Pergyad

In the religious tradition of the Eleven Cities, Pergyad was the god of the animal kingdom, governing the welfare and fecundity of both domestic and wild animals.
Pergyad was a very old god, recognised and revered even during the period in which he was actively worshipped as a holdover from a forgotten period of history. He was worshipped primarily in rural areas, though it was the handful of devotions to him observed in urban communities that survived the essential dissolution of his cult during the Wesmodian Reformation.

Etymology

Some of the oldest inscriptions in the vicinity of the Eleven Cities are records of Pergyad's name. The name is a somewhat opaque agentive construction in Old Zolian, with the second syllable -yad being the male inflection of the possessive suffix; Pergyad means "Haver of Perg." As to what a perg or pergs may be, however, linguists have few solid clues. There is no immediately obvious Old Zolian noun that may constitute the first syllable of the name. Depictions of the god consistently emphasise that he was shown with horns, and carrying a spear, leading some scholars to argue that he is Spear Man or Horned Man, though decisive evidence for either is unforthcoming. It has been observed, for example, that his capacity to control and influence animals mean that his name might equally mean Animal Man, which might well articulate the notion of either a herdsman or a hunter.

Origins

Evidence of the worship, or at least fearful recognition, of a figure functionally identical and visually reminiscent of Pergyad is evident in some of the oldest signs of civilisation in the region of the Eleven Cities. Very old and weathered menhirs found in the hills that enclose the fertile southern basin to the south and west show signs of having been carved with either shepherd's crooks or spears (the images are sometimes ambiguous). Some of these menhirs are carved with a horned human figure carrying a spear in one hand and a goat or sheep, typically held vertically by its back leg, in the other. These inscriptions bear no similarity to the early riverine depictions of Dahan found in the lowlands and are widely accepted to be the work of people living and working with a different model of subsistence. In contrast to the watery open basin the hills are steep and relatively dry. Apart from the oddly regular, circular meadows on the tops of some of the higher hills - themselves the subject of speculation by some thaumatologists - the region is also extensively wooded. Those who live in the area make their way by animal husbandry, raising sheep and goats and living on their milk, rather than cropping. Rather than being dependent on spring rains and autumn harvests, this way of life revolves around the reproductive cycle of ovines, which mate in autumn and produce lambs and kids in spring. A god responsible for this process would naturally achieve social currency in much the same way Dahan did in the lowlands.
Pergyad is a hunter and a savage figure, depicted living in the woods, wearing skins, and carrying a spear, while much of his mythology demonstrates a predisposition to acts of animalistic violence. Such a characterisation makes sense for a deity who fundamentally straddles the divide between human and animal. Hunters, after all, must do exactly this; they are human beings who must periodically equip themselves with weapons and venture into the wilderness to pursue their quarry much as a predatory animal does. It seems likely that the veneration of hunting would therefore involve the veneration of a person who is bodily part animal, hence Pergyad's horns. This would indicate that Pergyad is ancient indeed, probably dating from before the time the hill folk actually rounded up and domesticated the sheep and goats on which they live.
The breeding and keeping of such animals eventually spread to the lowlands, probably fairly early, and the worship of Pergyad probably spread with it. A handful of menhirs have been found in the lowlands, made of soapstone and carved to an extent that they are essentially life-sized idols, clearly of Pergyad. These edifices, invariably found in the depths of woods in thinly-populated areas, appear to emphasise his capacity as a hunter, a savage, and a god of the wilderness, as much as a protector of animals, and it seems likely that this is how he was first worshipped at sea level. From there the liminal position of the domesticated animal - of the animal kingdom, but existing to serve the human world - likely hastened his adoption by those rural communities in which animal husbandry was a major concern, and thence his general spread. He is known to have been worshipped in several of the coastal cities, though not, it seems, from the foundation of those communities, meaning that the cult did not reach the sea until as little as 1,500 years ago.

Divine portfolio

For all his well-attested savagery Pergyad was primarily a tutelary deity, one whose primary function was protective; what he protected was not people but animals. This means that his sphere of tutelary responsibility formed something of a Venn diagram in conjunction with society; the health and welfare of domestic animals was of benefit to society, but this benefit was something of a side-effect of divine activity that often had nothing to do with people and might at times be anathema to them. As such, depending on the situation, Pergyad could either be helpful or harmful - and the reverent person took pains to ensure he was the former.
The part of Pergyad that had nothing to do with society led to the veneration of him as a god of the wilderness. Long after the Wesmodian Reformation artists and poets continued to use him as a personification of the wilderness, albeit in a distinctly aestheticised, domesticated way. The acts of savagery attributed to the god in mythology suggests that this was something of a misappropriation.

