Verena is the goddess of justice, wisdom and learning, revered across the Empire of Man as the patron of judges, scholars and all who seek truth. Depicted bearing scales in one hand and a sword in the other, she embodies the ideal that knowledge and justice are inseparable, and that the reasoned mind is a bulwark against the superstition and savagery that gnaw forever at the edges of civilisation. In the pantheon she is counted the wife of Morr, god of the dead, a union of judgement and final rest.
Her temples are libraries as much as shrines, and her priesthood keeps the great archives, adjudicates disputes, and defends the rule of law where lesser powers would have only the rule of the strong. Magistrates swear their oaths in her name, and scholars light candles to her before opening forbidden tomes, praying that wisdom might arm them against what they read. To offer false witness beneath her scales is counted among the gravest of sins.
Yet Verena's is a hard creed in a hard world, for justice is a fragile thing in an Empire beset by mutation, corruption and the ever-present temptations of Chaos. Her followers know that truth is often unwelcome and wisdom often fatal, and that the scales, once tipped, must be balanced whatever the cost. Where the mob would burn and the tyrant would silence, the goddess of justice demands the harder path of reason, and her faithful walk it with sword and scales held level against the dark.
The pantheon continues
