Fultonian Religion

As most D&D worlds, Fultonian religion is pantheistic; the primary deity of the pantheon is Tya Nehru, the mother of the gods and goddesses, giver of Law, the patron goddess of lawyers, judges, doctors, parents, and font of all wise action. She is seen as benevolent but stern. She emphasizes the danger of chaos and value of order, which brings peace and prosperity to her children. Tya Nehra is commonly pictured as a large, sometimes pregnant, woman with no face and exaggerated breasts and buttocks. She has the most followers and numerous sects and orders, like the The Order of the Swordmaidens of the White Oak. Fultonians see the universe as a struggle between the forces of order and chaos. “Good” and “Evil” are seen as lesser, more culturally-determined concepts, not central to theology or dogma. Religion encourages “goodness,” but generally accepts that the meaning of goodness may change from place to place and time to time, whereas order and chaos are unyielding cosmic principles. Order can only survive against chaos through endless warfare and struggle. Within the bounds of the world, the faithful live in—in fact, constitute—the “Domain of Order,” while nonbelievers inhabit the “Domain of Chaos.” The Domain of Order is both a synonym for the Fultonian state and a metaphor for the community of the faithful. Since the Empress of Fultar is always a priestess of Tya Nehru, her name and her worship are closely associated with imperial power in the abstract as well as the person of the empress her-self. At the beginning of time, Tya Nehru first gave birth to the Material Pane: the skies and forests, the ocean and rivers, the humans and animals, and the sun and stars. The ancient primordial forces of nature like the wind, sun, moon and stars are often considered her first “children,” the first gods. These ancient immortals have few human characteristics and do not play much of a role in the life of Fultonians. Sometimes they are referred to as “The Voiceless Gods.” After resting for seven ages Tya Nehra created humanity, and to guide and rule it then birthed her twin children Sennia and Hantithenus. These two married, sired numerous deities, and founded cults and churches among the humans. During this time Sennia established the city of Gebesh and taught humans how to farm and the handicrafts of rural life, spreading farming communities across the world. Hantithenus founded the cities of Fulton (Fultar’s political capital) and Atlan (Fultar’s financial capital) in the Barony of Atlan and taught humankind writing, mathematics, and other lore. The twins grew apart, and eventually became embroiled in a bitter struggle for supremacy on Earth. They used their favored cities they played deadly games and wars. Only the intervention of Tya Nehra stopped the extinction of humanity and the death of some of the gods, bringing peace to Fultar. Sennia has settled into the role of goddess of the fertile earth and domesticated plants and animals (NOT wild nature her favorite son is Menel, the god of the sky, of sun and the rain. She is the patron goddess of Gebesh, Fultar’s second city, and of the Barons of Gebesh. Her temple in Gebesh is well-known for its opulent and vast hanging gardens. Sennia is widely worshipped by peasants and landed gentry alike. Everyone whose livelihood depends directly on the fruits of the earth keeps Sennia first in his or her heart. Many Barons actively encourage and subsidize the cult of Sennia as a political counterbalance to the imperial cult of Tya Nehra. She is understood to be a gentle power who wants to see things grow; she takes great pleasure in bounty and sharing freely. She and her followers tend to see worshippers of Hantithenus as rather cold and mercenary, more interested in abstractions than in the joy of nature and life. There are no Fultonian “environmentalists” in the modern sense, but Sennia hates to see good farmland lost to roads and buildings. She emphasizes living close to (while in dominion over) the earth. Her priestesses paint their fingernails brown to simulate having dirt under them. Her sense of time is cyclical. Hantithenus is the god of culture and social organization; of commerce, cities, construction, architecture; patron of merchants, bankers, and city planners; of engineers and also of sailors (who bring culture and commerce to the seas). Hantithenus loves winners and encourages competition of all sorts among his followers. He takes great joy in artifice and invention; in building bridges and straight wide roads, and in the humming orderly bustle of a well-run and prosperous community. Most marketplaces are presided and watched over by icons of Hantithenus, and his priests teach that the market is a sacred space, and commerce a form of worship. Mages in Fultar don’t tend to be very religious, but most Fultonian mages worship Hantithenus if they have a patron god; among all the pantheon, he is most friendly to them, understanding their magic as a sort of engineering project. Hantithenus is a sterner god than Sennia; he is a sort of perpetually difficult to please father figure, always urging his followers on to build higher, straighter, and stronger. He and his followers often unfairly associate Sennia with the chaos of wild nature and claim that she encouraged or aided Hecate in the past. Hantithenus believes in progress, and his sense of time is linear. While Hantithenus is the patron of both Fultar and Atlan, Fultarians emphasize Hantithenus’s role as protector of merchant captains and commerce as daring action; whereas Atlanians emphasize his role as a conservator and protector of wealth; inventor of mathematics and of currency; and patron of commerce as social activity. Most other Fultonian Gods are the children of Sennia and Hantithenus, but two important gods were born as mortals: Ram Kor and Ohgma. Ram Kor, the god of war, patron of soldiers, appears in Fultonian mythology at the time of the first Guar invasion and conquest. Legend tells a story of a half-Guar, half-Fultonian warrior who died