Worship

The worship of Pergyad took place both in rural and urban areas, though in very different ways. He was a relatively late addition to the roster of deities worshipped in the cities, and appears not to have had any urban temples, though statues of him - reminiscent of the idols found in wooded rural lowlands - do exist in Pholyos and Loros, both being the centre of the substantially secular post-Wesmodian festivals descending from earlier, more earnestly devotional rituals. Similar statues are known to have existed in Adymalon and Dyqamay, the latter of which was erected in a cave in the side of one of the city's hills. Chogyos may also have had such a statue; rites to Pergyad, known to predate the Wesmodian Reformation, are certainly practiced there.

Urban rites to Pergyad were (and in some places still are) practiced in the autumn. They involved the bringing of substantial numbers of herd animals, emblematically goats, into the cities, herding them to the statue of the god, and ritually slaughtering them, evidently with a spear to the throat. In Chogyos and Dyqamay professional priests of Pergyad would officiate at such events, doing the slaughtering while chanting (exactly what is unknown) and burning leaves and berries (of what variety is unclear) on a brazier. These priests, it was said, did not reside in the cities but made themselves available from rural areas; who these men were (and men they appear to have universally been) and where they went in the interim was a matter of speculation among the citizenry; it was observed at the time that it was seldom the same individual more than once. In Pholyos, Loros and Adymalon the slaughtering was done by a posse of young men chosen from among the citizenry, who would don horned headdresses and replace their clothing with fresh goat-skins as the opportunity arose over the course of the day; whether these men burned anything during the ceremony is not known. These adolescents were known in Pholyos and Adymalon as Antler Boys, and participation in the ritual was considered a laddish pursuit said to boost one's attractiveness to local girls. In all cases the occasion was concluded with a large, communal open-air meal at which much of the flesh of the animals was consumed. These feasts still take place in Loros, Dyqamay and Adymalon, though they have long since become recognised as less of a religious devotion than a communal exploitation of the seasonal need for rural herders to rationalise their flocks. Literary evidence, in fact, exists to suggest that this notion was already being bandied about in the pre-Wesmodian era and that Pergyad, like Dahan, never had a particularly strong hold on the urban imagination.

