Diancastra

In the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Diancastra is the trickster-goddess of the giant pantheon. Her symbol is a sea-green streak, which is based on the mysterious mark she bears on her shoulder.

Her rank is given in Monster Mythology as "heroine/demigoddess," which is the same given for the hero-goddess Zinzerena.

Publication history

Diancastra was first detailed in the book Monster Mythology (1992), including details about his priesthood.^[1] Her role in the cosmology of the Planescape campaign setting was described in On Hallowed Ground (1996).^[2]

Description

Diancastra has many faces and wiles, from a 4-foot-tall (1.2 m), slender elven maid to a 25-foot-tall (7.6 m) giant. Two traits remain constant in all her forms: her green-flecked amber eyes and the streak of sea-green skin along her left shoulder blade. She is sometimes accompanied by a magical owl.

Diancastra is both impudent and arrogant. She often defeats her enemies by taunting them until they are enraged beyond reason, and then ensnaring them in illusions. She enjoys worldly pleasures and drinks to excess. She can charm people, especially males, merely by gazing at them. She casts elemental spells as an 18th level wizard. She can walk on water and her skin has an automatically-renewing stoneskin effect.

Relationships

Diancastra is the daughter of the creator god Annam and a mortal giant, most probably of the storm giant or cloud giant breeds. Like her half-sister Hiatea, she won divinity from her father through great deeds, but she did so through wit and guile rather than heroic feats in battle. Her father demanded that she circle the Oerth in an hour or less, and she did so by tearing a picture of the world from one of Stronmaus's atlases, walking around the image instead. Some believe the only reason Annam accepted this trick was that he believed that his only way back from his despair and ennui would be Diancastra and her wit and humor.

Her other half-siblings include Grolantor, Iallanis, Karontor, Skoraeus Stonebones, Stronmaus, Surtr, and Thrym. Memnor and Vaprak are also sometimes named as her relatives.

Diancastra's adventures and misadventures are long and storied. She has stolen a magic necklace from Blibdoolpoolp, snitched spellbooks from a demigod servitor of Surtr, won a drinking contest at the Seelie Court (who trained her as a bard), and solved the puzzles of Lyzandred. She has been the lover of Deep Sashelas, who gifted her with her sea-green mark and the ability to breathe in water. She often takes on lovers for the things they can teach or give her.

Realm

Diancastra is a wandering deity, calling no plane her home for long. She lives by her wits, solving riddles, making grim sages laugh. She searches for knowledge of illusions, bardic magic, obscure legends and lore, and handsome men.

Worshippers

Diancastra is slowly becoming recognized as a minor fertility deity among non-evil giants, who invoke her name if they wish their romances to be blessed with children. The result is often children, called by the ominous name "Diancastra's brood," as cheeky and willful as Diancastra herself. Her cult is still very small, however, and she has no priests or shamans as yet.

References