Cult of the Midwife
The Cult of the Midwife are a small religious order based in the Hall of the Midwife in Dus A Thanal. They were formed a few centures ago and worship a God, though they use the term Goddess, called "The Midwife".
They have brought a substantial number of the children of Dus A Thanal into the world, taking Consecration rites from the act of a succesful (non-fatal to mother or child) childbirth and Abstention rites from their refusal to speak to men and to perform any medical operations other than childbirth. The ten women of the order are amongst the most skilled midwifes in the Diarchy through a combination of practice, the accumulated knowledge of the order and The Midwife's blessing.
Strictly speaking they don't charge for their services but given the small number of their acolytes and the large demand for their service it is a fairly open secret that donations to the running costs of the hall can bump one up the priority list for the limited number of beds. They are also supported by an annual stipend from the Lord of Dus A Thanal which technically is a payment that they or their wife get priority when needed but is rarely treated as such - successive Lords have made additional payments when the cult's services were needed and any attempt to enforce the terms of the stipend would likely prove quite unpopular.
They have traditionally recruited exclusively through "donations" to the order - mothers from poor families who can't afford to feed the newly born (female) child will offer them to the cult and, if the cult predicts they will need new members in the fifteen or so years it will take the child to grow to maturity they will accept. This "contract" is not enforced though and considerably more leave before joining the cult fully than don't. As such, in addition to the ten members there are usually ten or fifteen children of various ages housed in a building owned by the order opposite the Hall. They perform menial tasks around the Hall while also serving something of an apprenticeship in midwifery and associated tasks.
These youngsters are also given extensive training in the various ways of preventing a woman from needing the services of the cult - assorted herbs, paying careful attention to the date and so forth. Plus various herbs and techniques that can be used in extremis if one is already pregnant and wishes not to be. They don't charge for these services but as they are peripheral to the Cult's main aims this side service is underfunded and if a client can bring either the needed supplies or the coin to buy them they are likely to receive priority. The full members of the cult, though, demur on being asked advce about these issues despite having received this same training in their own youth/apprenticeship.
The activities of the broader Cult in first preventing unhealthy and unsafe pregnancies and adeptly handling many others has left a lasting impact on Thanali culture - pregnancies are rarer here than in many other places in the Diarchy and those that do happen are considerably more likely to end without death. With no formal scripture or method of enforcement it is unlikely that The Midwife herself could spread throughout the Diarchy without becoming polluted but there is no reason similar organisations couldn't be set up in other areas with a sifficiently dense population to support them. To date, despite various overtures from other Lorships, though, this has not happened.
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