The Bargain of Faith

Faith, Divinity, Belief

  • The Gillieabad (Gill-E-A-Bad): Ancient Spirits who live in every moment of every time and of every space.
  • Ancient Lore tells us that they created the world first for the purpose of guardianship and a forgotten duty.
  • It also tells us that they created humanity as soldiers to protect the world against a danger that would rise one day to overcome all that they had made.
  • In the first days they were called the people of the Earth Tribes and lived in the North in the lands of the Chosen.
  • The Gillieabad gave magic and knowledge to their people until their prophets foretold the coming of a great fire in the heavens that would alter the state of the world forever.
  • This fire was the return of the Nexus; a fragment of the world that existed in the same point of the universe that this world, made by the Gillieabad, does now which brought it with it the power of Sourcery.
  • Long after Sourcery was established a young Sourceress named Kalarin of the Open Heart fought in the most violent war that this world had ever seen, the First Daemonic War: The Malefic Bloodshed.
  • At the time Sourcery was built on death and lacked the control that it does now, its creativity was only to bring destruction to the world.
  • Kalarin and her followers were creatures who had seen enough of war and death, wanting to replace it with what they felt in their hearts: Love, compassion and an end to battle.
  • One day, on the field of battle, fuelled by the belief of those that held faith in her, it is known that she cast the power of Source to return the life of one that had fallen, for whom she held love.
  • In that moment and in that action she took the power of the Source and reshaped it into a new magic, the focus of which was the faith of those that believed rather than the Nexus and the magic of Divinity came forward and it was named: The Focus.
  • This change in the world altered the power of Ley Lines, gave birth to what is called the Soul and released the forms of those beings such as Kalashinka and Kuldisar from behind the barriers that the Gillieabad had risen to keep them from the world.
  • The awakening of the souls unleashed a flood of power, a tidal wave of faith that burst into the world as belief filled those people who had it with power.
  • Kalarin’s belief was immediately enough to catapult her to a position of power as the first deity as she took a new form as a broker of power.
  • There were many others who sought what she had and more wars were fought then as they are now for the right to the faith of those that wanted to believe.
  • Swiftly the people of the Six Duchies embraced the concepts of faith, the deities and the heavens that followed them and the threefold path developed.
  • Each soul contains the concept of faith or belief and each deity needs that faith to maintain their strength and the power that sustains them.
  • Through that power, they can shape and mould the world and the people that live in it, there is no doubt that each one has its own agenda.
  • However for that power to be shaped, to reach the divine, it must be first planted within a soul, then cultivated and grown and then finally harvested and passed through a vessel to the heavens.
  • That role is taken by the Pilgrims who follow the path of the faithful and in return for gathering the belief of their flock; receive the power of the Focus from their divinity.
  • A Pilgrim brokers an arrangement by selling the fundament of their religion to the people, who in return offer an ongoing connection to their immortal soul which in turn fuels the power of the divinity or divinities of that religion.
  • The Deity in return offers the immortal soul a place to reside after death with the promise of joy and happiness for those that have followed the tenets laid down for them and ergo providing more belief, during life.
  • For their own part a Pilgrim, through the action of invoking the pact between them and their deity may call upon miracles that reflect the nature of the deity that they serve using themselves or a congregation of the like minded as a Focus.
  • These congregations of Pilgrims became Churches and followers would come from miles around to offer their faith up to the heavens and as years passed, these Churches became Synods and Clergies until the Six Duchies were teeming with belief.

What The Focus is:

  • Controlled by a stringent set of beliefs and rules that if worshipped correctly allows Pilgrims (the Focus) to draw power from their parent deity to provide miracles.
  • Based on the purity of the Soul and intolerant of Heresies against it.
  • The second form of magic to come from the Nexus with that power separated from that Source, being autonomous and held under the Auspice of Divine beings.
  • Unified magic working more powerfully when performed in groups through the action of group prayer to a flock.
  • Humble Magic: Pilgrims serve the people that are their flock and they take the doctrines of their patron deity and enforce that in the world. In all matters they are servants although with responsibilities and duty.
  • Adaptable: The Deities attitudes and doctrines change as the world and their followers change: They owe their power to the people who effectively own shares in them. They listen to their shareholders.
  • Ordered: The structure of faith is an ordered thing, run from on high by the Clergy and following set, interpreted guidance from the Deities via the Heads of their Faiths.
  • Representative: The Pilgrims believe that their flock, their deities and ergo their churches represent the people and that they should, therefore, be at the heart of political affairs in the Royal Basin.

What The Focus isn’t:

  • Obeying the direct will of mad Gods so inflexible in their outlook that their Pilgrims are considered mad.
  • A gang of Zealots: Pilgrims of the Royal Basin are open to each other’s beliefs and work for the betterment of the Pantheon.
  • People that fall on their knees before their Deities: The situation is one of mutual respect from Pilgrim to Deity and Deity to Pilgrim.

