Milda

Details
Symbol:

Homeplane: Alignment: Lawful Good

Portfolio: Forges, protection, weapons, tools

Worshippers:

Domains Artifice, Nobility (leadership) Protection, Strength

Favored Weapon: "The Lady's Hammer" (warhammer)

History and Relationships
Dwarves are beings of the earth, and their deities are no different. The explosion of life on this new world spurred something in its depths. Milda, Lady of the Forge, was birthed from the stone beneath our feet. She awoke deep, deep inside the earth, using her mighty hammer to carve a tunnel out and into the above ground. Looking about, she was not pleased with what she saw. Sure, there was verdant greenery and birds and beast of all kinds, even those that burrowed in the ground, but there was no diversity. Large swathes of land and water patchworked the surface, but there were no real changes in elevation. No mountains. No chasms.

She hefted her hammer.

The Forging of the World

Her initial strike shook the world, serving as both a test and a warning. Her second strike shoved an entire mountain range up from the flat plain, causing numerous eruptions of volcanoes. She spent the next several weeks roaming the world, adjusting it as she saw fit. A river here, a valley there, a mountain range created and then leveled. Eons of erosion and other world-shaping events occuring in that brief span of time.

She took a look at her handiwork afterwards and was satisfied, but not for long.

Milda's Children

As she spent time walking the wide world and tweaking terrain features as she saw fit, she entered a large cave system that had been formed. Her eyes were drawn to the bare cavern walls, bereft of any gems or minerals. She made a great effort to shed a single tear, which shimmered and coalesced into a large diamond which she held to her bosom briefly then bodily threw into the bowels of the earth, with the exhortation to seed gems and sow metals throughout the earth. This diamond shattered and reformed into the body of a sturdy dwarven god, her son Garond Jewelbeard. She continued to travel through the tunnels, pausing when she entered a rather large open cavern. Here, she formed a stone throne and sat, contemplating the life that bustled on the surface. She fell asleep, exhausted from her labors and when she came to, she discovered that her dreams had brought forth a young dwarven woman similar to her in features.

"I will make a home for our people, Mother." Chaldina said simply, as she began softening bits of stone to create the dwarven people. Short and stocky like herself, her mother, and her brother. These would be the first people to find a home on this planet.

Obedience
Gaze into the fire of your forge. If you do not have ready access to a forge, you may substitute any source of flame. Hold a piece of metal over the fire. If you are currently forging something, it should be the metal you are working with. Get it as hot as you need to work with if you have a current project and maintain that temperature expertly, or else get it as hot as you can. Contemplate how the heat of the forge's fire, despite its simplicity, is necessary to produce the most beautiful works of metal, and how metal, even when heated to glowing, can return to its original strength, if not grow stronger.

Gain a +1 sacred bonus to the metal-related crafting skill of your choice; +1 bonus to natural armor that stacks with any existing natural armor. Additionally, halve any nonmagical fire damage.