helping to overthrow the first Guar rulers. For his deeds Tya Nehra granted him immortality and apotheosis. After achieving immortality this demi-god quickly supplanted the old Fultonian god of war, Ral Rom, and has now become one of the most important Fultonian deities. He is worshipped almost universally by the legions of the Fultonian army and is the god mostly closely associated with Imperial power after Tya Nehra. His priests are generally army officers. Outside of the military, mercenaries but few others worship Ram Kor; most Fultonians pay thanks to him and remember him for driving away the Guar on his feast day and try not to think about his famously severe self otherwise. His temples are found wherever there are large army bases or wherever mercenary activity is concentrated. Some baronial fighting men and women worship Ram Kor, but the Barons generally discourage his cult. Ohgma was a half-Fultonian, half-Celtic bard and druid who brought about a lasting peace between Fultonians and Celts during an ancient period of Fultar’s northern expansion. It is told that he journeyed in disguise to Fulton and tricked his way into an audience with the queen in the central temple of Tya Nehra, and, in a performance that lasted a year and a day, sang an epic poem, accompanying himself on the hammered dulcimer, telling the whole history of the Celtic people and so moving not only the Empress but the goddess herself that he was made overlord of all the nations of Celts by divine fiat, and, on his death, transformed into a god: god of music, stories, folk knowledge and the patron of bards and all storytellers and musicians. Ohgma represents that flash of intuitive geni-us that artists, poets, musicians, scholars and even common artisans experience. In Northern Fultar from Gebesh to the Celtic lands Ohgma has supplanted Sennia has the patron deity of music, entertainment and gaiety. Ohgma is also worshipped in Celtic lands, but the Fultonian vision of Ohgma is more serious and pensive than the Celtic. Since Ohgma is relatively chaotic and freethinking, he is the god most commonly worshipped by rogues and other socially marginal types. The stern and lawful pantheon of Fultar has no place for a patron god of thieves, but Ohgma is the closest thing thereto. The more serious-minded and dour members of a community sometimes see Temples of Ohgma as rather unsavory places. The evil goddess of Fultar is Hecate, personification of spite, sadism, and, above all, chaos. She was the third child of Tya Nehra after the twins Hantithenus and Sennia. Tya Nehra created Hecate to rule and guide the natural forces of the world to help and serve the twins, whose dominion was humanity; but that Hecate grew jealous of the throngs of adoring, fearful followers of her siblings and came to hate them and all they created. From the wild forces she was meant to domesticate she instead learned the power and intoxication of chaos, of impulse, of selfishness, instinct, and id; she abandoned her charge and sought shelter from her family in the lower planes among the demons and nameless dark powers, from where she tirelessly reaches out to corrupt the souls of Fultonians and work for the destruction of all that her hated elders create. The followers of Hecate must worship their dark goddess deep under cover. There are special inquisitorial cler-ical units charged with the extermination of her followers and many paladins and other do-gooders make hunting a primary activity. Whenever found, they are invariably and publicly tortured to death: flaying, slow roasting, disem-boweling, and breaking on the wheel are all common fates of worshippers of Hecate. Often a whole neighborhood or village where a temple of Hecate is discovered will be razed, and its inhabitants, man woman and child, put to death, “just in case.” Fear and loathing of this goddess and her followers unite all other Fultonians. Hecate’s sigil is the snake, and all poisonous creatures and plants are associated with her, as she is believed to have invented poison. For this reason the use of poison is not considered a means which is justified by any ends in Fultar. A murderer will be put to death, but a poisoner will be slowly and publicly tortured to death, possibly over weeks. All things whose nature seems to include change is tainted by Hecate, goddess of chaos; Fultonians associate her with the moon and even with butterflies and frogs. Fultonians do not believe that all the devils, demons, and evil deminhumans and monsters of the world were spawned by Hecate; many of these forces are held to have existed before Tya Nehra’s creation of the world; rather, Hecate sought refuge with them after her rebellion, and it was she who showed them the paths into the world. While numerous other deities exist in the Fultonian pantheon, none challenge the supremacy of Tya Nehra as the central figure or of Sennia and Hantithenus as the first tier of divine powers or Ram Kor and Ohgma as the second tier. Some of the more commonly known and worshipped of these “third tier” divinities are: Apollo, god of the sky (the sun and the rain), patron of scholars, astronomers, and jewelers; Poesidon, god of the sea and of storms, pa-tron of fishermen (and worshipped by many pirates in lieu of the “official” god of sailors, Hantithenus Artemis, god of the woods and four-legged beasts, patron of woodsmen, hunters, and archers; Mithras god of the sun, justice, contract, and war; Hephaestus, god of ore and of fire, patron of smithies and miners; Thanos, god of death, guardian of the veil between the underworld and this world, whose priests hunt the undead and necromancers, comfort the dying, care for the dead, and minister to the bereaved; while the most chaotic god in the Fultonian pantheon is Bacchus, the god of revelry, wine, and feasting, and patron of drunks, beggars, and wanderers. Bacchus is seen by Fultonian theologians not so much as an instigator of chaos as a controller of it. By dedicating harvest feasts, birthday parties, wedding receptions, dances, and so on to