Church of the Soulthirster
The Official Church of Hela, the Soulthirster
Mythology & Lore
The Church of the Soulthirster is a relatively new church, but it teaches the mythology of the Great Divine War, a war between the Gods that was kicked off when Freyja, The Grand Trampler herself, furious with the misdeeds committed against her and her followers in The Jotunhunts...and in a horrific act that her followers believe was justified, attacked The Dwarven Pantheon and executed Thrym, The Powderlord in a brutal display of power. Furious at the death of a god, the Major Gods rallied and went to war against her and The Giant Pantheon for the first Divine War in eons.
As the war escalated, Freyja continued to grow and grow in power as her followers the Dai-Yukai expanded, conquered the entire Dwarven Gordrix Empire...and from there, Freyja's faith only began to rocket in influence, reach, and power. With the entire underground empire of the Dwarves now in Giant Hands, Freyja's followers had access to trade routes that led across The Shattered Corridor and into The Eastern Imperium...now to mention trade routes that led to the north into The Wild Lands and south into The Sultanate of Malthri...and with these routes, the faith of Freyja spread far and wide and underwent such a fantastic renaissance that as The Divine War raged in the Outer Planes, Freyja's might grew so superior to normal Minor Gods that she was simply unable to be destroyed by the Major Gods who warred against her. The Grand Trampler was so mighty that it was all that Ruthger and the other Major Gods could do was to hold her and her allies at bay, as each day her followers renewed her power and vigor with sacrifices and overwhelming faith.
And in time, as the war raged on Freyja's cause only strengthened as new Gods and Goddesses rose and appeared at her side...as Aurgelmir, The Powderqueen rose from the corpse of Thrym, The Powderlord and the burgeoning faith in her as the Giants now began to forge and smelt with the stolen Dwarven techniques captured from the former Gordrix Emprie, as Hela, The Soulthirster rose beside her as the ruler of the Giant underworld who now threatened every living and dead Dwarven soul in existence, threatening to steal them away into her clutches and torment them for an eternity unless they were protected after death. And once Brokkr, The Lord of Labor rose from a grievous near-fatal injury dealt to Isla Rhona, The Deepdiver by Aurgelmir, The Powderqueen, Freyja's power reached it's tremendous Zenith as The Eastern Imperium, happy with Freyja's faith and seeing promise in it, ratified it as an approved national religion just as her following exploded in the brutal Deserts of The Sultanate of Malthri.
Her power restored, Freyja was so mighty that she ascended to become a Major God...as a Goddess of not only Battle but also Survival, she was unstoppable. And once the former Divine Realm of the Giant Gods, Asgard, returned to life in response to her power and Freyja became the new divine font for the True Lightning which Thor, The Stormson was once so feared, her ascension was all but unavoidable.
Divine Origins
The Church of the Soulthirster came into being alongside Hela, The Soulthirster during The Great Divine War, when Hela was born from the collective belief of the Giant People and the collective fear of all the slaves of The Kingdom of Aslaga, fearful that being crushed beneath the feet of their giant overlords means an eternity in the underworld...rising as an Icon of the Giant's Female-centric society and this collective belief in a newly risen underworld to torment the enemies of Giantkind, Hela, The Soulthirster came into being and bestowed her teachings upon her high priest, the first ruler of her faith.
Spreading her tenets far and wide throughout The Kingdom of Aslaga, her High Priest recruited innumerable creatures to Hela's faith until her name is now worshiped throughout the entire Kingdom of Aslaga as the Mistress of the Underworld. Teaching of the supremacy of women and the inferiority of men, they yoked the male giants and citizens both and established their faith, basing themselves in their new grand church, The Helspire Cathedral in the city of Ariagarðr, where they work as a feared group of seers and mystics who hold dominion of death and souls themselves.
Cosmological Views
Like all Giant faiths, The Church of the Soulthirster teaches the story of Ingsungr, the Giant Creator Deity, and his wife Sollaug, the two of whom worked together to sculpt the first titans and from whom all giantkind was born.
Tenets of Faith
Foster feminine supremacy and nurture the seeds of female power. They are the superior sex and the only ones capable of sound and true rule.
