The Wandering God

The Wandering God is an entity that, for whatever  inscrutable reason, wanders the roads of Aeyona in disguise.  It has worn many faces, and has been recognized while pretending to be many types of traveller, from pilgrim to beggar to merchant to travelling prince.

While the Wandering God can look like any traveler, what allows the Wandering God to be recognized is that is consistently uses its magic and power to reward those who are good to it, and punish those who mistreat it, generally in proportion to the kindness or mistreatment in question.

There are stories of famine-stricken farmers sharing their last food with a stranger, only to awaken the next day to their fields full of ripe crops.There is the story of a nobleman being late to the king's ball on account of helping a peasant whose wagon had broken down, and thus avoiding the bloody coup taking place at the ball. There is the story of a prejudiced innkeeper refusing to rent a room to a tiefling, only to have his children transformed into tieflings.  There is the story of the travelers who were set upon by an owlbear - one tried to distract it to spare the others, and when the owlbear caught her, instead of eating her, it carried her to a hidden stash of long-forgotten treasure.

And there are many other stories in the same vein.   Some may be fictional, some are verified as true.  Some might be happenstance, others definitely involved miracles.  People interpret the stories differently, but almost everyone agrees that the Wandering God exists, regardless of which stories actually involved it making an appearance.

While temples to the Wandering God are rare in  cities, on roads and the wilderness there are many wayshrines, each one providing shelter for settlers, and often containing donated items to help the desperate and needy.  The wayshrines range from a small cave neatened to drain better, to huts of mud and thatch, to even structures of carved stone.

It is considered good luck to leave a shrine better than you found it, and bad luck to take something from a shrine that you do not truly need.  Similarly, it is considered extremely unwise to prevent someone from taking shelter in in a wayshrine, to hurt or rob someone in a wayshrine, or to impede their journey forth from wayshrine.  To do so would invoke the wrath of the Wandering God, and the next traveler met may well be your last.

The Wandering God is venerated by travelers as a patron of good fortune, hospitality, and safe travels.  Those involved in the hospitality industry, such as innkeepers, generally have at least some token venerating the Wandering God, if mostly to encourage traffic.

Bandits have a superstitious dread of angering the Wandering God, and most comfort themselves by assorted practices - always leaving those they rob with enough to continue the journey, being polite and courteous, never making the first violent move, helping whoever is seen having trouble on the road, or whatever makes themselves comfortable with their choice of vocation.

Whether or not they are specifically concerned with the entity, just about everyone has respect for the power of the Wandering God.