another lore dump for my dnd campaign :)
sister wizard-demigoddesses teitoca (on the left) and mao (on the right.) teitoca was the goddess of chalk, and mao was the goddess of salt. they grew up during a time of strife, with their secluded home-village of lo'kureen threatened by the machinations of another, much older goddess: ruee, the goddess of blood. ruee had spent about 20 years prior to the girls' birth leading a crusade on the eastern coast of tunturioma, turning the land inhospitable to all but the hemoids over which she ruled. with starvation rapidly becoming a problem in lo'kureen, teitoca and mao were chosen to lead the townsfolk on a pilgrimage to find a new home.
teitoca, the goddess of chalk, collaborative magic, and ceremony. four years older than mao, teitoca was decisive, charismatic, but decidedly cowardly. she was the first to propose evacuating lo'kureen, suggesting that they seek a safe, hidden area in which to settle. about six months into their journey, by which point already had many lo'kureenians perished to the perils of the road, the walking town discovered a small, angular, concrete shack in the middle of the jungle they were passing through. this shack stood inconspicuously above ground, betraying neither its origin nor the sprawling bunker-complex buried underneath it. teitoca knew instantly upon descending into the bunkers that it was exactly what she had been looking for. she moved in that day, cultivating the underground community with her magic for years to come, christening the newly founded settlement "dur'elesh."
mao, the goddess of salt, abjurative magic, and resilience. more cunning and ambitious than her older sister, she devoted herself at a young age to the practice of battle magic, quickly rising the ranks in their town to become an official guardian of lo'kureen by the time she turned 17. around this time, with ruee's dark magic beginning to overtake the surrounding lands, mao took up the helm and started teaching defensive magic to the townspeople to ensure they could defend themselves. once lo'kureen was evacuated, this preparation proved invaluable, drastically reducing much of the risk of travel. upon discovering dur'elesh, a massive rift suddenly formed between mao and teitoca. despite being an optimal location to remain undetected and stay safe, living in dur'elesh would mean being near-entirely severed from the outside world. despite teitoca's pleas to stay, mao left dur'elesh, continuing west. during the continued travel, mao grew ever-stronger and ever more adventurous, establishing a distinct sect of warlocks who drew immense abjurative power from her. she and her group roamed for almost 5 more years, before finally discovering a frigid swath of snowy land at the northern tip of the continent, on the opposite side of a treacherous mountain range. it was here she founded the town of "mejya'nul." with mao's warlocks to keep them warm, the people of mejya'nul slowly developed the city into a thriving bastion against the cold.