Yondalla

The Homekeeper

Domains: Nature, Forge, Unity

The Homekeeper, Yondalla, is the goddess of protection and the hearth and the patron saint of halflings. She is depicted as a shorter humanoid wielding a shield with a cornucopia at its front. In the pantheon, she is credited as a goddess of good harvests as well as protection and defense, but many of the taller folk opt to pray to the Earth or the Sentinel, respectively, instead. This is not for lack of belief in the goddess, but as a sign of respect for the halflings, who love her the most.

When the fleet came, the halflings had had a particularly rough history. They fled a continent in which their lands were overrun by talk folk. And even here, they were the smallest folk to populate this new world. To avoid being trampled again, they maintained some cultural distance between themselves and the other folk, and they defined this distance in among other ways by favouring their own patron goddess, Yondalla. In many beliefs Yondalla is through to be a daughter of the Earth. It is said she was awakened to aid the Earth in it own creation. She is said to be even more creative and loving than the Earth, but more focused in her work. She is said to have made badgers and dormice but also tressyms. Most importantly, she created the halflings, and she loved them the most. However, seeing the larger creations Earth made, she grew worried for her creatures well-being. She granted them gifts to stay hidden and defend themselves - with tooth and claw and even more.

Yondalla and Avandra are thought to be closely allied - it was Avandra who blessed the halflings with their unusual luck, as a token of love to Yondalla.