Faiths of Narya: Lady Tsuki-Hime of the Lunari

 

It is not known if the bright elves are an earlier tribe of the elves of Saesun, perhaps their ancestors, or if they in fact are another offshoot of the original tribe, like the iaurdin, but they are mentioned in tales of the Wyrd Wars. Some of their legends have been passed down through the ages and can be found in libraries and around campfires in Sublanarya. Strangely, in their own most important legend, they claim a different origin altogether from any elves of Sublanarya. They had many strange gods and customs alien to Subalnarya but one character is intertwined with them and goes back to their origins in the Titanic Age:

Lady Tsuki-Hime of the Lunari. The legend begins in a very humble place. It begins in a bamboo grove.

A bamboo cutter was walking on a night in which three moons hung high in the sky, rather than the two typical of the time, and cast an eerie light on his path. Wind buffeted the bamboo, making it creak and chatter like old bones, and sent a chill over the bamboo cutter. That was when he saw a mysteriously shining shoot of bamboo in the middle of a clearing. The bamboo cutter cut the stalk open and, inside, he found a small glowing baby girl. He and his wife had been praying to the gods for a child for years and, being good and simple folk, took this as a blessing by the gods.

The bamboo cutter and his wife raised the child as their own, naming her Kaguya-hime, a name meaning "bright night princess", after the night that the bamboo cutter had found his precious daughter. It was not the only blessing. The bamboo cutter soon found that, whenever he cut into a shoot of bamboo, gold coins would spill from them. They became wealthy, but were careful not to be too greedy with their gift, and Kaguya-hime grew into an extraordinarily beautiful young woman with skin as pale and bright as the moon, eyes like gem stones, and hair that twinkled like a starry night.

Princes fought for her her hand in marriage but she rebuked them, sending them off on impossible errands, and making them look like fools. Eventually, she became afflicted be an unassailable suitor, a young Prince named Mikado, who she would not dare to burden with such impossible trials and, worse yet, she fell in love with him. And they married.

But all was not well. Kaguya never felt right in the palace, none more so than she had felt right with her adopted parents, and she would often be found sitting and looking the moon with sad eyes. Even after bearing children for Prince Mikado, she still suffered from this longing.

Then, one night, it came to her in a dream:

Kaguya felt out of place in Narya because she was not from Narya. She was from a kingdom of one of the moons. Her people were immortals called the "Lunari". She was the crown princess of the Lunari kingdom, which had fallen into a terrible war, and, to protect her, her people sent her to Narya to hide as a mortal until the war had ended.

After awaking from her dream, she left a note for her husband and children and fled the palace on foot. She ran home to her parents, where she told them the truth, that the gold that fallen from the bamboo her father cut was the moon people's way of repaying him and his wife, and insisted that, while she loved her family on Narya, she was needed in her home kingdom but, that once she had achieved peace and balance, she would return.

 Until then, she promised to listen for their prayers and to help in times of great need.

With that, a third moon appeared in the sky and a great procession of strange moon folk appeared and took Kaguya, who revealed her divine form and who's true name was Tsuki-Hime, back to their moon kingdom.

Prince Mikado had the land searched, from the bottom of every lake to the tip of every mountain, before he relinquished his beloved. He built a shrine in her honor on the top of the highest mountain, naming it Kaguyama, and there his children would some day settle. Her children resembled their mother and, with her parting, seemed to take on her divine features:

Her children had pale skin of the moon, pointed ears, silver hair and eyes, and bore strange markings on their foreheads. Her sons and their descendants bore a single circular mark in the center of their forehead into their hairline and her daughters bore two circular marks above their brows. They also bore other markings and later descendants had more exotic markings and hair colors. They were beautiful and blessed with supernaturally long lives. They had many divine gifts and blessings, that they attributed to the Lunari and their mother, and they were grateful.

The children of Kaguya would establish a new and powerful kingdom around the forested mountain of Kaguyama and their descendants would become known as the tirikujin or "bright elves". They would conquer and unite the surrounding kingdoms, each of her children becoming the heads of noble houses and, like their motherly ancestor left Narya to do in the kingdom of the Lunari, they created order in the region.

The bright elves established the kingdom of Kaguyama.

LADY TSUKI-HIME

Title(s)

The Bamboo Cutter's Daughter,  The Bright Mother, The Moon Princess, Princess Kaguya, Rabbit Goddess

Pantheon(s)

Kaguyama???

Power Level

Intermediary Deity

Alignment

Lawful Good

Symbol

Three moons in a triangular pattern or a white rabbit on a crescent moon

Portfolio

The moon, light, night, dreams, life, death

Domains

Arcana, Light, Life

Worshipers

Bright elves,

Favored Weapon

Staff, spear

Holy Day(s)

The First Moon Festival