How ordinary mortals worship the Nine
Scarterra has zero atheists. Mortals can see the presence of divine in everyday occurrences like the sun, moon, and rain. In addition, while some mortals in isolated rural communities may be able to go their whole lives without seeing a theurgist cast a divine spell or a witness manifesting spirit, everyone has heard of them at the very least. Some mortals see these sorts of demonstrations of divine power every day.
Most Scarterrans acknowledge the existence of the Nine, though they may refer to them as different names or different genders. They may prescribe different abilities and personalities to them, but the fact that there are nine distinctive divine beings is pretty much universally agreed upon.
Ordinary mortals want to do whatever they can to make sure the Nine bestow them with many good things or at the very least they want to make sure the Nine don’t bestow them with too many bad things.
On some level, it doesn’t matter if the local king or queen is a benevolent ruler or is an ironfisted tyrant. Either way, a commoner wants to try to stay on the local monarch’s good side. For a Scarterran mortal, it is like having nine kings and queens and all of them must be placated, even the one whom you don’t like or trust. Especially the one you don't like or trust.
by Me with Midjourney
by Me with Midjourney
Mortals generally do not try to please the Nine with their virtue or character. Few lining up to weigh their heart against feather. the Nine are so different from each other, chances are good that if the contents of one mortal’s heart greatly pleases one deity, it greatly offends another deity. Mortals usually try to please or placate the Nine with actions, rituals, or ritual actions.
Another way to look at it is from the perspective of the ruler of a small nation surrounded by several much larger, much stronger nations that all can cause grievous damage if upset. Every nation needs to be placated with diplomacy, and you have to make sure you don't accidentally offend country B while providing a nice gesture to country A. Can you bow to the east without mooning the west?
Excerpt from Practical Polytheism, Part I by Professor Bret Devereaux
by Eron 12 with Hero Forge
While the Nine can communicate via spirits or oracles, spirits and oracles rarely if ever give any guidance on proper worship rituals, so mortals have to rely on tradition which usually means placating the Nine with rituals that your predecessors used to placate the Nine. You listen to the local grey haired people and ask them what worked and what didn't work in years past.
Kings and queens and other potentates oversee grand rituals and observances that commoners cannot afford. They want to make sure the nation is burned to the ground by an opposing army. They want to make sure the land isn't brought low by a plague. They want to make sure the kingdom isn't devastated by a giant monstrous spirit enacting a sort of “Release the Kraken!” type wrath.
A pen and ink drawing of a tarasque (public domain) by unknown artist in the 1500s
They to make sure the family dairy cow doesn’t run dry. They want to make sure the firewood supply holds out and Grandpa Zale survives the next winter. They want to make sure that pregnant Grina’s childbirth is swift and complication free for mother and child alike. They want to make sure that Uncle Demid returns safely from his journey.
Frieze of a Medieval Wedding by Thomas Stothard
History
Almost every religious organization on Scarterra likes to speak of ancient traditions dating back to the First Age and the Second Age. This is an exaggeration at best, a complete fabrication at worst. The First and Second Unmakings caused most previous ritual knowledge to be forgotten or abandoned. We who keep the Compact held on to more knowledge than most largely because our rituals are more simple and pure than those of the Nonagon. All that said, even we had to create new rituals from scratch after both Unmakings. -Priest Benek Of The Cult of the Compact
Components and tools
Besides the Cult of the Compact and the nine broad priesthoods of the individual Nine, there are numerous schisms, factional, and specialist divisions of the various priesthood.
On some level, every religious faction is competing for donations against the other factions. Some temples and priesthoods are flush with coins and others are fairly impoverished. You can often tell how financially well off a temple is by the quality of their regalia, vestments, temple decor, and ritual tools.
by Me with Midjourney
Participants
Many rituals and prayers are performed by secular leaders or even ordinary commoners but many are performed, led or at least assisted by priests and priestesses. Priests and priestesses are men and women whose full time job is to help peasants and princes alike keep track of all their proper worship rituals and make sure that they are performed correctly.
Most priests and priestesses are part of a holy order. Most holy orders follow a single god or goddess, but a few “Compact Orders” seek to serve all of the Nine collectively. The Cult of the Compact only has a fraction of the number of theurgists of the the Nine's individual priesthoods, but they have many priests and priestesses overseeing rituals every day in every corner of Scarterra.
Most of the time religious services are conducted by the full time priesthood (when they are available), but honorary priests and priestesses are trained and ordained to step in if needed.
