Church of Penance

The Church of Penance is a denomination of Atovism that split off from the Orthodox church in the years following The Gateway Summit. Followers of the Church of Penance are called Penants.

History

Atovist priests in the land that is now Narr had distinct customs from the mainline church for centuries before the Gateway Summit. In 1565 SE, these Atovists branched into an independent denomination.

Differences in Philosophy from other Atovists

Penants believe in the Path of Zekklar, a path to personal absolution through ritual and personal pain. They wholely reject the belief held by other Atovist that of all six aspects of creation are, in equal measure, paths to absolution. Instead, the Penants believe that only the sixth aspect, pain, can cleanse a mortal soul, and the other five aspects, while still venerated, are too above Humanity to be reached. To a Penant, humility is the only way to venerate the dead gods.

Penants wholly denounce the claim that Gaermund is still alive, and any claim to the contrary is labeled as blasphemy.

Penants believe that Shaping is a perversion of the natural world and an insult to the Pantheon of creation. It is making yourself a mockery of the gods, the opposite of humility.

Unique Rituals from other Atovists

Penants have a number of unique self-mutilation rituals.

Zekklar's Tears

Penants can undergo a voluntary ritual of self-scarrification in which a priest speaks before an assembly from the Book of Zekklar while the Penant stands before the assembly with a ritual dagger. The Penant will then hold their bottom-right eyelid, press the tip of the knife under the eye, and cut their face down to their chin, splitting the eyelid and creating a straight line past their cheek-bone. The wound is then closed with iron-wire, which is removed and reinserted every two days in order to re-open the wound and ensure the tissue is scarified.

Festival of Thorns

Penants comemorate the death of Zekklar on the second of Reap, ending on the fourth. The three day festival involves out-door communal suppers of lentils, rice, and unleavened bread, with hardy breakfasts of lamb, eggs, and bread in the mornings, eaten alone. The communal suppers of minimal food is meant to symbolize a collective death and mourning, while the extravagent but solitary breakfast the following mornings are meant to represent birth, and a reflection on the blessed but lonely lives mankind has been left with in the wake of the gods.

Unique Laws from other Atovists

Penants ban the practice of all forms of shaping and Essence Crafting, such as alchemy and seed-soothing.

Type

Religious, Organised Religion

Tolerated

Church of Penance

-5

Orthodox Atovism

-5

Disliked

Renewist Atovism

-25

Church of Penance

-30