Rite of the Deep Call
The Rite of the Deep Call is a secretive and dangerous ritual practiced by the cult’s most devoted members. During this ceremony, the participants enter a deep trance while submerged in dark, cold water to commune with the Leviathans. The ritual is believed to allow the practitioner to hear the call of the Leviathans, gaining visions of the deep realms and uncovering hidden truths. These visions are often cryptic, and many members return from these rituals changed, sometimes driven mad by the enormity of what they have seen.
History
The Rite of the Deep Call is among the most sacred and perilous ceremonies of the Deep Whisperers, dating back to the cult’s mythic founding—when the first Deep Listener, a drowned prophet named Vaelthis the Hollow, claimed to hear the whispers of the Deepborn Leviathans during a near-death experience beneath the ice of the Frozen Maw. From that moment, the ritual was codified into the cult’s dark liturgy and used to seek communion with the ancient beings slumbering in the abyss.
Over centuries, it has remained a closely guarded secret, passed only to the most devoted acolytes. Many have died attempting it. Others have returned irrevocably transformed—touched, twisted, or blessed by the unknowable presence below.
Execution
The rite is performed during the longest night of the year or during a great convergence of moons and tides, when the boundary between the world of mortals and the deep is at its thinnest. Participants are submerged in sacred waters—usually in the Frozen Maw, glacial sinkholes, or coastal caves known for unnatural stillness.
Once submerged, the initiate must enter a state of complete stillness, allowing the cold to slow their heartbeat, quiet the mind, and open the soul to the Call of the Leviathans. Cult elders chant the Threnody of Breaths, a low, droning prayer meant to lull the mind into the deep dreaming trance.
Within this trance, the initiate experiences visions—some speak of colossal eyes in the dark, of cities of coral and bone, of words etched in pressure and current. The rite ends when the initiate either awakens—changed—or fails to surface.
Components and tools
- The Black Veil: A ceremonial robe worn only during the rite, woven from deep-sea kelp and stormvine fibers, soaked in cold brine and alchemical ink.
- The Mawstone: A smooth, abyssal stone held in the mouth during submersion. Said to vibrate with deep resonance when the Leviathans are near.
- The Threnody of Breaths: A chant older than written language, passed from elder to elder. It mimics the currents of deep ocean trenches, lulling the initiate into a psychic descent.
- Offerings of Bone and Salt: Laid around the ritual site to appease minor spirits of the abyss and ensure safe passage of the initiate’s spirit.
Participants
- Initiate (the Called): The central participant seeking communion. Often chosen by signs—dreams, voices, or frost-etched omens.
- Whispering Elders: Senior cultists who guide the rite, keep the chants, and observe the initiate’s journey.
- The Drowned Speaker: A mystic who has survived the rite in the past. They interpret the initiate’s vision and ensure no foreign spirits follow them back.
- Sacrificants (optional): Sometimes animals or condemned traitors are sacrificed during the rite to strengthen the veil and focus the call.
Observance
The rite is never performed publicly, and rarely more than once in a generation per cult cell. Survivors are treated as blessed, revered as conduits of Leviathan will. However, many initiates emerge silent, mad, or prone to violent fugue states. Some begin to bleed saltwater. Others speak in unknown tongues, draw strange spirals, or compulsively seek deeper places to rest.
To the Deep Whisperers, these are not curses—they are signs of divine communion.
The Rite of the Deep Call is both a path of ascent and descent—to rise closer to the Leviathans, one must descend into the cold, the dark, and the unknowable.
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