In theory, the holy orders sole task is to make sure the general population worships the Nine properly, and if this was their sole task, the various holy orders would all be staunch allies working seamlessly together, but most members of most holy orders believe they also have a duty to act as their patron god or goddess’ agents in the mortal plane.
Thus priests, theurgists, and their support staff often play the role of proxies in the political and ideological struggles of the Nine themselves making more than a few holy orders act as rivals or “frienemies” with each other.
All the priesthoods (and presumably the Nine themselves) are hoping to increase their imprint in the mortal world. They want to convert the masses, steer princes and potentates to passing laws in favor of their deity, and they want to imprint their ideology on cultures.
The priesthoods of Korus, Greymoria, and Mera focus primarily on quantity over quality trying to win over as many commoners and possible and hopes this will rise up to the upper classes. The priesthoods of Khemra, Phidas, and Hallisan focus the dragon’s share of their efforts on lobbying kings and queens to follow their gods and hope this will flow down to the commoners. The priesthoods of Nami, Maylar, and Zarthus generally focus on promoting their abstract ideology more than specific worship.
Rivalries between priesthoods are usually based on rivalries between the Nine themselves. The rivalries can be pretty provisional and petty as they try to symbolically score points against each other.
Often some of the fiercest religious rivalries are from followers of the same deity. Korus is the god of agriculture and the god of the wilderness. Most of Korus’ mortal followers are Stewards of the Gift which focus almost exclusively on helping farmers or Stewards of the Dominion who focus almost exclusively on protecting the wilderness. The two groups of Stewards butt heads a lot and only a set of formal protocols keeps them civil.
Scarterrans talk about "the Nonagon" the way commoners talk about "the nobility", lumping all priests and priestesses together. It is not always clear if the Compact priests are part of the Nonagon or if they are something separate. The Compact priests and priestesses are generally much more apolitical which often as a side effect that they are more liked and trusted by the general populace.
by Me with Hero Forge
Many priests and priestesses are also theurgists, but many are not. Many theurgists are priests or priestesses, but many are not. A person doesn't have to be able to cast spells in order to preside over a worship ceremony, wedding, baptism or funeral. Likewise, being able to cast divine magic does not immediately impart a knowledge of proper rituals.
Holy orders don’t just have priests and theurgists. They also have holy warriors, some are theurgists who can fight and some are simply ordinary warriors who fight with religious zeal. Holy orders also have scribes, blacksmiths, gardeners, quartermasters, and all sorts of skilled individuals needed to support the priests. Some of these support staff are also theurgists, some are not. Also, some individuals are ordained as priests or priestesses on an honorary basis and some are not.
Krogresli by Eron12 with Hero Forge
by Eron12 on Hero's Forge
Other factional divisions are less civil. Sometimes leaders of priesthoods deliberately encourage their members to fight amongst themselves believing the internecine conflicts make the order stronger as a whole. Other times, bitter rivalries arise against the wishes of the priesthood’s leaders.
Observance
There are specific days prescribed for specific ritual actions, both large and small.
Other times, religious observances are scheduled purely for conveniences. When people have the time to stop working long enough to participate in a religious ceremony? A lot of the most time consuming ceremonies for farmers are between harvest and planting time largely for convenience.
Medieval art of farm workers (public domain) by unknown artist
Bibliography
This article is heavily inspired by Professor Bret Devereaux's excellent series of articles, Practical Polytheism as the baseline. Then I took the baseline, and asked "How do the supernatural elements of Scarterra and the Nine alter Professor Devereaux's principles?" The baseline was significantly altered by the fact that the Nine have the ability to interact directly with the mortal plane via spirits and theurgists among more extreme and rarified acts of divine power. To a lesser extent, Scarterra is also subject to supernatural forces that are not immediately attributable to the Nine, arcane magic of many forms, the Fair Folk, and spirit loas.Religious Rituals Outside the Nine's purview
Part IV of Professor Devereaux's series covers "Little Gods and Big People". little gods in Scarterra normally take the form of semi-independent spirits or fully independent Fair Folk who play the roles of gods on a small scale. Scarterra doesn't have "Big People" in a sense of literally deified (the Nine aren't interesting in accepting new gods into the ranks, even little ones) people but they have Tapukeah who represent blessed people who are roughly analogous to Catholic Saints. Also, the honored dead sort of collectively embody the role of "Big People". Many cultures, families and individuals in Scarterra practice some form of filial piety which features ancestor worship prominently.
by Me with Hero Forge
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