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The Land
The Land is not a Fae, she is the physical manifestation of the territory The Ash controls.
Character arc
In order for a district to be claimed by the Light Fae, each Ash has to make a covenant with The Land in a secret, mystic ceremony called Bohsee ahn talahv that bonds The Ash and The Land. The Ash swears to protect the good of The Land, and in return The Land is good to his people. In olden days this bond meant better crops and less disease; now it resulted in longer-lasting infrastructure, more wealth, and less crime — but only if the marriage ceremony was consummated. The soul of The Land takes on a corporeal form with which The Ash mates.
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The Heart Stone
When each Ash is on the verge of death, he begins to lose his bond with The Land. If a Dark Fae wants to steal the covenant with The Land, they can attempt to do it at this time. If he or she succeeds, the Dark would reign over the territory and all the Light Fae that currently live in that territory are forced into exile.
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Gaia
Corporeal manifestation of The Land
The Heart Stone is the physical manifestation of the bond between The Ash and The Land. To steal The Land from The Ash, the Stone must be broken with the Sword of Agros and thereby completely sever the bond.
Awaking after The Heart Stone was broken, The Land appeared as a young, blonde woman in a white dress named Gaia. Gaia is clearly intelligent and realized that Zael, the Sluagh who destroyed the stone, was not The Ash.
Trivia
- In ancient Irish culture, the ideal kingship was one where a king mated with the Earth goddess in a fertility rite called a ban-feis. This belief was based on hieros gamos, the ancient Greek myth of a sacred marriage between fertility deities.[1]
- Banfeis was a common act of gaining the kingship in the literature of the [Early Medieval] time, which may or may not have been an actual practice. It referred to sleeping with a woman, particularly but not only in the marital bed. The Irish people of the time believed that lands themselves were personified by women, so the thinking was if that mystical woman gave herself to you, you would receive not just rights to her, but to the land she represented as well. [2]
- The concept of "land" as a goddess or sacred person is widespread in the mythologies of many cultures. Kings in Ireland, Wales and Scotland (also, Japan and Sumer) "married" the goddesses that represented the land and through this ritual the health and fertility of the land was tied to the health and fertility of the King. Goddess figures could be represented by priestesses or queens, and the rituals could be either symbolic or actual sex rites.[3][4]
- Because of ritual ties between the land and the ruler, kings had to be healthy, fit, fertile and whole of body. Several mythic kings lost the right to rule due to injury or illness, the most famous being the Fisher King, whose land became barren after he was wounded 'in the thighs' and became sterile.[5] "The ruler is the land, and the land is the ruler. Their health, their fertility, their happiness, is the health, the fertility, and the joy of the land itself." (source: Sylvia Botheroyd, Paul F. Botheroyd "Lexikon der keltischen Mythologie")