Holy City of Hymnis

The Holy City of Hymnis, frequently shortened to Hymnis or the Holy City, is a city-state in central Asmarea. A city of churches, temples, and cathedrals, and ruled by the ecumenical Divinium, Hymnis posits itself as the heart of divine faith for all of Luquastra. As the strongest legitimate government in Asmarea, and one of the oldest known polities in the world, the Holy City commands a lot of respect and authority. Its current ruler is High Chancellor Hestra Skysight, head of the Divinium.

History

Hymnis was founded nearly four millennia ago by followers of Ilseias at the Worldsplitter's Holster, a crop of land jutting out into the Cloven Trench, where according to the legends Ilseias rent the material and divine worlds apart centuries earlier. The Worldsplitter's Holster was already a holy site for the Ilseians, and at first, Hymnis was naught but a monastery. However, the arrival of followers of Mystra, who came to seek their goddess's blessing at the site of Her last appearance, complicated matters for the Ilseians. While conflict was brewing, the timely intervention of a third party - a cleric of Eldath - led the groups to share the monastery. This was the birth of the Divinium. Under the aegis of multiple churches working together, the monastery grew into the size of a town, attracting more people and their divines. Eventually, the monastery split into numerous different places of worship, each dedicated to their own deity - but the old central building remained the meeting place for them all. Over the centuries, this slow but steady growth heralded a strange occurence: even while elsewhere in the world, these faiths clashed and feuded, in Hymnis, they coalesced. This led to the moniker of the Holy City being used for the first time. After the Divinium made the Decree of the Thirty, followers of Gond planned and built a massive expansion for the city, to be able to house the central temples for all fifteen Prime Deities and other places of worship for the ten Lesser. With immense quantities of white marble mined from the surrounding coastlands, the new city was constructed over several centuries and has been kept immaculate ever since. It is a marvelous sight to behold, with high walkways bridging the gaps between the city's myriad temples and churches, interspersed with plentiful greenery. Very little ever changes in Hymnis. The Hymnian dogma prescribes a specific way to exist to maintain peace, and therefore, it is never deviated from. Hymnis has never waged war against any other party - but it has been attacked at various times by factions resisting the perceived disrespect by the Divinium to not include their deity in the Decree of the Thirty. These attacks have happened sporadically over the city's history, yet are always repelled effortlessly.

Geography

Occupying the Worldsplitter's Holster in its entirety, Hymnis is built upon a high rocky cliff overlooking the Cloven Trench. This is why despite its position, it lacks any harbor or shipbuilding - it is simply too high up. Were one to fall off the city's edge, they would fall for roughly ten full seconds before hitting the water. This also makes the city highly defensible. The Cloven Trench itself is a deep sea, and frequent host to various aquatic monsters and beasts. The Holy City spans a surprising area of land, making it easily the largest city anywhere on Luquastra by sheer size. However, since a lot of this is filled up with greenery, the city's population is far lower than one'd expect. These patches of nature are used for agriculture, since the region's pleasant climate, with warm summers and mild winters, makes for excellent farming. Besides its religious services, Hymnis is well-known for its vineyards and its refreshing sea breeze.

Politics and society

Main article: Divinium

The Holy City of Hymnis has been ruled for millennia by the Divinium, an ecumenical organization of the united leadership of fifteen disparate churches. Their appointed leader is the High Chancellor, and simultaneously serves as the leader of all of Hymnis. Besides their holy duties, it is the job of the High Chancellor to see to any problems that arise among the populace. However, due to the copious amount of protocol that needs to be followed, change within the city is glacially slow. This is not helped by the social divide between the clergy and the citizens: members of the clergy have more rights than citizens, and therefore often look down upon them. Frustration and resentment exists among the citizenry, however, this is often repressed out of fear of the gods' retaliation: a fear which the clergy often knowingly weaponizes. The Holy City is home to many sorts of people, but the most common peoples are elves, gnomes, aasimar, and to a lesser extent, humans and half-elves. A famous urban legend tells that tieflings are banned from the Holy City. While this is legally untrue, many within the city pretend it is true in an attempt to keep tieflings out of the city. Hymnis purports itself as a neutral party in all world affairs that do not pertain to faith, and thus, does not engage in formal diplomacy. Informally however, other polities are often diplomatically tied to specific churches, who represent their viewpoints within the Holy City. Out of the fifteen churches on the Divinium, fourteen maintain their high temple within the city. Only the clergy of Kelemvor is the exception, as their dogma prescribes a permanent religious center in the city of Daniston. The High Priest of Kelemvor traditionally has a method of magically transporting themselves between Daniston and Hymnis, and therefore often arrives late. This is often derided by the other churches. As the world's center of faith, every divine is worshipped here - save for the Five Scorned, whose worship is punishable by death within the city. The clergy of the ten Lesser Deities often fulfills a more servile role within Hymnis: the Eldathyns are judges, the Gondar craftsmen, et cetera. Some find this relationship agreeable, others not: most notably, the church of the Red Knight hasn't held a formal presence within Hymnis ever since they were recalled by the Dragonbanes of Grasynnia out of anger over being slighted out of a position as a Prime.