Lesser Deity
Symbol: Hearth
Home Plane: Olympus
Alignment: Neutral Good
Portfolio: Home, hearth, family
Worshippers: Commoners
Cleric Alignments: CG, LG, NG
Domains: Community, Good, Protection
Favoured Weapon: Dagger
This illustrious position belongs to an unassuming deity, Hestia (hess-tee -ah). Though she is Zeus’s sister and a daughter of Cronus and Rhea, Hestia is for the most part uninvolved in the quarrels, politics and escapades of the other Olympian deities. Instead, she is content with her position as a house deity, worshipped with simple sacrifices by simple people on tiny home altars.
Hestia appears as a young woman with a gleam in her eyes like dancing firelight. She is the first-born daughter of Cronus and Rhea, but was the last to emerge from her father’s stomach when Zeus liberated his swallowed siblings. Poseidon and Apollo both courted her, but she spurned them both and swore an oath to remain a virgin for ever.
Hestia’s faith is a simple one. She teaches the virtues of home and family life, the sweet rewards of labour and the blessings of food and rest. She encourages common people to take pleasure in the gifts of life as they come, giving thanks to the gods for every earthly blessing.
Hestia’s clerics are usually common people, and often farm the land or carry on a trade in addition to organizing worship of Hestia. Her clerics bless new homes, consecrate the hearth altars found in nearly every home and share in family celebrations such as births, birthdays and other rites of passage.
Hestia has no temples of her own, but she has a place of honour in every Olympian temple. Every hearth fire that burns in temples and in homes is an altar to Hestia, and so her honour is high indeed despite her low rank in the pantheon.
Source: Deities and Demigods (Page 125)