loud devotion.
The Marani call Yu'Mara the Mother, and their most common blessing is also their simplest: "Praise the Life. Praise the Mother."
Relics
Haen Mara, the Sword of Life
You will need a weapon to fight Yu Kious. While I doubt that you could wield Kymara's Sword, I have used it for inspiration and crafted you one of my own. Use it to break his will.
Yu'Mara, upon presenting Haen Mara
Haen Mara, high xodian for "Blade of Life," was forged by Yu'Mara in 2025 of the First Era, a week after the death of Emperor Killian Xerxes. She made it as she departed the broken body of Calista Xerxes, moved by guilt and a desire for vengeance, and gave it to her chosen knight. Where the Sword of Legend breaks evil, Haen Mara breaks bindings and illusions. It frees anyone it strikes from possession or control, and its wielder can be neither controlled nor possessed. It favors those of good intent and spirit, whatever god they worship and whatever their past failings. The sword glows with a soft golden light, and the undead fear it.
Unlike the Sword of Legend, Haen Mara is not sentient. Yu'Mara placed no part of herself within it. Its current whereabouts are unknown. (Full artifact page to come.)
- 1. The only known and recorded example of Kymara reviving the dead is of one who had been dead a month. It has been recorded that she has been around those who were dead longer, but did not revive them. Many theologians suggest that she is incapable of doing so after a month's time has passed, while those who worship Kymara simply state that she only revived the one because she was asked to, and no one asked her to revive the others. Whether this is a real limitation on Kymara, we cannot be certain. However, Yu'Mara seems to not need a reason and has revived those dead longer still. What is striking here is that she cannot release souls from Xodod while Kymara can. Do those who died, and whose souls had already departed, come back soulless?
