Saint Smaragdine

Appearance
Saint Smaragdine is depicted as an older woman with a genteel and civilized appearance. Her face is round, plump, and has the serene calmness of a grandmother looking after her playful grandchildren. She is also almost always depicted wearing antique clothes of high fashion such as lacy dresses with stout corsets, lace gloves, and the like. In paintings, she is colored with brunette or auburn hair and her checks have a reddish hue to them. Her dress is always some shade of green, and in paint or stone, she bears a container of some sort, though a small cup or a bottle of wine are both common.

History/Background
In the heady days of the Old World Saint Smaragdine was simply Smaragdine the Muse of Potent Potables, the goddess of brew. But in those days the arts of distillation and fermentation had reached unparalleled heights in sophistication, production, and diversity. During those days, Smaragdine was much more of a young whorish goddess of the vine primarily interested in the drunken revelry of those who called on her as they tipped back another bottle. Those who made offerings to her Brewery-Shrines and Temple-Distilleries could expect the 'clergy' to cure them of the pains of hang-overs.

The Nightmare War almost destroyed this young and very decadent goddess, visibly aging her ageless form. The art of brewing fell from it's illustrious heights to a barbaric form. Instead of refined and palatable ales, stouts, and porters, those who worked around at brewing at best made quirt, or raw beer. This rank beverage was gassy, spoiled quickly, and of radically variable quality, ranging from sour to nauseating. A few clung to the old ways, but even they came to their ends in a time when life was not a celebration of the success of man and his civilization, but a brutal era of civilization tottering on the edge of near collapse.

Rebirth
While some gods rose from the ashes to become new paragons of power, such as Sangia and the rest of the Trinity, or took on new roles, such as Terat, the Goddess of War, Smaragdine altered her folio and took in all sorts of brewers and beverage-makers. Eventually, the art of brewing decent alcohol returned, and the vintners returned to the vinyards. In other regions, the product of Tea reappeared, and Smaragdine took the Tea Farmers and workers under her aegis. In the south of Falhath, Smaragdine found shrines popping up to her around the tea farms and in the homes of tea merchants and others who relied on the new and growing trade to survive.

Conversion to Trinistine
Spirits and other divine entities residing in Falhath discovered the Trinity the hard way. The new divine oligarchy would not tolerate outside worship of other gods, they claimed dominion over all of Falhath and had ambitious plans to claim all of Aterrizar. While the Via Mortus flickered and vanished to underground worship, and an uneasy Detente was found with Terat and her Cult, weaker gods and muses were forced to submit to the dominion of the Trinity. Some fought, some fled, and a good number accepted this conversion. Smaragdine was one of the latter, accepting the offer of the Trinity to become a 'saint' of the faith.

In exchange for not challenging the dominance of the Trinity and dividing the flock of worshippers, these new Saints would gain a 'Tomb' where they would receive individual worship as well as a stipend of magnessence from the Trinity. Smaragdine's tomb and shrine were originally in the city of Daurus, not far from Sangreal, but later she petitioned to have it moved to Buzzard's Bay following the sudden growth of the tea industry in that region.

The Patron Saint of Beverages, Hang-Overs, Regrets
Smaragdine enjoys a small, but steady worship in the form of drunks pouring out libations in her name to protect them from hang-overs and getting into too much trouble while on a bender. Brewers, vintners and tea merchants also make regular prayers in her name to look over their works and preserve them. Now as an older looking matronly woman, she has an air of temperance about her, one that says to have a few drinks, have a good time, but to know when it's time to tuck your tail and scurry home.

Special Equipment

Sweet Cordial - Tasting of red berries and stout liquor, this cordial cures pain. This does not cure the cause of the pain, just the pain itself. Sweet Cordials tend to be used as pain-releavers for the injured when broken bones are reset.

Cordial of Scorn - A thick brew tasting of bitter licorice, this cordial is drunk by women who fear they have been gotten with the seed of a man in a drunken loss of judgement. Some have described the taste of the cordial as 20 years of scorn distilled into a single gulp.

Cordial of Sacrament - Much like the Sweet Cordial, the Cordial of Sacrament has a sweet taste, though this is only rumored. There are those souls who by chance or another loose the will to live. This is not taken by the depressed or the melancholy, but by those unfortunates who are consumed by illness born of the wastelands, suffer from constant pains from unnatural injuries (remember than next time you get stabbed with a demon blade, ain't no normal wound that one) or have reached the end of good life, and look to only a lingering death confined to a bed.

Cordial of the Divine - This is the storied ambrosia of the gods, the panacea and cure-all of myth. While the lords of the Celestial City sup on meals of this ambrosia from plates of celestial gold, Smaragdine can grant three drops to a mortal once every century. Said mortal is imbued with the might of the divine and becomes semi-divine and can gain admittance to the Celestial city to become a servitor of a god there.

The Temple of Libations
Located in Buzzard's Bay, the Temple of Libations is Smaragdine's demense when she sojourns to the mortal realms. Surrounded by the bustling industrial section of the growing city, the temple is boxed in by the warehouses of tea merchants, the storehouses of the distillers, and the vats of the brewmeisters. The local establishments tithe to the Temple which redistributes this wealth, as well as blessing their endeavors. The Temple and the Clergy of Smaragdine are nominally under the jurisdiction of Sangia, both in terms of folios, and in geography. This puts these uncommon clerics in the position of serving not one deity, but two.

The Clergy
No longer are the days when nubile youths would don crowns of ivy and cavort half naked singing of the Muse of the Bottle. Now the clerics of Smaragdine wear the white cassocks of Trinitarian Priests, with a fring of gold for Sangia, and an emerald green sash for Smaragdine. Most of these clerics tend to be more chaotic in nature and 'need looking after', something that Smaragdine is capable of.

Other clerical orders tend to look down on the clergy devoted to Smaragdine as freeloaders and drunkards. While in some instances this is true, but without the existance of these less than strict orders and saints within the Kingdom of Trinistine, the entire faith would be eaten alive from the inside by intolerance, zealotry and hatred.

I have seen a world where the living worship the murdered, raise martyrs above the living and make divine the radical, the intolerant, and the unforgiving. In that future there is only room for hate, there is only time for screams of defiance and whimpers of death. While these bitter seeds make for a thick harvest, the crop is misery and pain. Let the gods not forget that they too can laugh. There is joy in this world, a place between draconian law and anarchy. Try to find it, before you destroy it.

Smaragdine to Terat

Smaragdine and Terat
Having both been muses, often traveling in the same circles, Terat and Smaragdine know each other very well. The followers of both have respect for the other on a level not engendered between the Cult of Terat and any other entity of the Trinitine Faith. Some consider the interaction between these two deities to be the thing that prevented Terat from becoming as monsterous as the minions she and hers fought in the wastelands.