Enforce male inferiority and servitude. Bring about the ruination of men with power, and ensure all men are treated and owned as the animals they are.
Corrupt others slowly. Agonizingly. Take everything from them and that which they hold dearest and make it yours. The possessions of others exist to be taken and made yours.
Spread the taint of death to all creatures and corners of the world, and send the souls of others to my embrace.
Gather Knowledge and collect Memory. Both are most valuable when none but a rare few remember or know of them. Make this scarcity or rarity if needed.
Ethics
Above all other tenets in the Church of the Soulthirster, none is a more important ethic than the strict hierarchy that exists between males and females. Females are not only seen as holier existences, but as superior ones, so it is expected of males within the church to obey a female's orders absolutely even in the rare case where a female is lower ranked than a male. A male disobeying a female is a sin of the highest order, and one often punished with the offender being burned within necroflame braziers or in extreme cases, crushed beneath the bodies of the female priesthood and scorched by their spiritual necroflame that inhabits their bodies.
Otherwise, greed and curiosity are two traits considered most pious in the church, and each priest, even the male ones, is expected to constantly seek to expand both their hoard of material wealth, but also to continually seek out new memories, knowledge, and lore to store in their Codexes and return to store within the libraries of the Church...in addition, this knowledge is often purposefully eradicated from most other places in the Planescape before its donation to the Church's libraries, which only adds to the value of it and serves to make the donating creature look that much better.
It is also considered a sin of the highest order to let a creature die without first consigning their soul to Helheim, and to the damning grip of Hela, The Soulthirster...the Lanterns carried by the priesthood serve this purpose, and wherever possible the faithful conspire to capture the souls of the deceased and burn them within their lanterns, consigning them to an eternity in Hel being tormented or an eternity in paradise for those loyal to the faith or those considered allies of it. It is common practice to take vestiges of these souls they wish to torment and bind them to objects the priests use in their every day lives, to ensure they experience further agony by being bound and unable to do naught but look and feel pain for as long as the object they exist in is bound.
Finally, life itself is considered an affront to their faith, and the priests of the church often strive to cover vibrant areas in the taint of undeath...they do not seek to kill things, but instead simply wish to corrupt them and introduce the taint of death into their beings and into the surroundings. To not do so is considered heresy, and a direct sin against Hela.
Worship
Worship to Hela is done through the consigning of souls to Hel, and the accumulation of evermore wealth, knowledge, memory, and power. Each scrap of knowledge, each memory stolen, and each piece of wealth collected is a prayer to Hela, each male denigrated, and each soul burned away and damned to Hel is a resounding prayer to her as well.
Oftentimes, the downfall of a Male who holds significant personal, political, or other forms of power is seen as a wonderful prayer to Hela, and many higher ranking priests orchestrate just such downfalls with glee, enjoying reducing them to little more than gibbering slaves or broken servants who are inducted into the church to learn their place.
Other than these acts, it is common for the priests of the church to hold sermons and prayers involving dark and occult rituals, often involving the sacrifice and torture of one of the church's enemies...prayer is given in whispered tongues inside occult magical circles, and is considered to be all the more sacred when done near Necroflame torches or some source of the evil flame considered synonymous with Hela's power.
Prayer is commonly given in dark places, surrounded by necroflame, whispered in tongues while scraps of knowledge and memories are donated to the endless libraries of The Soulthirster.
Churches to the Soulthirster are often terrifying places, where each brick has screaming faces that writhe within them, soul fragments of all those the priesthood has captured and bound to their church over the years...they are also dark and necromantic places swathed in thick mists of negative energy, and the strange heat of the Necroflame the faithful use in their everyday lives...and the bodies of the female priests, who smolder with the same Necroflame.
Priesthood
The Priesthood of the Soulthirster is female-dominated and female-centric, owing to the female focused nature of Giant society and of Hela, The Soulthirster's beliefs. Males in the church do exist, but are primarily relegated to the lower ranks and serve as servants, squires, and adjutants to the female priests, who make up a bulk of the faithful and of whom the higher ranks are exclusively formed from. While Males can rise to somewhat higher ranks within the church by proving themselves, they generally can rise no higher than full warriors and priests of the church, and are often unable to enter the higher ranks of the church.
