Religion entry from Contest 3A

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Shyriath
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Religion entry from Contest 3A

Post by Shyriath »

Although there are several modes of belief among the Deep Singers of Kennerext, by far the most widely held is that centered around the Voices of the Earth.

A few of the more sophisticated Outsiders to have made themselves acquainted with the Deep Singers tend to refer to this mode of belief as a religion, and sometimes (using a rough translation from one Taxnim word for the phenomenon) give it the name Earthcalling, but attempting to use either of these terms when discussing the subject with a practitioner inevitably leads to difficulties. The idea that the aspect of society that is concerned with the sacred and the supernatural can be walled off from the rest and labeled is utterly foreign to the worldview of the Deep Singers; their native tongue contains no exact equivalent for the notion. Even if it did, their beliefs are bound up so intricately with the other aspects of their civilization that one would be hard-pressed to say where religion began and the rest ended.

The Voices

The Voices of the Earth are a collection of deities that serve as manifestations of the soul and power of the very substance making up the world. They cannot be seen as separate entities, and have no visible physical form other than the world of Pelagia itself, but as the appellation implies, they will communicate to mortals through sound. Believers consider that most of the time, these communications are whispered directly into the mind, taking on the role of what other societies might consider to be conscience, instinct, inspiration, or sudden realization; but when in the grip of strong emotion, or attempting to make an unambiguous point to mortals, they are said to "shout" in such a way as to make physical noise or other effects. Earthquakes in particular are considered a sign of anger or outrage, but other natural noises fall into this category as well: dripping or rushing water, stone shifting, a breeze echoing through a cavern.

The perceived relationship between the Voices and the Deep Singers is a nuanced one. Although the Singers direct considerable veneration and respect toward the Voices, the Voices in turn are not seen as purely good; though capable of compassion and a sense of justice, they also have their faults, such as impulsiveness, capriciousness, and a tendency toward collateral damage when dealing out destruction. Smart believers, therefore, regard them with a mixture of gratitude and nervousness, and their prayers are often both requests for aid or comfort and attempts at mollification.

The Light

The Deep Singers believe that their survival through what they called the Cataclysm was due to the intervention of the Voices, who lured their ancestors into the caverns of the World Inside (there is a detailed and complicated mythology surrounding this time, which shall be omitted here). Although the Voices can be heard aboveground, their natural home is in darkness, silence, and stone, and therefore have more power and are better perceived underground, and the arrival of the Deep Singers in the caverns allowed them to be under the Voices' protection.

The Singers, however, retain some vestiges of their surface heritage, including a psychological desire for light. Although they are capable of operating in total darkness for extended periods, their communities are centered around areas which have been artificially lit; their communities are centered around main caverns with a single large light, a Beacon, and the communities themselves are named for these lights. Light is an embodiment of the forces of civilization and good order.

Framed this way, the darkness-dwelling Voices are a sort of primal, natural force. The Singers believe that for the Voices to allow light and its associated noise to be brought into their domain was neither easy nor natural for them, but that they nonetheless did so out of compassion and that they are therefore owed a debt of gratitude. But because the Voices are less present in the light of the Beacons than beyond them, acts of worship or devotion are generally conducted in darkened chambers or at the edges of each Beacon's domain.

The most famous form of worship is that which the Deep Singers named themselves for: the Songs of the Hours. These rituals are partly a form of timekeeping and partly a navigational aid, but also serve as the main form of public devotion. Approximately every two hours, a mixture of volunteers and randomly selected individuals arrange themselves around the gates of their Beacon, and begin singing these ancient chants into the darkness, each song based around a different portion of the Singers' history and mythology and the place of the Voices in it.

The Darkness

Beyond the light of the Beacons is darkness. To the Deep Singers, darkness has connotations both of the sacred and of the profane, because it is reality unmoderated by order; like the Voices that dwell in it, darkness is raw, primal, and unpredictable. Those who travel through total darkness are believed to become closer to the Voices and to their own souls, for good or for ill.

As a result, long pilgrimages and sojourns without the benefit of artificial light hold deep meaning for the Singers. They represent, one and all, a form of rejection of civilization in the search for one's inner nature. But this can, depending on the individual, be either a good or a bad thing; one's inner nature may not be a pretty thing to look at. One may be walking in darkness to achieve self-understanding, to escape the pressures of society, to purge oneself of shame, or to revel in one's inner evils. It is the province of both the pilgrim and the fugitive.

The Voices are believed to play a vital role in the process. A traveller in darkness, their soul, and the Voices all come closer together, and can see one another more clearly, so that the Voices can perceive the whole of a person as easily, if not more so, than the person perceives themselves. In this realm, therefore, a person is seen, judged, and sentenced by the Voices by the contents of their soul, and the nature of their fate in the darkness is taken as evidence of the judgment, with those not stained by deep evil returning safely and of their own free will, and those less so suffering hardship in their return, or returning not at all.

It is for this reason that exile from the Beacons is a common punishment for convicted criminals; they are forced into soul-searching, their true nature is revealed to themselves and to the Voices. There, the Voices shall either find them irredeemable and condemn them to death, or find some worth in them, and take the exile into their service for whatever tasks they choose to assign.
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese

TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST

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