Dota 2 Hero Lore - Luna & Selemene the Moon
Goddess
IT IS MOONDAY GAMERS, WHATS POPPING?
Luna is a human female, who is playable in
all 3 dota universe games. In a nutshell,
shes a former warmongerer, now turned protector
of the nightsilver woods, in servitude to
her goddess, selemene. Selemene is the goddes
of the moon and magic, and is one of the bigger
gods in the dota universe. She is worshipped
by many, including mirana from dota 2 and
underlords. But how did Luna end up becoming
a believer? Whats up with the nightsilver
woods? And whos selemene? Lets first cover
her artifact, underlords, dota 1 lore and
trivia, and then delve deep into answering
those questions.
In Underlords she is allied with the unrevealed
underlord Grek, but otherwise she has just
answered the call and is temporarily away
from her service in the nightsilver woods.
Her voicelines do not reveal anything new.
Grek is a snakeoil salesman, who is very scummy
and scammy and in general icky. So idk why
they would be allied with luna.
In artifact, Luna sees her former violent
and war hungry self in sorla khan, and seeks
to show her a more peaceful path. She explicity
wants to join the battle of roseleaf to defeat
sorla herself. (Once I was like Sorla Khan...
a warlord that did as she pleased. Strong
and immortal I knew that no man or beast was
my equal... until my hubris cost me everything.
It was there at my lowest that Selemene found
me. Tested me. And showed me the moon lit
path. Much time has passed since that day,
and I find purpose and pride in protecting
the Nightsilver Woods with other members of
the Dark Moon. But word has spread of Sorla
Khan's march, and while we have never met
I understand her all too well. And so I travel
to Roseleaf to defeat her, and save her from
herself.) For those who dont know, shortly
and sweetly sorla khan and legion commander
clash in the roseleaf forest, because the
oglodi red mist army is afraid of stonehall
and the bronze legions growing empire. In
the crossfire, the people inhabiting the forest,
the vhouls, end up rising up and getting shut
down. This causes their leader, rix, to take
the demonic oath with the court of ristul.
The war is attracting a lot of heroes that
initially have nothing to do with the fight,
such as luna. But also omniknight, who is
aware of rix raising the dead with the oath.
He wants to join the battle to partner up
with luna, so her goddess selemene and his
goddess the omniscience, can together fight
off the evil rix has stirred. We will come
back to selemene, but the last thing you need
to know from artifact, is that selemene is
very real. She has a card where her actual
incarnation comes to join the battle. Listen
to this. (Like any mother, I've had to watch
as harm befalls my children - hoping that
by not intervening they would learn how to
navigate this cruel and unfeeling world. But
sometimes... sometimes the cries of my beloved
are too loud for me not to answer.)
In dota 1, luna is also a follower of the
moon goddess, but her name is instead elune.
Luna is a night elf, fighting on the sentinel
side against the sourge.
The name luna literally means moon in latin
and many other european languages, and is
shared by many moon-related characters in
pop culture, such as luna lovegood from harry
potter.
Lunas whole thing as a female warrior in service
to her moon goddess is likely based on celtic
lore. One historic character in particular,
boudicca. She is considered a british follk
hero, when she in year 60 AD resisted the
roman empire. Though she failed, and is said
to have poisoned herself.
Selemene the deity herself, is likely based
on the greek goddess of the moon, selene.
Now lets dive deep into who luna is in dota
2, and more importantly, who she once was.
Far from her homeland, Luna was wandering
starving in the woods. She had been known
as a coldhreated leader on the battlefield,
but now her army was gone and her mind was
starting to get lost too. After months of
wandering, she found herself in the nightsilver
woods, with the stare from a beautiful feline
beast glowing from the bushes. As it ran away,
Luna decided to reclaim some of her former
pride by chasing the beast with her rusty
dagger. Again and again she though she finally
had the creature cornered, but everytime it
got away. She could keep following it because
of the guiding lights of the full moon shone
brightly. Eventually the beast led her to
the top of a hill, where it sat in the open,
ready for her. As it charged towards her,
Luna accepted her death in her final moment,
before the cat… snatched the dagger from
her hand. Soon, selemenes followers emerged
around luna, and revealed that she was the
chosen one that the goddess herself had guided
here. Without knowing, Luna had partaken in
and passed a sacred ritual of the dark moon
- a warrior faction in charge of protecting
the nightsilver woods. She completely abandoned
her past warmonger self, and is now instead
a warrior serving the good goddess selemene.