Bacchus, Fultonians believe that the chaos they create will be controlled and “bled off” safely. Fultonians worship Bacchus as the tireless chaperone of the chaotic side of human nature. Bacchus once held a more important position in the Fultonian pantheon, but Ohgma took over much of his “portfolio” long ago. The Katheroi are a persecuted and heretical sect that do not fit into the dominant worldview and must be crushed. The Katheroi believes that the “Gods” are mere imperfect manifestations of the Good and the Evil. In that sense, the gods are no different from any other living thing, which is offensive in that it denies their essential di-vinity. The Good is represented by light, thus Sol Invictus is a powerful iconographic symbol. Mithra’s relation-ship to Sol and the universe, the cosmological calendar, plus the mysteries and orders are an element of their reli-gion only to the extent that Mithra is like Sol Invictus a powerful icon of the Good. Neither Sol Invictus or Mithra are objects of worship, but rather vessels that are infused with the radiance of the Good. They are similar to Taoists in that the Katheroi believe that there is a path that they should strive to follow that will help us achieve more per-fect harmony with the Good and thus lead to a higher, perhaps eve; the highest, level of being, or Perfection. Where the Taoists seek harmony with the patterns of the universe, they seek harmony and ultimately joining with the Good. The Katheroi's focus on "Good" vs. "Evil" is contrasted to the mainstream Fultonian emphasis on "Choas" vs. "Order." Fultar and Fultonian is based on the balance of Chaos and Order, while Good and Evil are seen as lesser and more culturally-determined concepts, not central to theology or dogma. This is a central tension which has led to the Katheroi being treated as heretical sect in what is normally a tolerant and inclusive Fultonian religion. The physical necessities of the world are often polluted by the Evil, thus asceticism is encouraged, but not as a means of achieving enlightenment through self-denial, but rather as a means of leading a disciplined and righteous life. Abstinence from promiscuity is encouraged, but marriage and family are very important and we have no man-dates that encourage celibacy or other odd acts of piety. There are no dietary restrictions apart from avoiding glut-tony or waste. Excess wealth, pomp and circumstance are frowned upon as an act of selfishness and narcissism that quickly leads to an evil path. Live simply so that others may simply live is a better way to achieve the Good. Acts of kindness and generosity are critically important. They reject the belief in Gods as perfect manifestations of whatever they purport to be is insufficient to warrant persecution as many Fultonians view all the Gods as simply manifestations of Tya Nehru. So many of the core values of the Katheroi are directly in conflict with the dominant Fultonian society built upon rigid hierarchical social structures that value ritual and harmony over individuality and personal spirituality results in them being persecut-ed as non-believers. Their disdain for rigid practices, ostentatious displays of extravagance, and excess also results in persecution by other more powerful religions that enjoy such things. Thus, the adoption of Mithraic mysteries and secretive places of worship. When we practice in the open our temples are austere fortresses dominated by a Tower of Light that serve as strongholds and places of refuge for the followers of the Good. The Katheroi also choose the wrong side of a political dispute in the Barony of Bortlan, which lead to the Baron of Bortlan seizing their largest stronghold, which was located in the western most area of Bortlan. For fifty years war raged hot and cold between the duchy of Carcassonne and other Katheroi storngholds, and only after the Sua Hill dwarves were defeated and Bortlan soldiers and freed up Fultonian military units (some serving as mercenar-ies) were the Katheroi crushed. Those who renounced their faith were permitted to leave Bortlan, others burned at the stake and still others escaped. Rumors are that before the fall of Carcassonne a small number of Katheroi priests (Perfecti) fled with the Katheroi treasure that included the Holy Grail, although the same is said of the Tem-plars. The Katheroi face far less hostility and discrimination in the borderlands, but they are a persecuted sect in all areas of the Empire. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should give one a pretty good idea of the major gods and goddesses and their cults which are likely to be encountered. Many rural areas are served only by a priest or priestess “of the Pantheon,” a generalist who is careful to pay devotion to all the gods and goddesses in turn and helps worshippers understand to whom they should pray and sacrifice at which time and for which purpose. Often, a Temple of the Pantheon will have a central altar dedicated to Tya Nehra and little niches or chapels for each of the other major gods and goddesses. Many places also have local gods or goddesses, personifications of local geographical features, for instance, or patron deities of the commune, who are worshipped in a Temple locally alongside the national deities. Finally, the "holists" are another heretical sect that believe in one all powerful mother goddess Tya Nehru. Although "she" can take the human like form of Tya Nehru, or when "she" desires the form of any other deity, "she" is viewed as a supernatural force that holds together the essence of all life, wonder, death and beauty. The holists often tolerate the belief in other deities and mythologies thinking that may be the method Tya Nehru has chosen to communicate with us mortals. Other more hard line holists view non-holists as heretics to be converted or killed. The holist view of Tya Nehru is a rather recent (the last few centuries), and at times evangelical movement, and in the past has suffered fierce persecution and hostility. They remain disfavored and minority perspective.