Deities of Hearth: Hearthmatron

 

Hearthmatron

Goddess of Life

Hearthmatron is the mother of all living, the soul of Hearth itself. She is the patron goddess of midwives, farmers, and families, and the force of unselfish good in the world. Peasants pray to her for fertility, both in themselves and in their crops, and all those who are sick beseech her healing powers. Of all the gods, Hearthmatron has the most clerics, all of whom wander the land ridding it of disease and purging it of undead. 

Wise and even-tempered, Hearthmatron values community, stability, and the balance of nature. She is the god of maternity, family, orphans, domestication, and agriculture, as well as defense of the home and territory.

Hearthmatron is depicted as a pregnant, middle-aged woman wearing green robes and flowers in her hair.

Hearthmatron’s Influence

Hearthmatron governs nature as it comes into play in the lives of mortals, representing domesticated nature—a bounteous, nurturing provider. Mortals seek her favor because the fertility of nature is necessary for their existence. It isn’t her wrath they fear—she is not a god of storms or plagues—but her withdrawal. Without her, plants, livestock, families, and communities simply fail to thrive. Her goodwill is a bulwark against both physical starvation and starvation of the spirit: despair, loneliness, and moral weakness.

Hearthmatron promises that spring will always come again, trees will always bear fruit, and flocks will always bear young. Children will always be born, parents will always care for them and be cared for in their turn. Great fortune or adventure might not be at hand, but the little joys of life—the smell of spring blossoms, the sweetness of ripe fruit, the flaming beauty of autumn leaves, the fellowship of community—can be savored. In short, Hearthmatron is loving parenthood personified: the force of good in the world that seeks to unite all life into good works, independent of law or tradition.

Hearthmatron’s scion creatures are the dryad and the treant.

Hearthmatron’s Goals

Hearthmatron's fundamental concern is for the well-being of mortal folk, starting with their physical health but also including their need for security, love, and belonging. Her ultimate goal is to rid the universe of negative energy, hatred, and selfishness, to bring harmony by purifying the souls of all its inhabitants.

Divine Relationships

Hearthmatron and Skyfather were once wedded, and their focus on the natural order of the elements and wilds still bond them together. After all, in order for plants to grow, they need rain and sunlight, which Skyfather provides. Hearthmatron is also close to her daughter, Moondancer, whose influence over beasts falls hand in hand with Hearthmatron’s focus on the growth of plants and the nurturing of life.

Though Hearthmatron recognizes the need for death as much as life, she detests Deepwarden, who anxiously looks forward to the deaths of mortals for his own gains, and whose plagues of rot and darkness put those she gives life to in jeopardy.

Hearthmatron also dislikes Lawbringer, whose iron-handed approach to justice with no regard for the livelihood of those it affects and without mercy works against Hearthmatron’s efforts to bring unity, peace, and freedom to mortals.

Worshiping Hearthmatron

Hearthmatron's favor is gained through prayer, meditation, service to family and strangers, and diligent work. Her primary worshipers are farmers, midwives, and the family units who desire unity and offspring. A week-long festival in the autumntime called Hearthmatron’s Harvest is practiced by many rural communities, in which the bounties of the earth are shared and disagreements between each other are suspended temporarily to focus on the joys of life together.

Hearthmatron’s Champions

Alignment: Always good

Suggested Classes: Cleric, druid, paladin, ranger

Domains: Life, Nature, Peace

Paladin Oaths: Devotion, Redemption

Suggested Backgrounds: Acolyte, folk hero, sage, urchin

Most champions of Hearthmatron are advocates of community and family. They typically form tight-knit squads or surrogate families and take care of their people.

The Five Commands of Hearthmatron

1. Honor your parents and the elderly by heeding their wisdom.
2. Have offspring, and teach them the importance of peace, service, and work.
3. Be kind to nature and all life that does not seek to take your own.
4. Be hospitable to friends and strangers alike.
5. Fill your life with peace, avoid conflict, and reflect on the beauty of life.

