Ivala

Goddess of Secrets

Ivala is the mysterious Sphinx goddess associated with secrets, knowledge, magic, and learning. She is one of the few divine beings that have a primary form that is not humanoid, which earns her and her children a moniker of mysticism that overshadows all others. Ivala belongs to two separate pantheons, the Pantheon of Trickery and the Pantheon of the Arcane. While her strongest identity is in the Pantheon of Trickery, she is known as the Goddess of Secrets. She is one of two deities who directly created them, and she took considerable time in teaching them. It is on Ivala's authority that Sphinxes move freely between all realms as messengers, and it is she alone who is trusted to safeguard any secret of knowledge. Ivala's form is understood to be consistent, and she is depicted as a large gynosphinx with four wings; each wing appears to be made of a different elemental energy. This goddess is often depicted guarding sacred places or sitting atop ancient ruins. Her adornment is a coat of jewels that seem mismatched and bizarre, as if they do not originate from the world of Isekai but from among the stars. Many depictions show her as the center of instruction or as the caretaker of long-lost artifacts; she is quite popularly used as iconography in museums and archives.
Her tenants evolve seeking and learning, while she is the Goddess of Secrets, she is not the barrier to stop others from learning, but the guardian and steward to ensure that the truth is found by diligence. The personality of Ivala is warm, instructive, and curious beyond all else, with a love of turning the unknown into the known. Her personality is best learned by examining mortals that have inherited her desire to explore, to delve into ancient places, and study through ancient texts without the pretext of riches or power. She is a patron to all those who treasure knowledge in its many forms, while not primarily worshipped by many civilizations, she is well known to almost every established species. Her primary worshipping demographic comes from the Canine species.

Divine Domains

Ivala is involved in two different domains; her identity is primarily invoked in the Trickery Domain over the Arcane, but she is a common deity to see depicted in adventuring guilds and along the roads that leave civilization as a marker to inspire adventure. Those who worship Ivala will venerate her as the Goddess of Secrets who rewards the adventurous and the curious; instead of locking away secrets so that they are never obtained, she reveals secrets to the worthy. Her imagery is never used in a threatening way, but rather, in an inspiring or revering way. The Dagger Guild has made a storied use of stamping completed mission posters with a seal that uses her likeness to show achievement.

Trickery

Ivala is considered to be a primary deity within the Pantheon of Trickery because of her skill with riddles and the way she can circumvent revealing all the knowledge on a particular point. Even among the gods, she alone is trusted with secrets above anyone else. When it comes to aspects of trickery, her influence extends to ancient artifacts and texts that require deciphering or magical intervention to fully understand. Ivala's focus is on the employment of trickery to obscure secrets from those who would seek them purely for power, fame, or riches, and to that end, she has often deployed her messengers to preside over particularly important artifacts and areas. The Sphinxes are charged with temporal displacement, temporal imprisonment, or outright dismemberment if they do not judge a seeker to be worthy of a particular secret or object in the mortal realm. It is because of this particular tendency that Ivala has not been counted among the Pantheon of Knowledge.

Arcane

Ivala is considered to be a supporting goddess in the Pantheon of the Arcane because of her power over temporal magic. It is a specialty that many do not pursue, save Olik. When it comes to aspects of the arcane, her influence extends to ancient seals and spells designed to prevent passage unless certain conditions are met. Ivala views arcane power as a byproduct of seeking the hidden things of the world and an important tool for shaping the future of how those secrets are safeguarded. Her children have inherited her specialties and have been known to cast those who fail their trials through time, forward or back, with great magnitude. She is often at odds with Olik because while she is a supporting deity in this pantheon, she is likely the only deity in among the pantheons that could circumvent his magic directly with her own due to her understanding of temporal flow.

Holy Books & Codes

The exploits of Ivala are contained in scraps of texts that are often found in dungeons or secret places, scattered far and wide throughout both the physical world of Isekai and the various realms of the gods, as well as within the labyrinth that separates Isekai from the greater turmoil of the void. These exploits feature a variety of content, including riddles, designs of mechanisms, maps to distant places, sketches of ancient statues, or far-off worlds. In many ways, these scraps are more akin to the journals of a fellow adventurer. It is said that Ivala has traveled the known universe and the various planes that are within a reasonable distance for a celestial being. She has wandered the many pathways of the Labyrinth, visited the neighboring planes, and looked out over the endless sea of void that is the cosmos at the edge of Isekai's reaches. Ivala's texts are typically called 'Wayfinder Notes' and are validated by Clerics who follow her as a primary deity through way of cipher that is passed down by devoted worshippers from the original Wayfinder Note that Ivala awarded to mortals early in the history of Isekai.

Holidays

The holiday dedicated to Ivala is the 17th of Spring's Noon, known as the Day of the Wayfinder. This date is significant to her followers because it is correlated with the first entry on the original Wayfinder Note, being a day that marks the first adventure that Ivala took in the realm of Isekai. This holiday is widely celebrated, not just by direct followers of the goddess but also by Adventurers and guilds. It is customary to use this day for ceremonies, the launch of grand expeditions, the christening of ship voyages, and many other 'new beginnings.' Those who celebrate the holiday with a religious observance typically engage in the practice of map and cipher making, detailed maps of small areas or those with many winding paths or magical elements are highly prized and gifted to others. These maps usually detail the way to an interesting area, a bygone grave, or a shrine of forgotten significance, with the intent to gift them to a traveller or a pleasant stranger who is moving through the area.

Divine Classification

Deity

Realm

The Turquoise Shore

Tenets of Faith

All those under Ivala are strangers who become friends; they share the open road and the empty sky that beckons to new beginnings and adventure. It is the call of adventure and the pursuit of ancient things, unknown secrets, and knowledge that has been tucked away waiting for the worthy to find it.
Learn always, the way is open to those who seek it.
Hail those that hail you, respect those that respect you, suspicion should be quiet and hidden underneath a wise smile.
The bonds of adversity are strong chains that bind strangers together into something more than friends, but beware the calamity of greed on the weak heart.
Seek what is hidden, search for what has been lost, leave stones unturned, not out of discouragement but out of discernment. Be mindful of the world and ensure you leave secrets of your own within it for the next generation.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

The primary symbol of Ivala is a silver silhouette of a Sphinx that is set with a single jewel or etched in the center where a necklace would hang, often depicted as a simple diamond shape in a shade of blue. Other symbols include the spread wings of the Sphinx or the blue diamond that is surrounded by silver wings. These depictions always invoke the metal of silver due to its association with purity and the blue diamond due to its association with the idea of secrets.