Spirit of Adoration

This armored woman appears to be carved from living marble, her angelic wings rising behind the shape of a heavenly warrior. In one hand she grips a fearsome glaive, every movement of which paints the air around her with swirls and flourishes of magical energy.

ECOLOGY

Environment any (extraplanar)
Organization solitary
Treasure standard

The Spirit of Adoration is an intelligent personification of true love, whose power lifts the heaviest heart and overcomes all obstacles. She rarely comes to the mortal world, and it is even rarer for her to enter battle, but when that time comes, it is said that there is nothing she cannot bend or break in pursuit of her goal.

The spirit’s true form is that of a 10-foot-tall, angel-winged woman—usually a human but sometimes an elf—dressed in flowing clothes and bearing a shining steel glaive. When interacting with easily frightened mortals (especially children), she uses her shapechanging powers to look like a human or elf of normal height, attractive according to the standards of the local people, but she never makes herself so beautiful as to cause jealousy or inspire inappropriate comments or attention.

The spirit enjoys dancing in clouds, across lakes, and on mountaintops, ignoring the occasional bolt of lightning that strikes her.

Ecology

Although she does not need to eat, the spirit loves the occasional taste of food or wine, especially wedding cake and champagne toasts. While she does not need to sleep, she loves to dream, deciding the framework of her dreams before she sleeps and enjoying the mystery of how they play out. Sleeping is the only time she is still, as she loves motion, frequently dancing with joy or gesturing with her hands while speaking. Her primary role is as a messenger of love and beauty, encouraging mortals to pursue love and create art, and for much of her work she is present but invisible, speaking just the right words to accomplish her mission and vanishing thereafter.

The spirit only kills when she absolutely has to, such as when confronted by mindless creatures or irredeemable undead, and even then only if sparing them would create a threat to others. She prefers to let her aura of charming change hostile creatures into temporary allies, giving her time to move aggressive opponents away from innocents and speak words of diplomacy under more amiable conditions. She uses her stunning bolts against creatures she believes can be talked into surrender or peace, reserving her glaive and attack spells for recalcitrant foes and alien or mindless things that absolutely cannot understand love or beauty.

Habitat & Society

The spirit is a creature of love and is open with her emotions to all mortals. She treasures the presence of every infant, child, adult, and animal, and can appreciate the beauty of any landscape, no matter how stark, blasted, or strange. She is generous, compassionate, and tolerant, and those who meet her under pleasant circumstances can’t help but agree that she is one of the nicest creatures they’ve ever met. However, most of her interactions on the mortal world occur when some great love or beautiful work of art is threatened. At these times she grows quiet, her eyes burn with the fire of true love threatened, and her face becomes the stern mask of an artist lost in the moment of finishing her masterpiece. When inspired by this cause, her hands wield glaive, spell, and ray in a beautiful and enthralling dance, as though they move to the very music of creation.