RangerWickett
Legend
Old Gods:
The region known as the Pleian Basins was made up of numerous low mountain ridges creating dozens of small river valleys, enough to support isolated cultures but hardly worth the effort of sending caravans to for trading. They were mostly left alone and little thought of before that entire region vanished a century ago in the mists we today call The Limbo.
Even before then, the gods of that region had far fewer worshipers than those enshrined atop the great ziggurat in No-Ostalin, and today only a handful pray to the forgotten gods of the Pleian. But strangely, those gods still deliver miracles to their faithful. How is this possible with so few remembering their names and giving them offerings? Do the old faiths swallowed by The Limbo survive somewhere?
The Pleian gods belonged to three main Realms - sky, water, and fire, representing broadly creation, preservation, and destruction. Offerings were typically made in conflicts called Flower Wars, ritualized small-scale combat to decide disputes, wherein the losers' deaths would be accepted as sacrifices. No-Ostalin in its grand civility has forbidden all human sacrifice except for condemned murderers and heretics, but records of past, less-enlightened eras attest that such offerings earned great rewards.
Paramount of the Sky realm was Bedima, god of the starry night, where dreams were said to come from, for dreams were the foundation upon all the world was built. The philosophy of the Sky realm was that the duty of all souls was to create, to keep the world alive by never staying the same too long.
In the Water realm, Kathal was the goddess of storms and fertility, emissary between the realms of fire and water, and mother of a minor god in each those realms. Her rains would sap thunderous power from the sky, and would quench the destructive rage of the fire. The philosophy of the Water realm was to seek understanding by mingling oneself with others, for the world was just one great living thing that was trying to know itself.
The foremost of the Fire realm was Kithala, a god whose temple was said to maintain an eternal hearth to keep alive the souls of all those slain in war. This kept them from returning to the heaven where they could be reborn. The philosophy of the Fire realm was that the world was a place of torment, and mankind would only be freed from it by exhausting all the souls in the heavens and letting darkness give birth to something better.
The region known as the Pleian Basins was made up of numerous low mountain ridges creating dozens of small river valleys, enough to support isolated cultures but hardly worth the effort of sending caravans to for trading. They were mostly left alone and little thought of before that entire region vanished a century ago in the mists we today call The Limbo.
Even before then, the gods of that region had far fewer worshipers than those enshrined atop the great ziggurat in No-Ostalin, and today only a handful pray to the forgotten gods of the Pleian. But strangely, those gods still deliver miracles to their faithful. How is this possible with so few remembering their names and giving them offerings? Do the old faiths swallowed by The Limbo survive somewhere?
The Pleian gods belonged to three main Realms - sky, water, and fire, representing broadly creation, preservation, and destruction. Offerings were typically made in conflicts called Flower Wars, ritualized small-scale combat to decide disputes, wherein the losers' deaths would be accepted as sacrifices. No-Ostalin in its grand civility has forbidden all human sacrifice except for condemned murderers and heretics, but records of past, less-enlightened eras attest that such offerings earned great rewards.
Paramount of the Sky realm was Bedima, god of the starry night, where dreams were said to come from, for dreams were the foundation upon all the world was built. The philosophy of the Sky realm was that the duty of all souls was to create, to keep the world alive by never staying the same too long.
In the Water realm, Kathal was the goddess of storms and fertility, emissary between the realms of fire and water, and mother of a minor god in each those realms. Her rains would sap thunderous power from the sky, and would quench the destructive rage of the fire. The philosophy of the Water realm was to seek understanding by mingling oneself with others, for the world was just one great living thing that was trying to know itself.
The foremost of the Fire realm was Kithala, a god whose temple was said to maintain an eternal hearth to keep alive the souls of all those slain in war. This kept them from returning to the heaven where they could be reborn. The philosophy of the Fire realm was that the world was a place of torment, and mankind would only be freed from it by exhausting all the souls in the heavens and letting darkness give birth to something better.