Thaldorn

The High Keeper, The Spirit Tome, The Light Steps, The Faceless God

Thaldorn is one of the New Gods, created along with the first written word. He presides over the domains of knowledge and magic on the Prime Material, and acts as the ultimate repository for all the knowledge acquired by mortals across all of time and space. He is, essentially, The Library of the Universe.
He is the youngest of the major New Gods, and his true worshipers are localized almost entirely to the upper regions of Cafeld. There is heated debate in the Caesium religious community over whether Thaldorn can even be considered a God at all, since he is conceivably “finite.” His followers usually have the most standardized academic backgrounds and most are from the middle to upper middle class.
Domains: Knowledge, Magic, Invention, Dreams, Travel, Art
Clerics: Arcana, Knowledge, Forge, Light, Order, War
Vibe Check: https://www.pinterest.com/cduck352/dd-pantheon/thaldorn/

Colors and Symbols

Depictions of Thaldorn are significantly more homogenous compared to other gods – he is almost always shown to be a large man dressed in long imperial blue robes, sometimes carrying a clay tablet and stylus or a cat. Most notably, he is always depicted without a head. Instead, he will have some representation of a bright light located above his shoulders.
The most common holy symbol for Thaldorn is the Cat’s Eye: an upside down equilateral triangle with a Y shape connecting the three corners and meeting in the middle. Cats are his symbolic animals, and aspen and oak trees are considered sacred. Other symbols like oil lamps, roads, the color dark blue, and instruments (especially the piano/harpsichord) are associated with Thaldorn as well.

Rituals, Holy Days, Festivals

Steps Day: An exact source has never been able to confirm Thaldorn’s official “birthday,” but the most widely respected Keepers typically agree that it was sometime in the beginning of spring. The first Friday of spring is considered a holy day, where worshipers gather at the temples for musical recitals, poetry readings, art displays, etc. from members of their community. At the end of the day, they write down their prayers for the new year on slips of paper, and toss them into a large bonfire to send them directly to Thaldorn.
“Roading”: One of the initiation rights for a new acolyte of Thaldorn includes a “mission” where they are tasked to travel anywhere in the world and bring back a new book, scroll, newspaper, spell scroll, etc. that contains new information for the temple. Smaller temples tend to be relatively lenient with the requirements, but some of the more famous large temples can require the acolyte to prove that their mission has definitively resulted in gathering new knowledge for the clergy.
Auspice Week: This festival has divine roots, but across Cafeld it is now mostly associated with neighborhood parties, fireworks, colorful lights, and secret gift giving. Everyone participates, regardless of religious affiliation. This is basically a chance to break up the monotony of the winter and engage with the community. Keepers have never confirmed, but have also never denied, the theory that this festival was created as an excuse to force the first cloistered scholars of Thaldorn to leave their libraries and get some fresh air at least once a year. It is officially celebrated for eight days, but decorations often stay around for weeks before and after the celebrations.

Tenets

Officially referred to as Thaldorn’s Pillars

• Knowledge is innate – we Know from birth and are tasked with increasing that knowledge.
• Faith empowers our minds and our spirits.
• Reason is the light that illuminates our paths through life.
• Trust your senses and instincts; this is how you understand the world.

Temple Clergy and Followers

Thaldorn is the major New God with the least number of followers and devotees in Caesium. Nearly all of his worshipers live in Cafeld, congregated around ancient cities such as Hywell and Jord. Congregation leaders are known as Keepers, but all the clerics designate Thaldorn himself as the High Keeper. Thaldorn is noted for being the only deity explicitly regarded as a literal ranking member in the religion by his followers.
Thaldorn’s worshippers follow the Spirit Tome: a book originally penned by Thaldorn’s first cleric. The Spirit Tome contains several prayers, hymns, and poems that most followers memorize to some extent. The standard prayers are the most common, and will be recited at sermons, but in private followers are encouraged to develop their own unique prayers.

Artifacts and Sacred Items

• Curiosity: weapon (dagger), legendary

You gain a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls with this magic weapon. While you hold it, your spell attack bonus and save DC increase by 1. In addition, you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells.
You can cast the following spells using your spell save DC and Spellcasting ability: Silence, Counterspell, Bestow Curse, Mislead, Power Word Stun. Once you've cast a spell, you can't cast it again until the next dawn.
Arcane Duelist: Once per day, when you successfully attack a hostile spellcaster with Curiosity, you can capture some of their arcane essence and commit one of their spells to memory temporarily. Select one spell that you observed that creature casting. You can cast that spell once, using your spellcasting ability and spell save DC. This effect expires after 24 hours, at which point the spell is lost. You may only acquire a spell from a given spellcaster once every 24 hours. If you defeat another spellcaster, you can elect to keep the spell you currently have stored, or overwrite that spell with one from the spellcaster you just defeated.

• Redacted

Sects

Order of Parallels: A group of missionaries for Thaldorn that travels across the entire continent attempting to demonstrate how divine magic and arcane magic align more closely than previously believed by religious and secular scholars alike. They advocate for a unification of divine and arcane studies across the Empire and a standardization of arcane education for all students. The Order can be identified by their royal blue sashes and the Cat’s Eye symbol they display prominently. They are known to be exceptionally persistent, extremely intelligent, and have some degree of proficiency with both divine and arcane magic.

Type

Religious, Pantheon