Main Page >> Gods >> Calistria

The Savored Sting
Alignment: CN
Areas of Concern: revenge, lust, luck, trickery
Domains: Chaos, Charm, Knowledge, Luck, Trickery
Favored Weapon: whip
Centers of Worship: Absalom, Galt, Kyonin, Nex, River Kingdoms, The Shackles, Taldor, Varisia
Nationality: Elf

Although the elves worship a great many deities, they hold none so highly as Calistria. The Savored Sting speaks to the mercurial, detached nature that makes elves elves. Some favor her as a trickster goddess, while others appreciate her lustful, audacious spirit. Ever scheming and planning her next conquest, Calistria is always maneuvering to attain a more advantageous position. Spies, prostitutes, and thrillseekers are often followers of Calistria. Iconography of the faith depicts her as the ideal of elven beauty, dressed in revealing gowns and having long, graceful ears, slender limbs, and a suggestive smile playing across her lips. Giant wasps, her favored creatures, commonly appear beside her; unlike bees, wasps can sting again and again without dying — which represents Calistria’s vindictiveness.

Temples to Calistria often host a lively community of sacred prostitutes, each with his or her own contacts in the community. The resulting hotbed of gossip, double-dealing, and opportunities for revenge assure the cult’s growing popularity. In elven lands, her temples are more like thieves’ guilds, catering to suspicious lovers seeking evidence and wealthy folk wishing to escalate feuds, and only secondarily serving as a place for carnal release. Formal clothing is very scant, typically yellow silk that covers little and conceals even less, often augmented with henna dyes on the palms of the hands and in narrow bands on the arms. Her holy text is The Book of Joy, a guide to many passions.

Calistria’s promiscuity is well documented in many religious texts (including her own), but often these accounts seem to be at odds, indicating that some of her supposed trysts may be little more than wishful thinking on the parts of other gods and goddesses. Some tales preach that Cayden Cailean got drunk and took the Test of the Starstone after Calistria rebuffed his advances, claiming that no mortal could enjoy her charms and survive.

Calistria shows her favor by granting sudden runs of luck in worshipers’ attempts to find companionship, while those who displease her often find themselves plagued by wasps with an unerring ability to sting in sensitive places.

The Wasp Queens are an order of female elven and half-elven thieves sworn to Calistria.