The ranks of the church are given below, from highest ranking to lowest:
The female priests all wear black and green robes that hug their towering, shapely bodies and reveal their often grey or blue-green skin, with the goal of showing off their femininity for all to see...for in doing so, they believe, they display the power of their Goddess, and of the superior gender. They are always seen carrying lanterns in their hand or at their hip, and they all wear blindfolds or veils to cover their eyes. As part of their ritual to enter the ranks of the faithful, these female priests go through a ritual known as "The Crossing", where they are made to stand within a burning Necroflame Kiln, undead fires raging all around them, as their spirit is carried away to Helheim to endure various rigors at the hands of Hela, The Soulthirster...they are put through various spiritual rigors during this time, and while those who succeed are granted access into the priesthood, those who fail die, their spirit detached from their body and unable to return. This joining ritual has an incredible effect on those who survive it, and as such the bodies of the female priests each burn with the power of the Necroflame, eerie green-black flames that burn with necromantic power that burns inside their chests and gives their bodies faint warmth and which gives them even stranger powers...due to their time in the kiln, this necroflame power tends to accumulate at several key spiritual points on their bodies, primarily the soles of their feet, with other points such as their wrists and palms as well as other points on their bodies carrying lesser power as well. Due to this buildup of power, the female priesthood here dresses in the light, somewhat revealing robes that they do, but also not only wear blindfolds to better help them focus on these clusters of necroflame power inside of them but also tend to keep themselves barefoot, or at the least, wearing as minimal gear on their feet as possible, as such things can stifle their mystic power...and in extreme cases, the heat emanating from such sensitive places can burn through any footwear they do choose to don, not to mention the flesh of any creature unfortunate enough to be trampled by their massive footfalls. These powers can take many forms, but the most common application is a technique used by the priesthood that uses the Necroflame inside of them to steal the memories of those they use it on, to transform them into undead or partially dead creatures, and in the rare cases in the highest ranking members of the priesthood, transform creatures into females or manipulate their minds and souls. To support these strange powers, each priest generally is laden with alchemical reagents, magical ingredients, and other random things. Additionally, each female priest carries a "Codex" with them at all times that contains all the knowledge and memories they have personally stolen and accumulated during their time in the church...The things contained within these Codexes are often things they have worked to eradicate all knowledge of in the world outside of themselves, and are thus generally highly secret lore or other knowledge...often, these books contain the souls of those they capture, "imprinted" onto the pages of these books through a time-honored ritual. The lanterns they carry serve as Focus objects to hone the Necroflame power that runs within their bodies, and with them the priests can transform any creature into a half or full undead versions of themselves with a ritual...to higher ranking priests, however, they have little use for the lanterns, and can demonstrate such a sublime control over their power that they can do these rituals themselves by touching creatures to these spiritual points on their bodies where Necroflame accumulates. To accompany their tendency to dress lightly, revealingly, and keep skin exposed, each priestess decorates their bodies with religious inscriptions, paintings, scenes, and other imagery depicting her own personal accomplishments, victories, gains, travels, or some specific scripture or holy text that speaks to them and greatly influences them. These lines are also mystical in nature, and tend to enhance the flow of spiritual power through their bodies and to mark out where their specific buildup points of spiritual power are besides the common ones, such as the soles of their feet. The male priesthood here is a much simpler thing, and often covers themselves as much as possible, often wearing armor and thick cloth coverings to avoid showing as much skin as possible...they are primarily the servants, squires, and vassals of the female priesthood, and as such dress appropriate to the role they commonly fill for their masters. The male priesthood undergo the same ritual of "The Crossing", with the worthy surviving the test and becoming full fledged members of the priesthood capable of serving Hela and rising up into further stations. Often, if a male earns enough power and influence in the church, they will be given the choice to undergo a rite to become a female to then rise further in the ranks of the faithful as the "better" gender.
