The Seven Sisters

As is becoming increasingly the case, my ideas for deities and religions are evolving from music. In this case, the mystery cult of the Seven Sisters was inspired by Blackmore’s Night’s “Fires at Midnight.”

The song, to me, evokes thoughts of magical rituals, and the speaker talks about the Seven Sisters, most likely the star cluster, called the Pleiades, in the constellations Taurus.

Turning to one of the definitive sources on Greek mythology, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, The Pleiades were the goddess Artemis’s retinue: Electra, Maia, Taygete, Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno and Sterope. For individual descriptions of the sisters, I’ll send you here.

There are all sorts of other mythological and new age associations with the cluster, but all I really want to use it as structure: seven goddesses worshiped, mostly, as a pantheon by … well, there’s really no better way to describe it than witches and warlocks — the D&D classes, that is.

The warlock presented in Complete Arcana in 3.5 edition was as an individual whose power was tied to infernal powers. In 4 edition, that grew into individuals who made pacts with supernatural powers presented from the get go in the Player’s Handbook I. The witch came out as a subclass of the wizard in Heroes of the Feywild. There’s also my favorite iteration of that class in Pathfinder.

Fox Familiar? ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, as a mystery cult, the worship of the Seven Sisters is secretive and closed to most outsiders. Therefore it is misunderstood, leading to the same for its followers. In fact, the only races to openly worship the Sisters are halflings and the Vistani, which, in its current incarnation, is not really a race. The Vistani, originally introduced as a component of the Ravenloft, are a group of gypses. In Dragon magazine issue 380, they were updated for use in numerous worlds by making them an amalgamation of different races that have joined roving Vistani families.

Anyway, the Sisters are broken up as follows:

• The Sister of the Stars: This Sister deals in astrology and divination.
• The Sister of the Shadows: This Sister is connected to stealth and darkness.
• The Sister of the Campfires: This Sister covers family, light and protection.
• The Sister of the Wilds: This Sister governs the animals of the woods and the plants used in herbalism.
• The Sister of the Crossroads: This Sister is associated with travel and choices.
• The Sister of the Cards: This Sister is connected to luck and manipulation.
• The Sister of the Scrolls: This Sister deals with knowledge and history.

Most aren’t sure if this religion sprung up from individual warlocks who attained great power and took on the mantle of godhood, if they were nature spirits depicted thusly by early arcane practitioners, or if there were sister deities who smiled upon the Vistani. Given the secretive nature of this religion, its followers are not part of the Blue Pantheon and are often vilified.

A decent collage of the Seven Sister composite from carious 4E artwork. From left, Sister of the Crossroads, Stars, Campfires, Shadows, Wilds, Cards, and Scrolls