Apolity, of stone and bloodshed

Hear oh the rumble in the stone, as the cave protects us. Feel oh the weight of the stone, that it might hold fast the vines that guide our path. Follow the path of the boar, that it may guide us to the sweetest roots, and the richest fungi.

Forbidden is speaking of the gods in polite society. More forbidden still is speaking of stone and bloodshed. For all but a few corners if Levis, this God is without even a name, merely the adversary. Whether you support the gods of the wilds, or the gods of useful endeavours or no God at all - all know that killing is forbidden, as is mining, and travelling the deep parts without protection. Doing so invokes his long lost name. Not even the people of Vertus depict his visage upon their walls.

Not so for the people of Whencis , who gave the God a new name, and a new face, as the deliberately forgotten God gave them shelter from the cyclone, bringing to hearts and minds safety within the stone. As they lay huddled in the caves of the mountain where their city stands, with their government far away, they sent their call to the mountain, and the mountain answered.

The people of Whenis depict Apolity as a massive bulked out troll, with stone instead of fungus symbiotically resting on his shoulders - massive plateaus that would protect the town and thick stone rings growing in clumps along his arms and upper back. He is often depicted with a massive black beard often woven into tight pebbled bundles, and linen pants that stretch across sturdy thighs. Between his fingers runs red blood, the life of each follower lost to a disaster those in power could protect from.

The blood in the worship of a god.

In Whencis, the blood and bloodshed part of the god comes both in the ritual spilling of your own blood as an act of sacrifice, but also in the dangers that come from life, whether that be those lost to the storms of the mountain, rockfalls and dangers around the settlement, or even the blood shed in the hard work of the chasm that is the way of goods around the city.

In younger believers, the bloodshed also talks about the resistance people have to the country of Solaris, while nothing truly worth the name has broken out, tensions are high within the settlement. They believe that those in power wring blood from them with their neglect, only setting eyes on the trade hub when they have something they need to take.

The mountain takes

Those that live with Apolity live with the mountains of Levis around them. What started with Whencis has spread to other mountain bordering towns and places that call to the stone with lifestyle or proximity. All that can be said is that the mountain god takes its tithes from the devout and the unwilling, rockfall and landslide common in those areas, and those who explore the caves succumbing to cave-in. All feed the stone god the blood it needs. But this too is worship, and the modern followers call this the cost of seeking protection from the imperfect hand of the divine.

Those that worship often say that to slake Apolity's thirst for blood is to court his favour - usually in the form of self sacrifice; but those in the shadows of the mountain knows that the stone takes as much as it protects.

The Unspoken God

In the outside world, the nameless God has come to be synonymous with the ruins of the old world and the mines that the humans have left behind. In the nameless one murder and destruction comes to the fore, that desire to blame something greater. They remember the crimson mist, not by name but by the scar that came creeping from the stone like a wound running toxic blood. They remember the echoes of stone towers weilded by humanity, carving into their lives with iron blade. As such the mark of the Exile makes the sigil of the nameless god and is often called the "mark of Stone".

The world outside the arms of the stone god remember the boar of the nameless god, its aggression and its hunger. They view the nameless god with the same suspicion and fear they view the stone and the working of it that slowed their acceptance of their new demon neighbours.

One of the bards of Apolity is the troll 'Ondo the red'. With fungus that has absorbed the rusty iron oxide of the caves around Whencis, Ondo has built a massive musical device filled with hollow reeds, and played by flat stones on fungal membranes. Ondo calls this the call of the mountain, and on the windiest nights, Ondo plays their tunes to fight back against the storms of the lands.

Ondo is often seen with the odd stone-noodle hanging around their feet, and many a performance has had an unexpected end when the stone noodle goes down one of the reed pipes early.

Related Historical Events

• 20 QY
  Cyclone Sortakay hits Whencis