- Supreme Sister - The Head of the Faith, and Leader of the entire Church. This leader is always a female, and holds the title for life. They are required to tend Hela's grand temple in the city of Ariagarðr but also regularly travel to attend various ceremonies and to sort out disputes between clergy members. The position is highly respected in both Helas's Church and all of Giant Society, and in addition to their authority over religious matters they also hold a seat on the ruling council of the same city the church is located in.
- Elder Sister - The second highest rank in the faith. These priests directly serve The Supreme Sister and have honed their mastery of their Necroflame power that they wield powers far beyond the mortal coil. They rarely, if ever, make public appearances and are beings shrouded in mystery. There are only ever three Elder Sisters at any given time, and they work directly with the Supreme Sister to carry out her will and the will of Hela.
- Senior Sister - The third highest rank of the faith. These serve as the masters who keep the males in line, and who run most of the day to day matters of the faith for the Elder Sisters. They run all churches and cathedrals to Hela across the land. They are the Seniors who have mastered many of the rituals of the church, and are the highest rank most all male priests ever see.
- Neophyte Sister - The fourth rank of the church, and the first of the all-female ranks. These are the captains and officers who manage the males in most daily activities, and serve as the main female rank and file of the church. They make up the elite fighting force of the church.
- Crossed - The second lowest rank of the church. This is achieved after Thralls endure The Crossing, and become full-fledged members of the church. This is the most numerous rank of the church, and makes up most of the rank and file members. Males almost never ascend beyond this rank.
- Thrall - The lowest rank of the church, where all initiates start. Treat as servants, squires, and asisstants to the higher ranks, and not allowed any permissions, not even for combat.
- Sister Inquisitor - A unique rank outside of the normal hierarchy, equal in station to Senior Sisters. These priests are the wandering boogeymen who foster the church's terror-filled reputation by rooting out heresy, sedition, and treason within the ranks of the faithful and the ranks of the political landscape with equal zealotry. With but a single look, they are said to be able to see one's loyalties, ambitions, and very soul. Often, they go incognito and wander the land, seeking out heresy and accomplishing tasks in secret for the Elder Sisters or the Supreme Sister.
Granted Divine Powers
The most common blessing given to the priesthood is given exclusively to the female priesthood, and grants them an innate ability to see beyond mortal sight, detect lies, and the very loyalties and alignments of those they cast their gaze upon...it is this blessing that has led to the priests of this faith being labeled as "boogeymen" by the slaves of The Kingdom of Aslaga.
The power of the necroflame is also a common blessing, a fire that burns with necromantic power that can be used in a myriad of rituals...indeed, the Grand Necroflame, a massive ever-burning fire in the Grand Cathedral of the Church in the city of Ariagarðr, is one used in the sacred ritual known as "The Soulflensing", where the soul of the creature tossed into the flame is burned away and consigned to Hel as the body is rendered into a mindless automaton, pliant to the orders of the faithful like constructs...
Political Influence & Intrigue
The priests of The Church of the Soulthirster are innately intertwined in the political landscape of not only The Kingdom of Aslaga, but the larger Giant Pantheon and Giant Society as a whole...they are the spiritual mystics and oracles who guide the religious and mystical ways of Giantkind, and serve as the spiritual guides which keep political bodies in line, and who punish and re-educate those who go against the established laws of the land or the faith...with their dominion over souls, it is frighteningly easy for a higher ranking priest to re-educate her enemies with a few seconds crushing them beneath her titanic foot, focusing her necroflame power on them to alter their memories and make them more compliant.
They are commonly seen as boogeymen in the political landscape, and often work in mysterious and unfathomable ways...they often even work to foster this terror many view them with, and enjoy having their reputation as the feared Inquisitors who none wish to be consigned to or captured by. Often, they work in political systems to weed out those disloyal to the system and to the larger whole, or those who scheme and plot in such ways as to become traitors or heretics...to these unfortunate few, they capture them and often burn their souls away in the Soulflensing ritual, which turns them into little more than mindless automatons.
Guiding souls to eternity, women to supremacy, and wealth to our vaults.
Founding Date
2042 AF
Type
Religious, Organised Religion
Alternative Names
The Necroflame Order, The Nightsisters, The Soulseers, The Collectors
Demonym
Sister/Brother
Divines
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