Choosing The Focus in the Six Duchies:

  • The Pilgrims of the Six Duchies have followed many deities over the years and now hold eleven deities and the associated demi powers in reverence.
  • With so much choice before them the faiths are divided into the three spheres that are called the Dawn, the Day and the Dusk and represent the three phases of life that we pass through.
  • Many Pilgrims begin their life as a follower of one of those spheres before they give themselves fully to one of the Basanic Deities.
  • Each Deities’ faith is heavily defined in their doctrine but in short they can be described through the core words of their portfolio:
  • The Dawn – Representing the youth and inexperience of one’s life when you are strong and bold and full of the keenness of the young.
    • Yarrianne – The Gentle Hand: Peace, Passions, Family and Support
    • Tiberius – The Mailed fist: Valour, Smithing, Honour and Glory
    • Naed – The Kind Hand: Hope, Boldness, Safety and Identity
  • The Day – Representing the maturity of years where one learns to question the world around them, finds their purpose in life and the set of morals that define them.
    • Pracalam – Lord of the Harvest: Impartiality, Guardianship, Children, Rivers
    • The Corrigun – Traitor’s Bane: Allegiances, Tactical Awareness, Pledges and Chirurgery
    • Ekimelahw – The Incorruptible: Obedience Perception, Authority and Justice
    • Bethylak – The One: Time, Fate, Invention and Strategies
    • Terref – The Charmed:  Journeys, Accidents, Rewards and Success
  • The Dusk – Representing the last days of your life, the Autumn of your years as you learn to endure what is before you and face death with dignity.
    • RayvahnThe End of hope: Agony, Grief, Punishment and Restitution
    • Notelexus – The Coldest Fear: Death, Generations, Blood, Ravens and Terror
    • The Kraken – The Oblivion of the Deep: Forgetfulness, Divination, Regret and Burdens

Casting Brief for The Focus

  • A Pilgrim represents a physical embodiment of the contract between a follower or a flock of followers and the Deity or Deities.
  • When they call on the power of their deity they are asking their deity to release to them some of the accumulated faith that they have harvested from that flock.
  • When they do so they are promising to fulfill their contractual agreement to further the will of the deity on the land and to protect those that have entrusted their immortal soul to the Pilgrim’s benefactor.
  • This can only be achieved if the Pilgrim themself has faith and a passion for what they believe; for this process to work both the Deity and the flock must, in turn, have faith in the Pilgrim. This is the nature of the threefold path.
  • When a Pilgrim casts magic they do not, as many might presume pray. No: A Pilgrim fulfills a promise.
  • A Pilgrims casting is full of the emotion and faith that they hold within them and the words of the promise that they, their deity and their flock fulfill to each other:
    • “Through the will and the sanctity of the words of Naed and through the faith that has so diligently been given to him by his followers I ask now for the right to fulfill the promise that he has given to me and that they have given to him and in turn, by my words I bring forth the commitment that I have made and grant freedom to these people” 
  • Whilst a Pilgrim is capable of operating alone to call forth their strength these promises are better made together with the Pilgrim calling out to those of faith to affirm the promises and offer more strength on the spot.
  • Equally many Pilgrims together strengthening the same promise and opening up the conduit of the souls of many who have placed their burdens upon them carries more power with it. 

What are the Clergy  Goals?

  • To maintain a unified presence of the Churches and their dogma to ensure cross faith collaboration.
  • To provide an identity to what Heresy is and to purge its presence throughout the Royal Basin and into the lands beyond.
  • Preservation of the Deities of the Royal Basin, the welcoming of new non heretical powers into the Pantheon and the extension of that Pantheon out beyond the Royal Basin.
  • To represent and control the political and magical expansion of power in and beyond the Royal Basin.
  • To elect and follow between one and three Primus’ who lead the whole or each of the Pantheons and represent, fairly, the beliefs of the Archimandrites that stand for each of the faiths.

What are the Clergy Attitudes? 

  • The Clergy were born from a war between the faiths and has been, through the actions of heretical faiths, in a state of civil war on many occasions throughout the centuries of its existence.
  • It has become wary and distrustful of those that would speak against the clergy and understanding that the organisation itself is riddled with corruption and secrets.
  • The Deities are born of us and were once mortal and as such know the heart of we who serve them. Their power is to be embraced, accepted and spread with balance and harmony to all those that bear a soul. 
  • Any governance needs the words of the Deities within its heart, the clergy must be those words and encompass that heart.
  • The Clergy must never be allowed to fall into darkness again. Unity in Faith.

What is the Aberration of The Focus?

  • Heresy is the Aberration of the Focus and is effectively described as: That which is morally conceived to be wicked or abhorrent to a society that has a strong presence with the Focus.
  • Faith gathered by Pilgrims can be fed upon, souls can be consumed and their immortality stolen. 
  • An immortal soul is a gift from the wellspring of the Focus and to consume such a Divine gift is to empower the devourer with a second core that they were never meant to have.
  • For a mortal to willingly give their soul in spoken contract to a Deity is a choice in which an agreement for care is given. To steal it, torture it or in any way defile it is heresy.
  • Those that claim to be deities and come to fulfil the promises of a pilgrim only to steal away the faith and use it to fuel their lives or their ambitions are heretics or heresies.
  • They come from all areas of the world and may be fallen deities or power hungry mortals and may appear in many guises.
  • If a Pilgrim accepts, willingly or otherwise, power from a heresy then a link is forged that may never be broken and the path that they may wish to follow could be lost to them forever.
Last updated byHolly Goodall