Mielikki

Mielikki goddess of the forest is known as a skillful healer who heals the paws of animals who have escaped traps, helps chicks that have fallen from their nests and treats the wounds of wood grouses after their mating displays. Mielikki is believed to help sentient creatures if they know well enough to ask her. Those who are devoted to her tend to know well the healing herbs. She is often associated with Silvanus the Forest Father.

Her symbol is a unicorn's head. See also Ehlonna.

Autun and Stool shared a dream in which Mielikki appeared. In this dream, Mielikki charged Autun with the task to discover why it is that the Underdark "no longer feeds the surface as the dirt feeds the roots" and has become more distant to her.

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From Autun's backstory, we learn that the Pilgrimage Rite of Mielikki is where a devotee seeks a true unicorn and attempts to offer it a gift -- traditionally a gem -- in hopes of gaining favor with the goddess. Roncal sent Autun to embark upon this rite.

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Mielikke in Autun's Eyes

Autun knows many tales of the origins of the Primordials and the planes, but he holds none close to his heart. To Autun, however it came to be, the worlds are here now, and Mielikki is goddess of their forests.

The seemingly infinite possibilities and variations of life can be seen by Autun as he scoops a handful of forest floor and sifting it through his fingers. He will behold the tiny insects, the leaves decaying to nurture new life, the white threads of the mushrooms which connect all roots in the forest. Autun will sit quietly and listen to the bustle of creatures, the songs of birds, and the gentle babble of the stream, for all of this is the forest, all of this is the realm of Mielikki. While she is not the creator of all life, Mielikke guides life in the (sometimes harsh) beauty which is the forest.

Mielikki created the bear, that great creature which serves as an example for us all, strong and wise and at times playful .... The bear never attacks with malice, but Autun knows to never stand between a sow bear and her young.

Looking at the creatures of the forest, Autun learns that most are good to their own kind -- even the fights over territory are typically more show than force. He also sees that getting enough is focus, few creatures consume more than they need. Autun sees this in both the fox and the rabbit, each hungry, each scared, yet each having times of warm, safety, and full stomachs. For if there is a spirit of luck to make a life in the harsh conditions of nature, Mielikki is that force. She listens to the hopes of hunters and aids them in their catches. She protects grazing beasts in the forest and grants them the powers of swift and silent escape.

She is imagined as a human woman to the humans, as an elf to the elves, but how can she be either? She is no mortal -- if she has a heart, it beats but once per spring, pumping the sap up to the top of the tallest the trees and her heart's chambers refill again in the fall as the trees drop their leaves and the sap returns to the ground.

Yet infinite and divine as Mielikki must be, Autun knows that somehow some part of her has a consciousness not too alien to his own. In dreams she has spoken to Autun, with a voice as one might expect from a mortal.

He suspects that Grove of the Unicorns must be the perfect forest. Autun imagines great trunks meters in diameter stretching into the sky. He imagines Silvanus (the Forest Father) as a great Sequoian Treant and as Mielikki's friend with whom she shares the joy in the tending of the forests on this world and others ... that slow maturation as they grow and change over centuries.

Autun knows that Mielikke manifests from time-to-time in the form of a mortal being ... sometims a unicorn, sometimes a bear, sometimes a human or elf or other. Granting fortune to those who treat the forest's bounty as gifts or helping in need -- be they a chick that has fallen from the nest, an animal with a wounded paw having escaped a trap, a grouse hurt in a mating display, or a person hunting small game, mushrooms, or berries. Autun suspects she finds manifestating as mortal an enjoyable way to experience the parts of the worlds she guides.

Autun also pays respect to Mielikke's son Nyyrikki, role model for brave hunters and tireless tenders of deer and cattle. Additionally Autun thanks Mielikke's daughter Tuulikki, who helps Mielikki by ensuring that the forests are well-stocked with edible creatures, plants, and mushrooms.

Since his capture and his great adventure in the Underdark, Autun believes all of this to be part of a greater plan of Mielikke. They were guided to Dawnbringer. He sees his fellow adventures are hand-picked by Mielikke -- Stool and he shared a dream to Neverlight Grove with Mielikke's voice, Ezri was clearly touched by her, Kais was gifted a quiver of her blessing, perhaps the others have been blessed as well, but those signs have either been too subtle for him or have yet to manifest. This struggle against demons is not simply Autun's fight, it is the fight that Mielikke has charged him with. He shall be her hand. He shall be her trumpet. He shall be her Axe. It may take many strokes, but eventually, like a great tree with a rotten core, the evil shall be felled, and new life shall grow.

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Deities & Demigods