The Cult of the Drowned Mother was one of at least 400 known Nature Cults present during Lemuria's religious golden age. Considering that Lemuria was one of the Great Islands, It only makes sense that the most commonplace of deities propagated by the Lemurian people would be those relating to the sea or water.
The Cult of the Drowned Mother, so scorned by the secular government that came to pass during the reign of the anticlericalists, first came to pass when a fisherman navigating the Blue Orchid Bogs discovered a small statuette of primitive make, cradling what was obviously a victim of drowning. Returning to his compatriots, he proclaimed that the mother of the sea took the drowned to her bosom. Believing their associate to be quite mad, the fishermen first tried to calm him, and when that failed, brained him over the head with his supposed idol, and threw him into the sea. All viewed that he had in fact, slipped beneath the waves, and was surely feeding the sea life with his carcass.
All would be said and done for the Cult of the Drowned Mother, except for the fact that the fisherman prophet, his name now lost to time, returned 4 days later, proclaiming that he had seen the Mother, and her protection would be only assured with sacrifice. His fellows now were convinced, and turned upon their families. All would have been put down as murderers of the worst sort, except for the fact that the Priests of Lemuria demanded to view the idol. Presenting the Idol to the chief priests, the prophet of the drowned mother proclaimed that they needed to view things as he had. And in a testament to their faith, the chief priests of Lemuria were all struck with the idol, and cast into the sea.
After 4 days, all of them returned, and the Cult of the Drowned Mother entered into the common body of Lemurian religious lore..though her Idol vanished, lost to time. Without the Idol, the anointing of a new Prophet became a matter of formality and ceremony, a sacrifice unto the Mother, instead of a rebirth through the Mother.
The Well Lit Brotherhood, taking offense in the extreme, ensured that the cult did not survive the period of anticlericalisim, and she survives in the era of the Shining Isles only as a footnote
written by Relti Cyen Hri, radiant soul of the 4th isle, and child of tessliae
