Shrines

Across the breadth and width of Levis there exists points of worship, called shrines. They have always been there, and even in this age of public non-belief, they will always exist, if not in the form that they always were. The point of shrines is not in the act of organised ritual, but in the act of community with the divine and otherworldly.

Shrines can be organised into 3 types, with each having their place and time in Levis history:

Cortexes

Official looking, ornate, are what they say they are - places to worship Beings, usually Beings-as-Gods. In the before times, these were loud and proud, where you would make a pilgrimage, making your praise and imploring your prayer upon the site. Here you would provide a small offering, a trade between you and the higher being for what you needed or what you were thankful for.

These days, these sites have either lost their religious meaning, or have been physically hidden or dismantled - for the gods are not allowed and these sites brought the gods to the forefront of everyone's minds.

Examples of cortexes are the Amphitheatre of Knowledge and the Grand Library in the Academy of Natare both of which were dedicated to Olari. Both locations have survived to the current day through debasement of effigies and symbols of Olari.

Another example is the hidden shrine in the moss clutch, whose survival is based off the fact that time and design has shielded the place from public view, though those in the know will always pass on the knowledge of that place to those in need.

Iris

These are the worship as a service. Still places of divine importance, but these are your laboratories for your god of knowledge, your barn sheds for your god of the harvest. There's a practicality in the way these are still existing, and they exist in the shadow of the law - a Quiet Years contrivance to the problem of their own creation.

The greatest example of this is the main work shed in the Starberry fields. The sheer concentrated work to Elythera churned in the harvest of the starberry gems into wine and other products is enough to keep the Hearth God 'alive' into the current day and not just a story lost to time.

Pupil

These are the small spots, the private shrine mostly to a spirit, but sometimes to the local witch, or to even the concept of death itself. The main component of a Pupil is often the gourd filled with seeds, an offering of potential to whatever is taking the honorific.

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No matter the form of the shrine, or how public and ostentatious, it still requires its own brand of community to be a shrine and not just the one spot one of the devout goes during their day. And yet, Levis has never really had organised religion. There might be the Cult of the Endless Eye, there might be the families of Infertanis but neither of these bring that same structure that has been seen in the reader's own world and its religions. One might call Levis closer to spirituality and it is the hope of those who follow the codices of the treaty of Seccularism that Levis that that way.

Come hunt with me

This is the beginning of the hunt.

Found in a dead drop within the Waverly castle ruins: jhc okhq mm vilaowhvh qnuba zbh qwpqpl wok