Church of the Four Hammers
The Four Dwarf Gods looked out over the mountains of the world and knew the soil was rich and the ore was good. They pulled their hammers together and their people were shaped of the stone, hardy and strong with a keen sense for the earth and a love for the rocky, deep parts of nature.
The Church of the Four Hammers is the name of the dwarven pantheon given to the folk of the mountain. It follows the religious scriptures of Moradin, Dunehoin, Bathune and Cirrellon. A mostly good religion that follows the belief of community, hard work, respecting the souls of those who have departed, and the idea that if a man works his stone with the heart of a man just trying to work the stone as best he can then he can achieve miracles.
Structure
Each of the Four Hammers possesses and Archprelate, a champion who represents what the god feels is the best of their essence distilled in mortal form. These champions are often travellers who journey from hold to hold sharing their strength of will with those who they cross.
Beneath the Archprelate there are Bishops who man individual cathedrals and branches of the religious hierarchy, beyond the bishops who control particular regions of faith there are the Chaplains that often lead the every day sermon and gatherings.
Beyond this there are the Black Robes, an order of clerics and wizards who worship Bathune and tend to the dead. They are the ones responsible for the tombs, funerals, and often the attending to the dead.
Public Agenda
Beyond sharing good will and the lessons of the gods, the Church of the Four Hammers also attempts to ensure that the individual cities that they are found in are raised to a certain level of richness if they can manage it, often getting involved in politics and fund raising from nobles to alleviate poorer districts.
Assets
Most large dwarven cities have large cathedrals to the four hammers, while smaller villages will have a four-way divided shrine that will often be kept by a single chaplain.
Each of these houses of worship contain a large anvil and a working forge to represent their god's love for creativity and creation. Though functional, normally only the larger catherdrals have forges that are used with regular occurrence.
History
The Church of Four hammers was originally founded as an organization during the Age of Separation. In the wake of the Dwarven Gods returning to their plane in the seven heavens it left behind a gap at the top of the religious hierarchy. In an effort to ensure that religion was kept a powerful part of the everyday life the church was re-purposed and organized to provide for the religious needs of the dwarven people.
Mythology & Lore
Creation Myth:
Originally there were five hammers, five dwarven gods; Moradin, Bathune, Dunethoin, Cirrelan, and Druen'grin. When they came to Tariur and found the magic coursing through the stone there was a moment where the quintet knew that they could work this stone to create great things. First they created the dwarves, molded of Moradin's stone, blessed with the spirit of Dunethoin, Cirrellon breathed the life giving air of the forge into their stone lungs, Druen'grin gave to them shadows and the knowledge to learn things beyond the stone, and Bathune gave to them the spark of a soul, the essence that would carry them on through this life and into the next.Edicts of the Church:
From this the dwarves were born and they took from their gods their understandings of law and order. A dwarf is to work, both in Moradin's glory to prove themselves before their shaper, and with Cirrellon's love of life to respect those that would come to them in peace, the knowledge that life should be preserved if it has proven itself worthy of the stone's protections, from Dunethoin they learn the sense of community, through the god of spirits and ales they learned to let go their seriousness and allow the stone of their hearts to melt, and with Bathune they learned the steadfast knowledge that while they come from the stone they too must one day return to the stone of their fathers.Curse of the Ash Hammer:
After the creation of the dwarven people, while the gods dispersed and helped them find their home, founding a nation in the southern reaches of the land that would come to be known as Ultan, and building great cities in the hearts of mountains and large countries out of mountain ridges there was one figure who did no rejoice. Druen'grin looked on at the creatures that his brother had molded out of stone and felt a pang of jealousy. The dwarves would always be 'Moradin's' creation, he had molded them as he saw fit, the others had merely helped give them the gift of life. So, Druen'grin in secret, clouded in ash stole a small piece of the aspects of his brothers, a fragment of their powers and took those small sparks buried deep into the underdark where his brother's had not explored yet. There he found dark stone of black and grey and molded his own children, and into them he placed the stolen breath of his brother gods. And so the Druegar were born, their bodies rich with the magic of the deep underdark but their bodies were not loved by the sun like their cousins. It gave to them magical abilities to enlarge their body or turn invisible. When his brother's learned what he had done they confronted Dreun'grin for stealing a fragment of their aspects, and for turning their back on their people. But Druen'grin rebuked his brothers and claimed that they had never been 'his' children, he had been but a tool to facilitate the wishes of his brothers and now that he had his own master piece to rival them they would become jealous and spiteful. Fleeing from the four hammers, the Ash Hammer as he would become known fled to the depths with his children and there he instilled a deep distrust, which would grow into a vile hatred.Childlings of the Gods:
After this time, the Gods created more great things as scriptures say and it was then that the church records that they made godlings. Children made with a fragment of their own sparks, demigods who would live among their people and share with them the messages of the gods and be the best of both divine and mortals. Most famous of these godlings being: Helga Fireaxe, a daughter of Moradin, Darengar Spicebrew, a great spell caster who came from Dunethoin. How many childlings were made is vague and often disputed. Many different branches and rural churches of the Four Hammers all have local legends of 'godlings', it is believed the last of which are the current Arch-prelates of the church. They eagerly await the birth of new godlings, new children of the gods who will further their church to new heights. It is unknown if the betrayer god, Druen'grin also crafted godlings like the other four but from captured Dreugar and interrogated prisoners the Druegar would speak names in vengeance or bitterness beyond just that of their gods and it not known if these names are the names of heroes of their people or just sputtered curses in moments of desperation.Divine Origins
The church was founded during the start of the fourth age with the departure of the gods, no longer without their physical deities there to guide them the church formed as a way to maintain the faith in the absence of their gods. Before that the church in its infrastructure existed with chaplains and bishops but all were beneath the gods and servants to their divine intention. From the dawn of the fourth age the direction of the church fell to mortals with the dubbing of the first four arch-prelates.
Hard stone makes hard lives, the strong will shape it so the weak may pass.
Founding Date
3A4
Type
Religious, Pantheon
Permeated Organizations
Deities
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