Matters were otherwise in rural areas, where animal husbandry was a rather more pressing and immediate concern. Pergyad was revered by shepherds and goatherds, as well as those who kept horses and oxen. In most communities prayers to him were spoken over flocks in the autumn, when breeding season began, and over lambing or kidding animals in spring. Flute music is also known to have been used in spring rites in some communities. Urban poets and composers in the post-Wesmodian age made some effort to reconstruct these prayers and tunes, though the results seem distinctly sentimental and likely have no basis in fact. It is possible that some original prayers and tunes survive in folk music in some rural communities, though again, sorting the potent material from the dross is a daunting research exercise. There are also records of fertility charms begin made from parts of herd animals, including the horns, skin and preserved entrails and/or placenta. These charms supposedly had power between autumn and spring - it is interesting to note how much of Pergyad's worship took place over the winter - but again, details of this practice are hard to ascertain.
What is likely is that the raw materials for such charms were secured by means of ritual animal sacrifice, a practice attested by eyewitnesses in the pre-Wesmodian era and listed among the attacks on the cult in the first of the Wesmodian Invectives. This, it has been suggested, is the liturgical purpose of the idols found in wooded areas, at which a given animal from would be sacrificed, probably in autumn, in order to attract the attention and support of the god and ensure the health and well-being of the rest of the flock, probably most importantly manifest in a fertile breeding season and a low attrition rate come the spring birthing season. The details of this ritual, and the ways in which if varied from place to place, remain unclear, but the relatively small number of these idols should by no means be taken as an indication that the practice was rare or confined to isolated pockets.
One of the few really solid leads thaumatologists have in tracing the rural cult of Pergyad is the enduring creation of flockstones. These artefacts are, put simply, temporary idols to Pergyad, made from some combination of stone, thatch and wood, often decorated with flowers or paint, ranging from a foot high to substantially taller than their creators. They are erected in pastures near a village, in autumn, left over winter, and then refreshed with new decorations in spring before being ritualistically pulled down as summer arrives in earnest. Clearly associated with the mystical recognition of the importance of animals and the human husbandry thereof, the flockstones have become something of an excuse for a seasonal party and have in many cases been incorporated into the seasonal festivals precipitating out of the worship of Dahan, much as Pergyad himself appears in some instances of seasonal mummery. The precise original purpose of these flockstones is a matter of conjecture, though given the apparent purpose of the more permanent idols found in wilder areas the likelihood is that they had some sort of sacrificial function.
The clerics of Pergyad were the subject of superstitious awe during the pre-Wesmodian era and remain so to this day. These priests were nevertheless apparently nomadic, and spent much of their time living rough in the substantial woodlands that exist between rural communities, emerging at auspicious times - again, mostly mating season and/or birthing season - to conduct ceremonies. Some communities expected such visits every few months; others only once a year, and others still not for years at a time. The clerics were almost exclusively male (female clerics seem to have been highly exceptional) and wore a rough livery that aped the appearance of their god; goatskin or sheepskin cloaks and foot-wrappings, a headdress of horns or antlers, frequently nothing else, and a heavy spear, the head of which was not always metal. Some communities referred to these clerics as Beast Men, or sometimes simply as the Beast Man, regardless of whether it was the same individual from one year to the next (it appears it usually was not). There are even scattered references to some communities addressing these people as Pergyad, viewing them more as visitations of the god than any sort of human agency. Rather more common is the understanding that they possessed supernatural power of some description, performing animal-related favours and rituals for communities they visited, and being feasted and entertained lavishly in return before slipping back into the woods, often never to be seen again.
These are the same clerics who seem to have visited Chogyos and Dyqamay for the feasts celebrated in those cities. There is no record of more than one genuine Beast Man appearing anywhere at once, though the mythology surrounding Pergyad suggests they did in fact convene in private, much as the priests of Dahan met for unknown ritual purposes. The venues, purposes and procedures of those conventions is unknown, and one of the major questions that lead thaumatologists to attempt to track down and interview the few surviving Beast Men - with little success on the first count and, to date, less on the second.

Wesmodian Reformation

Wesmod discusses the cult of Pergyad in the second of the Wesmodian Invectives, which is the first to deal with a specific god. He begins by citing the consumption of milk and meat as a pleasure, afforded to society by shepherds and goatheards, people for whom he takes care to state his esteem. From this, however, he steers into a fairly forceful statement of a simple point; the withdrawal of the labour of such people would presumably lea to the death of their animals and the loss of their products for society. Possessing the power of life and death over their animals, he then asks, what benefits them to envisage another layer of protection for which there is no clear causal evidence, particularly given that this higher power evidently demands the death of choice animals at annual sacrifices? This is, in fact, one of the chief pieces of literary evidence for the function of the rural cult of Pergyad, and paints it as a logical perversity perpetuated out of force of habit, to the detriment of all concerned - animals, pastoralists, and the urban communities who enjoyed the fruits of their labour.
This interestingly had only minor procedural effect on the urban feasts. The Antler Boys continued their autumn slaughters in Pholyos, Loros and Adymalon, and indeed in Loros the large, meat-heavy public banquets continue to this day. In Pholyos and Adymalon the practice only gradually died out, over several generations, and goat-meat stews remain popular seasonal dishes in both cities, though this may simply be because stock drives to the cities in autumn render meat cheap. In Dyqamay and Chogyos, changes were somewhat greater. Whereas some cities kept their statues of Pergyad up, these cities are known to have removed theirs, as did Adymalon. Both cities began nominating Antler Boys of their own, and the Beast Men suddenly found themselves unwelcome at the annual ceremony. Both cities, it was said, were cursed by the priests, who continued to appear in relevant seasons for several years. The nature of these curses, however, and whether anything came of them, is not known. What is known is that in both cities the annual banquet continues, but secularised (there is no particular religious component beyond the fact that the butchers wear horned headdresses) and evidently on a smaller scale than in previous generations.
Whereas this process took place in the space of a few years via the swift distribution of the Wesmodian Invectives, the process did not begin in the rural areas until Wesmod himself began his ministry, travelling through a variety of rural districts spreading his manifesto. As might be expected, he appears to have encountered more resistance here, and at one village in the domain of Ramoros he appears to have been run out of town by angry herdsmen. In many places the worship of Pergyad continued for some generations afterwards, though many communities also saw his point, and in such places, while many of the actual cultic practices often continued, they were increasingly emptied of the numinous. Though Pergyad endured in the rural imagination, he appears to have been increasingly absorbed into the system of secular ceremonies connected to Dahan (the worship of whom appears to have ceased rather more suddenly). As such he became something of a secular figure, a personification of wildness and danger contrasted with the genial Father Han, rather than a god. The spiritual momentum appears to have belonged to such sceptics, and areas where Pergyad was worshipped in earnest gradually dwindled. It is not clear how long it took for the worship of the god to die out entirely, but it appears to have done so, at least in mainstream society.

