Man's Dula & Nedula: Stone Goddesses of Luck

The Original Dula and Nedula

In ancient times, Dula (pronounced Doo-Luh) and Nedula (pronounced Neh-Doo-Luh) were worshiped by Slavic witches and wizards as the twin goddesses of fortune. The sisters were yin and yang: Dula was fair fortune incarnate, while her twin sister, Nedula, symbolized a darker, more concerning future. Ancient magical Slavics worshipped both equally, believing that to scorn Nedula was to risk her wrath.

In time, this perception slowly changed. Slavics began to view Nedula as Dula's keeper. More recent generations believed that the only way of obtaining divine fortune was through pain and misery - only one who had overcome the trials of poor fortune could possibly be worthy of a better future.

Dula's sacred animal, the Firebird, is wide and known to be a bird capable of bestowing extreme luck upon its selected few. Though many believe Nedula's sacred animal to be the Augurey, there is little historical evidence to back this up.

Whether or not the twin goddesses ever truly existed remains unknown. 

Man's Dula and Nedula

The largest of the Caledonian mountains was hollowed out many millennia ago by ancient magicals, though they are not believed to have been Slavic. Regardless, ancient Slavic magicals discovered the place in the sixth century. They journeyed to Solkyss Peak (the highest point of a smaller mountain situated within the larger Caledonian Mountain), building a temple to their twin Goddesses of fortune. Through a sacrificial ritual that consumed the lives of some twenty-three Slavic Elders, the twin stone goddesses were birthed.

Over time, a ritual of combat was developed. Young men (any and all between the ages of thirteen and seventeen) were made to journey into the mountain's depths. It was believed that one who might best Nedula would be given the hand of Dula, granting them everlasting fortune.

In recorded history, Nedula has been bested only four times. The first few, overcome with confidence, assumed themselves unkillable. Though they possessed the stone blessing of Dola, their assumed immortality proved false: each died within a year of their success. Only the last, wary of the failings of his predecessors, lived a long and truly prosperous life.

Despite being beaten, Nedula (and Dula) shall always reform, so long as they are beaten within the grounds of their temple.

The Golden Temple

The temple resting atop Solkyss Peak, originally named the Temple of Stone, was eventually discovered by locals long after the time of the Slavics. Wary of the twin sisters of stone, the locals did not venture further. They did, however, refer to the temple as the Temple of Fair Fortune and the Golden Temple, mistakenly taking the firebird statue on the temple's roof as the sign that the temple was built in honor of the bird.