Devotion to Hearthmatron

Following Hearthmatron means dedicating yourself to caring for others, promoting community, preserving nature, and putting the needs of others above your own. After all, Hearthmatron asks nothing for herself.  As a follower of Hearthmatron, consider the ideals on the Hearthmatron’s Ideals table as alternatives to those suggested for your background.

Hearthmatron's Ideals

d6	Ideal
1	Protection. I face the horrors of the darkness so the common people don’t have to.
2	Heroism. The powerful must protect the weak.
3	Bounty. Hearth provides, and I will share its gifts with those less fortunate.
4	Stewardship. We must care for the natural world as it cares for us.
5	Charity. I always try to help those in need, no matter what the personal cost.
6	Redemption. There’s a spark of good in everyone.

Earning and Losing Piety

You increase your piety score to Hearthmatron when you expand her influence in the world in a concrete way through acts such as these:

• Turning a wild field into fertile cropland
• Feeding those who are starving
• Nursing someone back to health
• Volunteering for manual labor for strangers

Your piety score to Hearthmatron decreases if you diminish her influence in the world, contradict her ideals, or make her look ridiculous or ineffectual through acts such as these:

• Destroying a settlement’s food source
• Spreading a disease
• Starting a fire that threatens a settlement or forest

Hearthmatron’s Devotee

Piety 3+ Hearthmatron Trait

As a devotee of Hearthmatron, you have proven yourself a worthy potential champion of the goddess of life and nature. As a bonus action, you can invoke her protection; spectral tree bark covers you, providing you with a +1 bonus to AC for 1 minute. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

Hearthmatron’s Votary

Piety 10+ Hearthmatron Trait

You can cast create food and water with this trait. Once you cast the spell in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned.

Hearthmatron’s Disciple

Piety 25+ Hearthmatron Trait

By performing an hour-long ritual, you can conjure enough grapes to fill three vials of wine. Each vial serves as a potion of healing for 24 hours, after which it loses this property. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Champion of Life

Piety 50+ Hearthmatron Trait

You can increase your Constitution or Wisdom score by 2 and also increase your maximum for that score by 2.

Omens of Hearthmatron

d8	Omen of Hearthmatron
1	The scent of ripe wheat is carried on a sudden breeze.
2	Trees and vines coil to hinder movement.
3	A character’s scar or lingering wound heals instantly.
4	A character suddenly feels the bliss of having eaten a delicious meal.
5	Nearby plants sprout and bloom instantly.
6	Dead leaves turn green, and fruit cores regenerate.
7	A character experiences an intensely nostalgic desire to visit a location.
8	Rustling plants sound like whispered words.

Hearthmatron’s Domain: Greenrest

Greenrest is a realm of endless fields of golden grain, soft fields of the softest grass, rich gardens of flora and vegetation, and orchards laden with the ripest and sweetest of fruit. It is a realm of absolute comfort and peace, where there is nothing to fear and everything to love and enjoy. Greenrest was once part of Hearth in time immemorial, but it was broken off and made into its own plane, untouched by mortality and thus a perfectly ideal representation of what Hearth might be without death, war, or evil. No sprawling cities mar its surface—only small villages of familial communities surrounded by wildlife.

Hearthmatron’s faithful worshipers and those who cared for others or valued family spend their paradise here in Greenrest, tending to fields that always yield bounty, spending time with other worthy family members, and relaxing in the boughs of cradling trees or on beds of wildflowers. Greenrest’s sky is eternally the soothing color of a sunrise or sunset. No harm can befall any resident of Greenrest, be it disease, injury, or anything else. Every resident lives in perfect harmony with the other residents and all the peaceful animals that roam about.

For those who led violent and sinful lives, who shunned family or disgraced their ancestors, or who desecrated life and meddled with undeath, Greenrest is an eternal punishment. Here, such residents find nothing to do but sit around and sleep, surrounded by suffocatingly fragrant flowers and residents of infuriatingly calm and patient demeanor. Such residents are surrounded by the life they made a mockery of, doomed to an afterlife of boredom and apathy.

Eternal Peace. Creatures cannot make attack rolls and are immune to all damage, disease, and poison.