Current state of cult

As noted above, seasonal banquets still take place in some cities, but more as community events and economic rationalisations - the enjoyment of something in season - rather than as religious festivals. Similarly, echoes of the worship of Pergyad are not hard to find in communities where herding is a significant practice. In many places, for example flockstones are still erected, often quite large and elaborately decorated, and representing a considerable investment of resources. They are built as a form of seasonal folk art, however, rather than as manifestations of religious belief. It is unclear whether the people building them have any clear understanding of the roots of the practice. Similarly, Pergyad appears in some of the mummery practiced during seasonal festivals to Father Han, having become rather absorbed into the secular traditions descended from the worship of Dahan. The god is often depicted as a villain of sorts, a symbol of savagery and violence compared to the even-tempered Father Han, though seldom with any malice; mummeries are of course comic plays.
This loss of numinous heft raises the question of what happened to the Beast Men. During his ministry Wesmod is said to have actually encountered one of these individuals on the road between two hamlets in the domain of Pholyos, and to have stopped his caravan and withdrawn into seclusion with this individual for several hours before returning to his travelling companions "visibly saddened." What passed between them is not recorded, though it is worth noting that Wesmod spent some considerable length of time unguarded and in the company of an armed savage and emerged from the experience unharmed. The episode is a common subject of painters in the Cities, who often opt to use it as an allegory of the Reformation as a whole.
The Beast Men appear to have gradually lost their capacity to inspire awe, reverence or favours from the rural communities they once visited. In contrast to the fate of the priesthood of Dahan, however, the sudden turning-away of Beast Men from Dyqamay and Chogyos appears to have been something of an abberation. There is little to suggest the order was actively stripped of its social status in rural areas. Rather, visits by them simply became rarer as reverence for their god declined, eventually declining to nothing within a century or so of the Reformation. The priesthood was not abolished; it seems to have simply withered.
And yet it seems it did not die entirely. Among the folkloric practices widespread in rural areas is a corpus of tales about wild, horned men - sometimes actually possessed of horns, sometimes wearing horned headdresses - haunting forests and hillsides armed with great spears, who are said to carry off disobedient children and eat them in caves in their wooded homelands. These wild men are sometimes regarded as a sort of lost tribe; sometimes as animalistic monsters; sometimes as a species and sometimes as random individual aberrations. Whatever the case, those possessed of historical knowledge will connect these stories fairly obviously to the Beast Men. This survival raises a series of questions - how do they recruit? What rites do they perform? What are the results of this activity, if any? Do they liaise with each other at all or is this a strictly individual endeavour? Thaumatology would likely benefit considerably from answers to these questions, though finding them is not easy. These individuals are rare, unreliably-attested, reclusive, inscrutable and - for want of a better term - skittish. As such getting one to sit down for an interview is a tall order. Even when one can be convinced to sit still, researchers have recorded that they often barely speak human languages, communicating in animalistic noises and lapsing into long-winded chants in unknown tongues or violent mood swings (and they are, it should be remembered, armed). The overall weight of opinion is that the Beast Men are no longer wholly sane, or even necessarily human; the folktales tell of them suddenly turning into stags or exploding into flocks of ravens when attacked. Such stories have led some more sceptical thaumatologists to dismiss the whole phenomenon, writing off scholarly encounters with Beast Men as hoaxes, though conversely they also excite the interest of other scholars pursuing research into this ancient cult.