Ah'dem, Breath of the World

There is no where in Emdar where you can quite feel the wind like you can on The Skyrian Steppes. The wide expanse with nothing but grass underfoot and only distant mountains to impede the horizon uniquely allows you to feel the breath of the world whipping through your hair. Everywhere you can feel the wind, but on the steppes, you can see it was it ripples through the grass, stirring the land. It is no wonder that, to the various peoples that have made their home on the steppes, this wind carries with it a spiritual significance. 
In the ancient Skyran tongue, this wind is called Ah'dem, and it is to the land what the soul is to the body; it is what stirs it, moves it, which gives it meaning. A shaman from the steppes will refer to a wandering soul that seems listless as literally breathless or out of breath, not having enough of the spirit-stuff that stirs the grass. The wind is voice, the wind is music; Ah'dem moves through the cosmos and brings life to the lifeless. When we come into this world, we draw our first breath, drawing it into our bodies; when we die, we let out our last, returning it to the world.
Throughout the steppes a wanderer might find contraptions dedicated to channeling the wind. Great whistling rocks, carved through the generations with geometric precision, make music as the breath of the world passes through; shamans of the steppes might listen and divine the direction of the world spirit from its soulful song. Many nomadic tribes carry wind chimes with them that they set up next to their tents, to reassure them that the wind is still blowing, guiding them. 
The Faith of Ah'dem isn't exactly an organized religion like you would find out in the walled cities elsewhere in Emdar, but rather a loose collection of stories and lessons orally passed down between generations. After all, the wind of the steppes cannot be caught, only channeled through the voice, so a true practitioner would find the notion that you could codify the canon in a book to be absurd. It would be like moving the grass by pushing it, instead of letting the breath of the world gently caress it. This hasn't stopped some 'cultural historians' from the west of collecting some of these tales in popular publications, however, and books on the wild Steppenfaiths have found their ways to many private libraries in keeps across the land. 
The tribes on the steppes are sometimes compared to the seeds of a dandelion carried across the land by the wind and there are as many versions of the faith as there are spirits to augur it. Though these voices may differ, they all agree on the following tenents:

• The Wind carries within the Will of the World as it flows through us and must be allowed to blow unimpeded.
• When we are born and draw our first breath the soul enters through it; when we die and we let out our last, we return it back to the world.
• As the breath enters the body, so too did the wind once enter the world; when it leaves, we know that the world will have ended.

Type

Religious, Other