Silvanus
The Long-Legged, Sucellos, Cocidius, Silenus. CG greater power of nature, forests, druids (He/Him)
Pantheon: Celtic (Gaulish), Roman, Faerûnian
Symbol: Summer oak tree
Realm: Outlands / Tir na Og / Summeroak
Silvanus, the Long-Legged, is an influential power who’s established a presence in many a pantheon. While Silvanus is his name in Faerûn, he’s called Sucellos by the Gauls, Cocidius by the Britons, and Silenus by the Greeks. In all these places he’s the power of nature in all its beauty and savagery, natural beasts, forests, and patron of druids. His symbol of an oak tree in summer representing his strength, endurance, and unbending and stubborn opinion.
He appears most commonly as the Old Father: a withered, bearded human face floating among trees or sprouting from ancient oak trunks. His skin is brown or gray, and fissured like weathered bark. He can be wild, unpredictable, and emotionally distant, caring little for the machinations of mortals or other deities. He’s also known for being wrathful beyond measure toward those who threaten wild places—particularly those who use fire carelessly or work as woodcutters, since he views the destruction of ancient trees as sacrilege against the natural order.
Silvanus stands aloof from the petty power struggles and short-term alliances of gods and mortals. He measures time in the lives of mighty oak trees. His sole focus is the balance of nature, and this draws many druids to his cause. Like Silvanus himself, they place the importance of nature above all else, often valuing it even over their own lives. His philosophy values preservation of nature and the untamed wilderness in its raw state, where growth and decay, water and drought, wildfire and frost exist in eternal, impartial equilibrium. Silvanus believes that wild nature is the true state of the multiverse, that civilisation is merely a temporary aberration. He teaches his followers should protect the wilderness from the continuous encroachment of so-called ‘progress’ with vigour, and strive to overcome peoples who would tame, harvest, or pave over the sacred wild places.
Summeroak
Unlike the manicured gardens of some other nature deities, Summeroak is a realm deep within Tir na Og where the boundary between god and grove dissolves entirely. When in his realm, Silvanus does not dwell in the forest but becomes the forest, as his consciousness spreads through every oak leaf, acorn, and root. There is lush, wild vegetation, and in places the tree canopy is so dense that it appears as if no light could ever penetrate it. The trees seem to be watching as you pick your way carefully through the thick undergrowth. Summeroak is a truly ancient place, with groves of trees that grew from the bones the giants whose bodies originated the planes. Indeed, their trunks are still marked with the scars of the divine hammer-blows that shaped the world. In the power’s aspect as Cocidius, the realm has phantom hunting grounds where you might see a spectral stag with flaming antlers races through the moonlit clearing, pursued by the gleeful shades of heroes who died defending the wild places. Embodying Silenus, a companion of Dionysus and embodiment of wild intoxication, Summeroak has springs of sap-wine that induce visions of the world as the trees see it—slow, patient, indifferent to the rush of mortal lives. Cutters can become drunk on the ecstasy of photosynthesis and the deep, green joy of simply being alive. Summeroak is more than a pastoral idyll or savage wilderness, but also embodies nature as intoxication and sacred violence. Druids who linger too long here may find their skin turning to bark, their blood to sap, their minds to the slow, vast consciousness of the oak, until they realise they must choose to return to mortality and forget, or remain and become part of the forest.
His proxy, the Hierophant (proxy half-elf druid [she/her] / N) is an aiuvarin druid who serves as Silvanus’s voice and hand in the realm. Chant goes that she’s been endowed with the ability to transform into any kind of animal or tree native to Summeroak. She loves to seek out those who do not appreciate the splendour of living in the wild, plant the seed of reverence for nature, and nurture it into full bloom. When in her true form, she appears as a green-skinned woman with elven features, painted with woad dyes, brilliant green eyes, and hair filled with flowers and twigs.
Silvanus has lately been taking a growing interest in the re-emergent Plane of Wood, seeing it as both a paradise of pure natural growth and a tragedy in progress—the plane’s forests embody everything he reveres, yet the Mills, the Blightlands, and the exploitation by the Planar Trade Consortium represent everything he opposes. His faith has recently sent druids to the plane, to bless those who fight against the lumber-cutting, and the ower himself has apparently started sending prophetic whispers through the leaves of the most ancient trees, warning woodcutters of his wrath. However, slow-moving as this ancient power is, he has yet to act decisively against the threat, and the Planar Trade Consortium is used to opposition from meddling forces.
Canonical Sources: On Hallowed Ground [2e] p38,62,70,75,168,172,181 (main description); Manual of the Planes [5e] p85 (brief description)
Source: Jon Winter-Holt