From voicelines between heroes, it becomes
apparent she used to be very violent. “Ah,
you have a reputation for bloodlust, Luna.”
“people dont change, luna” “So ends
the Scourge of the Plains.” Underlords seems
to want to invade the nightsilver woods. “Pity,
I had hoped you would live to see Nightsilver
burn.” Also, we get to see some of lunas
relationship with mirana. While luna is a
warrior of selemene, mirana is a princess
of the moon. She too defends the nightsilver
woods ontpo of a large feline and worships
the goddess. “Selemene trusted in you. I
did not.” Their relationship gives off some
competitive vibes. Luna says this after killing
mirana. “Don't blame me for being ambitious.”
She is allied with both lina and crystal maiden.
“Bring them winter, Crystal Maiden.” “Light
the way, Lina.”
Mirana is unlike luna, not part of the dark
moon order. The dark moon order is a bit misleading,
because it makes it seem like luna is defending
the dark moon. But the dark moon is in fact
what she and selemene is opposed to. So this
duality of selemenes part of the moon vs the
dark moon horde is something i will come back
to, but for now all you gotta know is, an
event in 2017 in dota 2 made you fight in
the dark moon order to protect the nightsilver
woods against the dark moon horde. Not to
be confused with the mad moon, which is the
prison the ancients were contained in, before
it sundered and scattered all over earth.
The warriors of the nightwilver woods ahve
defended their land form the dark moon horde
for milennia, and it is their main purpose.
What the horde is exactly, is unknown. “Let
me get this straight. You named your group
after the thing you fight to stop? Does that
not get confusing?”
Luna and mirana both have big cats as mounts,
and lunas’ name is nova. They are likely
pretty common in the nightsilver woods. Luna
also has a half feline, half moth mount called
avon, and a common theory is that this is
the child of nova and the lunar moth. Because
its half a moth, and its name is literally
nova backwards.
The moonfall cosmetic tells us about how the
nightsilver woods first got sacred when a
shard fell from the sky, and the first shrine
of the lunar goddess was built around it.
It later got fashioned into the shield luna
uses in battle. Later, the temple of mene
was also built in the forest, as selemenes
follow count grew.
So selemene is apparently the goddess of magic
and the moon. BUT is she a real goddess? The
answer is obviously yes, right? We have seen
her in artifact, and gods like mars acknowledge
her, omniknight even believes in her, and
her powers are very real when luna uses her
powers. But… if you watched my natures prophet
video, you know that verodicias existence
is not confirmed at all, and she is likely
just an interpretation of the radiant. radiant
which by the way, in artifact, is first worshipped
by prellex who is a mother. Verodicia is mother
earth. Selemene… calls everyone her children.
See a pattern here? The radiant is very much
a tyrannical mother, a helicopter mom, that
creates and nurtures but also enslaves. Could
selemene just be another trick by the radiant?
This made a lot of sense to me, up until artifact.
Because there, the incarnation explicitly
refers to itself as selemene. So if selemene
is just the radiant, which would make A LOT
OF SENSE considering the moonfall cosmetic,
the moonsilver ore which could be radiant
ore, and the whole mother thing, then could
it be that the radiant has taken a new name
in order to gather more followers? I dont
know. But in my head cannon, there is only
two real gods - the radiant and the dire.
Everythign else magical thats not primordial
in the dota world is just influenced by their
presence. Its worth mentioning an old theory
i had a long time ago, that selemene was part
of the primordial mind. Maybe she is a fragment,
just like the dire, radiant and arc warden.
But theres just not enough evidence. Until
there is, i think its safe to say that selemene
is a real goddess, since we have actually
seen her and her powers recently.
Luna is the favourite hero of Tyler McVicker,
who is one of my best friends. He has always
supported me, shouted me out, given me advice,
hung out with me and in general been a really
good friend. Thank you tyler, im so happy
to see all the assholes eat their words as
you have once again been proven RIGHT, this
time about hlvr. You deserve all your success,
and im so proud of you. Thank you for supporting
me and my favourite game, artifact. And thank
you to all of you for watching. The anniversary
for artifacts release is coming up, so i have
a special video in the making for it. Hope
to see you then! PEACE!!
