Player > Setting > Deities > Yaraesa

Yaraesa

Lady of Wisdom

Starfinder Core Rulebook p.492

NG goddess of knowledge, mental perfection, scholarship, science
Centers of Worship: Aballon, Absalom Station, Bretheda, Castrovel
Symbol: An atom with a brain as its nucleus

Yaraesa teaches that the core of sentience is the search for knowledge and meaning—the striving to advance one’s society through education, experimentation, and learning. Yaraesa is the goddess of this struggle—the constant endeavor to develop one’s mind and reach a state of intellectual and spiritual perfection. Lashuntas attribute many of their race’s early scientific advancements to Yaraesa, claiming that she was once a living scientist who learned everything that could be learned on the mortal plane. In mastering her own mind, she ascended to godhood to study all the wisdom and lore of the Great Beyond.
Yaraesa’s followers seek to emulate their goddess, hoping to eventually transcend their mortal forms. The path one takes toward this perfection is an individual choice—education, physical exercise, scientific scholarship, and spiritual meditation are all valid enterprises. The simple act of reading—whether on a computer screen, an actual printed volume, or direct eye-projection—can be an act of homage to Yaraesa, and each piece of knowledge or insight gained brings one a step closer to the goddess. Yaraesa bridges the divide between science and spirituality, teaching that the more you learn about the underlying laws of the universe, the more you understand about yourself.
A majority of Yaraesa’s worshipers and priests are lashuntas, but her faith is popular throughout the Pact Worlds, particularly among shirrens. Educators, mechanics, psychics, scientists, scholars, and technomancers venerate the Lady of Wisdom as they explore the boundaries of both mortal knowledge and their own minds. Yaraesa’s temples resemble ancient libraries filled with books—even if the volumes on display are just holographic props—and always include small, quiet rooms where worshipers can read or meditate in peace. Many universities, especially those on Castrovel or funded by lashuntas, contain chapels to Yaraesa.
One unusual quirk of Yaraesa’s worshipers is their vocal rejection of faith—or rather, some conventional understandings of it. Yaraesa teaches that the scientific process and knowledge gained through controlled, replicable, and verifiable experiments are the best way to understand the universe. Where some gods offer knowledge and power as a reward for allegiance, Yaraesa demands that her people figure things out for themselves as best they can. This doesn’t mean that she refuses to grant her followers magical power; rather, she generally does so in consistent and predictable ways that can be taught like a science, and she’s more likely to nudge someone toward a discovery than hand them the answer. For members of her church, faith isn’t blind trust but a healthy and skeptical relationship between an esteemed teacher and her pupils.

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