To recap, Pherais is the Realmgardian goddess of, essentially, poetic justice. Her closest counterpart in a real-world mythology in terms of what she’s goddess of is probably Nemesis and in terms of persona, she’s probably equal parts Athena and Artemis.
That header image is Rembrandt’s painting Pallas Athena, which is probably the best stand-in I have get for Pherais — she should have a bow rather than a spear (which is kind of hard to see) and shield (which I’ve actually cropped out), but given that she’s repeatedly described as wearing armour in this scene, that seemed more important to represent than the bow.
Also, Artemis is naked in a lot of the paintings of her out there. A fact, incidentally, I’m sure she’d be furious about…
The landward gates of Porthaven are flanked by two rows of statues depicting the most important Realmgardian gods — Aeto and Iona, the King and Queen of the gods; Erha and Aivas, Iona’s sister and her boisterous husband; Cora and Misa, the sister goddesses who rule over affairs of the heart.
As Kat and Annie walk past the statues, Annie pauses and looks thoughtfully up at the statue of Pherais.
“You know,” Annie says, looking up at the statue of the young archer-goddess. “I think she looks like you, Kat.”
Pherais is one of the most important goddesses in Realmgard. She’s understood to be the one who helps people endure periods of misfortune, giving them the strength to keep on, well, keeping on and slowly tipping the scales in their favour until they get sudden overflowing god fortune.
And, since she’s a well-known hunter of monsters and demons, she’s the most popular and widely prayed-to goddess among Realmgard’s adventurers. So, while Kat isn’t quite sure how to feel about being told she looks like Pherais, she does suppose that there’s at least some sort of connection between them.
Pherais is part of the… nine major Realmgardian gods. Kat sighs. There’s a word for it. Something weird and ancient and Elven — and, really, not even necessary, if you think about it, when you could just say “nine.”
She can never remember the word.
“Ennead,” Annie says, like she’s reading Kat’s thoughts. “The word for the group of the nine main gods is Ennead.”
Kat smiles wanly. “That’s a new one,” she says. “No one has ever said I look like a goddess before. Usually they say that I look like a dude. Or a fencepost. Or that my eyebrows look like I’ve got caterpillars on my face…”
“You do look like her, though,” Annie insists. “Look.”
She points at the statue of the young goddess. And maybe, kinda-sorta, Kat can see what Annie’s talking about. She wonders if comparing herself to a goddess is going to get her smote by a lightning bolt, but, yeah, she can see it.
It’s always hard to judge the age of an immortal goddess, but Kat does think that most pictures and statues of Pherais she’s seen make her look like a teenager more or less the same age as Kat. So, there’s that.
Of course, Kat has never worn the sort of full suit of impressive, heavy-duty armour that Pherais is wearing. But, like Pherais, Kat does favour using a bow — she even has her own arsenal of specialised magic arrows, but nothing that can compete with Pherais’ Arrows of Fortune and Misfortune.
And, like, Pherais, Kat wears her hair in a ponytail, though Kat doubts there are many people who would make fun of a goddess’ eyebrows…
And then there’s the fact that Pherais doesn’t really get along with her father or her little sister. Which, as Kat reflects on this, she decides is a bit of a downer of a thing to have in common with, well, anyone, let alone a goddess.
“I guess,” Kat mutters, looking down at Annie.
FYI, I drew Pherais looking like this:
Whereas, I’m keeping open the possibility of Dunstana being the reincarnation/avatar/personality shard/whatever of the goddess Anassa and Anassa thus looks basically exactly like Dunstana, Pherais is really more Kat-adjacent than supposed to be the same, um, being as Kat.
That’s Day 2.
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