Lore

Lore

Religion: the path of light

The Path of Light (referred to colloquially as “the Path”) is the dominant religion on Maireglenne. It began a thousand years ago as a small cult in the Fjords, largely as backlash against the perceived excesses of portions of the population who openly engaged in spellcasting and ritual conjuring during this time. This period of Maireglenne’s history coincided with a mini-ice age that lasted fifty years, which made an already difficult way of life for the Maireglenners even harder; what precious few crops that could subsist in the harsh climate failed, livestock faltered, and an entire generation was plagued by famine. This was seen to be the natural vengeance of the gods--the Sun, the Earth, the Sea, and the Wind--against an arrogant and ungrateful population. The blame for all of these misfortunes, the priests of the Path proclaimed, could be laid to rest squarely at the feet of those unrighteous conjurers and spellcasters, known since that day as the Profane, and their unnatural indulgences.

Now, a thousand years later, the Church of the Path of Light is a highly organized and hierarchical religion that has grown to span the known world, and its early priests number among its saints. In its power and influence it has enshrined self-discipline and penitence into the world as unimpeachable virtues--and declared the Profane irredeemable anathema in the process.

Gods

The Sun: god of flame and wrath, warmth and new beginnings.

The Earth: god of the soil, harvest and steadfastness, pragmatism and the home.

The Sea: god of water and capriciousness.

The Wind: god of breath and movement, the most mercurial and temperamental of the gods.

The Night: not a god, but the antithesis of all the Path of Light stands for, the realm of magic and beasts. Spirits that feature in folklore, even the most sympathetic ones (e.g., the Forest Mother), are attributed to the Night.

Saints
There are more saints than there are gods, given that throughout the church’s several thousand year old history a number of different people have been seen to be touched by the divine. Some of the saints are viewed as the gods’ actual children, people born into this world with a divine mother or father distinct from their blood relatives. Others were disciples raised up above their peers as a result of their unparalleled devotion. A very limited few claim to be a god’s bride or groom, choosing marriage to the flames or the sea over a mortal family.

The stories of the saints are consigned both to sacred religious texts (that not everyone can read), as well as to folklore and mythology, and it is almost impossible to divorce one from the other in daily practice. They are revered, but their names are just as likely to come out of your mouth when you swear and stub your toe as during vespers.

The Saints of the Sun are:
Agnes of Innesbroch, who brought the light of the world to the hearth (she figured out how to make candles out of animal fat); a patient disciple, one of the first priests of the Path of Light, her remains are interred beneath the shrine at the mountaintop near Northcliff Pass.
The Saints of the Earth are:
Griselda of the Grey Meadows, an aging widow who lost her life protesting the grievous over-hunting of the tundra wolves by the duke and his vassals. Edwin of Turn, whose suffering has been lost to history; his remains are interred beyond the ruins of the abandoned city.
The Saints of the Sea are:
Roland of Riverside; blind from a young age, he placed his trust in the sound of the river and sea to guide him at his work; he is seen as the Sea’s most dutiful son, and his remains are interred at the shrine at the mouth of the river feeding into the sea.
The Saints of the Wind are:
Clara Clemencia of Black Rock, bride to the Wind; her remains are interred by the Crags.
There are more saints than these; watch this space for more updates.

Church
The Path of Light’s church hierarchy and culture in Maireglenne resembles what you might expect from any religion organized enough to have a “high church” and a “low church.” There are priests and priestesses and acolytes and bishops who oversee a given diocese, lay brothers and lay sisters who devote themselves to the church without seeking confirmation, and an Archbishop whose broad mandate means that he/she resides more or less in the kingdom’s capitol alongside the King and Queen themselves. For the residents of Northcliff Pass, that level of politicking is so far out of their everyday lived experience that going into too much detail about it doesn’t make sense (yet).

At the layperson level, the church tends to many of the needs of its parish (e.g., Northcliff Pass) that one might expect: it provides some basic education, albeit a decidedly religious one, to its flock, tends to widows and orphans, provides ministry, and is undoubtedly the backbone of all sorts of societal oppression and prejudice that will give Northcliff Pass residents plenty of garbage to spend their miserable lives grappling with and unpacking until the day they finally kick the bucket. In short, it’s a mixed bag like any other religion, but it’s the only bag you’ve got.



Shrines
Shrines are sites of ritual and religious significance, rather than places dedicated to regular, routine religious worship. You might go to church a few times a week to say your prayers to the gods and beg their forgiveness for whatever trivial and petty thing you’ve done wrong recently (tipping your neighbour’s giant mountain goat, for example). But you don’t just “go to a shrine”--you make a pilgrimage to a shrine. And once you’ve reached the destination of your pilgrimage, you make your sacrifice and come clean--showing up empty-handed or, gods forbid, leaving and doing nothing, surely invites the gods’ wrath.

There are a number of different shrines scattered around Maireglenne devoted to the different gods of the pantheon. Church history says that the shrines were originally constructed to signify and memorialize the place of death of the gods’ chosen messengers in the world. Desecrating a shrine will earn you a harsh punishment from the law, but frankly, the lawmen don’t want to be that close to you, just in case you get struck by lightning.

Magic and the Profane

The Path of Light takes a fairly puritanical approach to sin and repentance, but the most grievous sin that one can commit is to blaspheme against the gods. To wield power over the elements that only the gods themselves should command is viewed as the most mortal of sins, and is referred to simply as “the vice” when discussing the capacity that one might possess to conjure flame and ice into existence by will alone.

People let themselves succumb to this unspeakable vice are referred to, liturgically, as the Profane. The term is seeing more usage among the average layperson, though it’s not uncommon for them to just be called “witches,” and be terrorized accordingly. For the Profane themselves, the vice is a sword that cuts twice: first, in the presence of an ability they did not ask for, and the moral failing which is presumed to accompany it; and second, as the nigh insurmountable barrier it erects between them, their community, and the gods themselves.

The truly penitent among the Profane may seek out the guidance of their church leaders if they find themselves struggling to repress and reject their abilities. It is not uncommon for the Profane to make a pilgrimage out of their penitence, trekking to one of the many shrines to the gods located throughout Maireglenne. There, they make a sacrifice and throw themselves at the mercy of the gods and their saints alike, and hope that their prostration will grant them the will to repress these base impulses. It’s a matter of life or death if they can’t succeed; bearing witness to at least one public “burning of the Profane” is an experience most Maireglenners share, regardless of their lot in life or duchy of residence.

Many Profane manage to fly below the radar, as it were, and successfully mask their abilities while continuing to perfect their vice in secret. They may be your neighbourhood baker, or the lonely farmer who only comes to town on market days to sell his produce.

Other Profane have weighed the risks of hiding in plain sight, and found them too high. Throughout Maireglenne there are rumours about isolated covens of Profane indulging in their vice within the dark and hidden places of the duchies, giving obeisance to the Night and denying the gods. (That clusters of Profane choose to gather together when they recognize each other is certainly true. The rest? It’s probably a matter of personal interpretation.)

Some notes on “the vice”: It is the church’s belief that all people possess the vice (aka, magical ability) by virtue of being human, and that anyone has the ability to indulge in this baser instinct if they lack discipline, or are not adequately dutiful in sacrificing to the gods as is required. This isn’t the case; the talent for casting spells is tied to inheritable traits, and is about as common as the dual appearance of red hair + blue eyes--but since contemporary medicine also suggests that bloodletting and humours-balancing is an adequate means of treating an illness, that discovery isn’t going to turn up anytime soon.

In short, the treatment of “the Profane” by those without this ability is cruel and unfair, and justice from the crown is beyond the purview of their experience.

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