Thalindra

The Pathfinder, The Wayfinder, Mistress of Journeys

Thalindra is the goddess of exploration, adventure and wanderlust, and she is called the Pathfinder, the Wayfinder and Mistress of Journeys. Her sigil is a starry compass rose. The faith holds that she is present in country nobody has walked and on any path being cut for the first time, and that what she attends to is the traveler rather than where the traveler is going.

History

She was mortal first, if the legends have it right. They give her as a woman who would not stay inside the borders of her homeland and left with nothing but her wits and an appetite for what she had not yet seen. She crossed treacherous mountains, sailed water nobody had charted, and walked wilderness nobody had cleared, and she left stories and newly found land behind her. Which homeland she left, and what leaving it cost her, was never written down.

As Mistress of Journeys she is held to guide and protect anyone who goes out looking for something, so that the appetite for it does not die out of the world.

Her prized possession is the Planar Pathfinder, a compass of the interplanar cosmos, said to hold the secrets of the multiverse. She gave it away once, to one of the ancient Mól emperors. Why she gave it to him, the faith gives no answer. Scholars hold that the emperors used it to open realms and dimensions they had no other way to reach. Recovering it is now the whole purpose of one of her orders.

Her following has grown over the centuries among people who want freedom and want the unknown, and it runs from explorers and adventurers to wandering nomads and curious scholars. Temples to her are usually waystations and shelters for travelers, and they are full of maps, journals, and things carried back from far away.

Dogma

Her teaching is exploration, freedom, and the pursuit of a person’s own path. The faith holds that a follower should take the unknown rather than avoid it, go after experiences they have not had, and value the journey as highly as the destination. Self-discovery, the breaking of boundaries, and the celebration of a life spent in motion all follow from that.

Tenets of Faith

• Seek New Horizons: Always strive to explore new places and discover new things.
• Embrace Freedom: Value personal freedom and the freedom of others, breaking any chains that bind.
• Trust in Luck: Have faith in the luck and serendipity that guides true adventurers.
• Celebrate the Journey: Understand that the journey itself is as important as the destination.
• Aid Fellow Travelers: Help and protect those who are on their own journeys.

Rituals and Practices

• Festival of the New Path: An annual celebration where stories of exploration are shared and new journeys are planned.
• Wayfinder’s Blessing: A blessing given to travelers before they set out, asking Thalindra’s protection and guidance.
• Pilgrimage of Discovery: A personal pilgrimage to a destination the pilgrim does not know, undertaken for enlightenment and self-discovery.
• Mapmaker’s Guild: The making and sharing of maps of explored territory, so that what has been learned of the world is passed on.

Consequences of Transgression

• Loss of Direction: Those who betray her teaching are said to end up permanently lost. Whether that is her hand or somebody else’s spite, nobody can reliably tell the two apart.
• Isolation: Followers who fail to aid others may find themselves abandoned, and without the company of other travelers.

Worshipers

Her followers are a mixed group with one appetite in common, and it is for what they have not seen yet. They are explorers, adventurers, wanderers and scholars, and they are known for their courage, their curiosity and their enthusiasm.

They form loose, informal communities rather than congregations, and gather at waystations, inns and campsites to trade stories, maps and supplies. They guard their independence and will still stop for another traveler who needs the help. Temples to Thalindra work as havens: rest, resupply, and direction for whoever is heading out again.

Orders and Sects

The Cartographer’s Guild

The Cartographer’s Guild means to uncover the secrets of the multiverse. They hold that mapping and exploring every corner of existence is how Thalindra’s teaching is finally fulfilled, which is why their members turn up in the most remote and dangerous places they can reach. What drives them hardest is the Planar Pathfinder, which they intend to recover.

The Wayfarer

The Wayfarer’s Guild aids and protects travelers. Where they are numerous they run waystations and safe havens along the major routes, so that anyone on the road has somewhere to rest and resupply.

The Pathfinders

The Pathfinders are elite adventurers who take the most dangerous work there is: charting new territory, recovering lost artifacts. They are celebrated for their bravery and their skill, and camaraderie matters to them as much as the discovery does.

Campaign Updates

Her name has come up in three places: an invocation before a fight, a compliment paid at a camp fire, and possibly a month.

Koa keeps her as one of the seven in his ideopan. He is Free Folk and has spent his life on the road, and he names her for luck. Before the assault on the slaver cave he made a speech to the whole company, asked Snaga to bless their blades and Thalindra to be with them all, and Edrick heckled him for it: oh, a speech, we’re very inspired. Earlier that same season, while Dan sat explaining how the ring moved kidnapped people down the road in crates, Koa asked how Thalindra had not struck him down yet, and said it could not be the Martyr’s mercy keeping him alive.

People who do not keep her still use her name. Dwayne, who guides travelers for a living, thanked the three of them at a camp fire for the way they had held together in the keep, told them he had never seen teamwork like it, and said it was almost as though Thalindra herself watched over them when they traveled. One of them answered that he hoped she was.

Her name may be in the calendar as well. The eighth month is Lindra, the months are held to be named for gods as the days are, and Lindra is one of the three derivations people still point at. Nobody can prove it, and the derivations wore down past proving long before anyone thought to write them out. Koa, Aldo and Mikhail met in Loshev on the 14th of Lindra, AYR 671.