Sacred Focus

In the cult of Veldrin Vance, a sacred focus is a ritual object used in the offering of prayers to the Lord of Auspicious Meetings.

Mechanics & Inner Workings

To this day, many, though certainly not all modern sacred foci are glass, quartz, or amethyst lenses rather than the flat planes or metal dishes of the past. Scriptures and small pictograms are etched around the perimeter of a focus and can create distorted projections through the material and on nearby surfaces when exposed to light.

History

Sacred foci have changed form numerous times over the years as the techniques used to shape minerals have advanced.
The original sacred foci were simply sets of small stone disks worn smooth and polished to a mirror sheen with grit from the Blue Silk River. These early versions were always produced in sets of three, as alternately rubbing three rocks together would ensure that all were of near equal flatness; this 'triune construction' process is continued through tradition rather than necessity now, and finding one's 'focus-mates' remains a way of establishing new social bonds between otherwise unrelated individuals who happen to get the matching foci from a given set. Later, these disks would be made of copper to create mirrors.
Over time, the early metal 'reflective foci' were instead shaped into shallow parabolic dishes. These had the effect of magnifing and distorting the image whatever was placed in the parabolic focus, which was often a votive candle flame or burning end of an incense stick. At the same time, some artisans instead weathered down quartz or amethyst to create lenses that were convex on one side. This had a similar magnification effect and proved more popular in the long run.

Significance

Gazing across the surface of a sacred focus - especially one worked of imperfect natural materials - in the dim, flickering light of votive candles serves a meditative purpose to votaries of Veldrin Vance. The distorted things seen through and around a sacred focus remind the supplicant to remain vigilant in the face of illusion, deception, and happenstance, while the reflective surface of the focus itself evokes the surface of the still waters into which one transmutes their own consciousness through meditation, concentration, and the murmuring or orisons to the Sire of Auspicious Meetings. The lensing effect of some sacred foci is also a religious metaphor for the power of Veldrin Vance to focus the mind of the supplicant on what is most important in life: personal virtue, knowledge, attention to detail, and the discernment of truth.

Item type

Religious / Ritualistic

Owning Organization

Church of the Unexpected

Rarity

Small sacred foci are very common among the followers of the Veldrinous faith for personal religious practice, while examples the size of dinner tables can often be found in Unexpector temples devoted to the God of Coincidences. They have become all the more common with the advent of mass production, though most households have only one or two sacred foci at a given time.