The Resilience
Sometimes all you have to put your fait into is your own resilience, as you pray for an answer from anyone this formless being will answer.
Origin.
There are no concrete records of when the Resilience first answered to the prayers of a desperate soul trying to survive.
The only thing that is known with certainty is that it happened after the grand cataclysm; a single human begged with all his heart for the heavens to answer his prayers, he did not know who to put his faith in since the cataclysm had terraformed the divine landscape beyond recognition, whatever god that human worshipped was long gone, still they prayed unable to do anything about their situation on their own well aware of the futility of screaming into the void.
However.
Something answered their desperate prayers.
A formless being made out of pure light created a miracle for that human, leaving them only with cryptic words to follow: "Even in your most desperate, after you believe all your gods to have failed you, faith can still accomplish miracles". The human would spread this message far and wide spreading the words of what they could only call The Resilience.
Messengers of The Resilience.
- Lucifer the Morning Star: The oldest known messenger of the Resilience making his appearance in stories during the age of Despair and up until the modern day, the most steadfast of the Resilience's holy retinue, known for his boundless love and compassion towards all of mortal kind.
Said to answer to any prayer made with pure intentions, Lucifer has been known to do anything from saving kittens from trees, to fighting off entire armies, or removing impossible curses for the devout of the Resilience.
Lucifer is known to every devout follower of the resilience regardless of their place of origin, it is said that most people who follow the teachings have heard his voice at least once.
- Lu-Woh of the Radiant scales: A celestial Kirin that uses its magical shapeshifting powers to assume many forms, while it's sighted to have taken very many forms, its main image is that of a golden elongated dragon said to show up in times were people need wisdom and strength.
Lu-Who is mainly known to appear to the denizens of the Dragonscale Archipelago, a stern yet kind celestial messenger, known to answer prayers to resolve conflict the most.
A fan of playing mind games who will force you to prove the intentions in your heart before helping you solve your problems.
- Akasha of Aether: All encompassing, the power to take things into your own hands and solve the issues thru your own power, the Aether is all around its energy aiding those in times of despair in places that even other celestials cannot reach.
The Aether is a celestial being like few others choosing to become pure celestial energy, a living spell, in order to bring its aide to mortals that need it but are in situations where extra planar allies are hard to summon.
Most often the devout of places like Aucrios which have such a massive concentration of extraplanar energy that the normal celestials struggle to materialize in them have their miracles granted by Akasha.
Miracles of the Resilience.
Devotion and belief are meant to be unconditional however it is easier to back up that belief when there is proof that it will be rewarded, these are the most important tales that are told of the Resilience and its messengers.
- First encounter: The first miracle of the resilience was its own conception answering to the prayers of an ancient human in a land whose name has been lost to time, some retellings place it in the forest of Iotrin, others in the lands of Okeanos or Eucristan, regardless of where this miracle is supposed to have taken place one thing is known with certainty, that it happened, abyssal corruption had overtaken most of the human partner's body, no medicine no mortal magic could save her so the man desperately cried to the heavens for a miracle.
His prayer was answered by a shapeless being of pure light that cleansed his partner of the corruption, leaving him with a message that it was only thanks to her resilience that the being was able to save her, to this day this is the only time the resilience itself has been known to make itself present in Kenos. - Paradise Found: During the Age of Despair there was many mortals who felt lost and aimless unable to understand the ways the world had changed due to the cataclysm. Gods dead, nations completely destroyed, global superpowers reduced to dust, and most importantly countless planar rifts causing monsters to flood into the material plane.
During this time the dwarven gate city of Dugheldur was under siege by an army of devils led by the archdevil Bel, as countless Dwarves, Humans and Goliaths prayed to their gods for help, a single half elf who had heard of the legends of that formless light begged the Resilience to help the city weather the Assault, there was no answer for a moment right before Lucifer appeared holding out the line and driving Bel back to Avernus. - In the Dragon's Maw: During the Invasion of the Dragonscale Archipelago many common folks found themselves trying to find answers, the natives wished to find ways to resist their aggressors, a single Muridae prayed with all their heart for help for anything to help them, suddenly a golden mouse showed up and led them away from the fighting to a little cave, it was a puzzling situation, but once the Muridae figured out that the cave led exactly below the battlefield they knew what they had to do.
Once a proper trap had been set Lu-woh shifted from the form of a mouse into the form of a golden dragon that picked off the stragglers that managed to escape the trap.
Places of Worship of the Resilience.
The Resilience is not an official god of any nation and thanks to its shapeless and shifting nature creating uniform places of worship for it would prove to be more than a little difficult, with no uniformity the main places of worship for the Resilience have become centers of hardship, battlefields, harvests during wintertime, hospitals, and academies during evaluation periods.
You can however pray to the Resilience in any given situation where you need to find the strength to persevere regardless of the setting or severity.
Instruments of Worship.
There is many different symbols and instruments that can be used to pay worship to the Resilience, however there is three main visual signifiers used in holy symbols of the resilience are a depiction of a hand holding onto a cliff inscribed into any circular object, a sphere surrounded by two intertwined rings or a sword with six wings sprouting out of the blade.
Other common objects used to conduct the worship of the Resilience are well worn weapons and instruments any object that is well worn and has endured hardship is a welcome instrument of worship.
Main Places of Worship.
While there is no main temple or even any major temples to the Resilience in Kenos some cities do have a higher congregation of followers, all the planetouched parts of Aucrios see a great deal of worship with the Ice breaker tribes of the Frozen Expanse worshipping it the most, after this the towns of Zoaliang and Ishnora worship it fervently as they still resist colonization by the White Queendom.
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