Research from Kassi

On Rai

There are of course many legends of the heroes of the Great War, of their deeds in the desperate battles of that time, of the final battle at Urlich Pass and the destruction, at great cost, of Cha’mutte. But little is recorded in our lore of the lives of these heroes after the Great War.

Beryl of course now a constellation and this is probably noted and discussed at length in the archives. But little mention of Aerin or Kyr, and Rai only slightly more. These are records of gods and myths of the divine, and Rai was, despite his power, not divine.

There is little else that Kassi can find in the Lakan archives about Rai, except for one tantalizing story:

In a book by Chardonian scholar, Gnaeus, written about a generation ago (maybe 20ish years), recently acquired from a book trader, Kassi finds a mention of Rai. The book is a record/catalog of surviving people of the forests of Chardon. He describes a story of a group of people, northerners, who live upriver from Chardon in the great forest, mysterious, few tales of them. But he found a way in, he used magic to convince one to speak of their secret religion, and learned it was a cult dedicated to the Demigod of Magic Rai, who speaks through the dreams of the high priest.

On Anida/Yezali

Here, Kassi finds much more information, from three main sources. The information from each book is listed below.

On Greater Divinity

The first is from a classic philosophical treatise entitled “On Greater Divinity”, written by a Dunmari scholar from 400 years ago, during the Dharajun dynasty. This work considers the theological question of the actual existence of Shurat and Sampa of Dunmari myth. The power of the Five Siblings is unquestionable given the frequency and power of miracles and even direct communication by these powers. But how can we establish the reality, or not, of the creator divinities? The text outlines a number of arguments, such as the limits of the power of gods, the inference of divine intervention beyond their abilities (creation of humans, separation of the planes), and where the gods themselves come from. A small section of this work also considered comparative theology, arguing that the common structure of many religions (with the creator god or gods, never more than two), suggests their reality as well. In this section, are a few sentences that mention Anida:

“Of note, among the oldest and most primitive religions in the distant parts of the world, such as the strange worship of the encircling sea by the Skaer people of the northern oceans, or the barbaric practice of sacrifice to the small gods of the Deno’qai (rhymes with sky) people, it seems that Shurat and Sampa are interpreted as a single divinity. Kaikkea, of the Skaer, is said to be the fathomless creator, the force, the spark that birthed the land, the world, and all that dwells upon it. Anida, of the Deno’qai, is called by those uncivilized barbarians the First and the Last, and is said to be the life force that permeates creation and empowers the tanshi, the small gods of those people, to grant prayers.  It is likely that these unsophisticated cultures were unable to understand the true duality of the Divine, but even they understood that the power of the gods comes from elsewhere, from the Divine Presence.”

Travels in the Far North

The second is from a travelogue written by Eukos the Wanderer, a Chardonian bard from the early 1500s, the last generation before the Great War. It is a long collection of accounts of the land north of Lake Valandros, and is one of the best descriptions of many now-destroyed settlements and civilizations, including the kingdoms of Volganis and Amani, the Ausberg Empire, and the Republic of Varjatta. There is a section that describes Eukos’ time spent among the various tribes of the Deno’qai, traveling north along the mountains, as far as the Blackwater Fens and even beyond, but stopping well short of the volcanoes and rumors of great evil in Pandar. He describes many tribes, loosely connected by trade, culture, and occasional marriage ties, living in hidden villages in the deep forests along the edge of the mountains.

Of particular note is the discussion of their religion, which is centered around the worship of tanshi, as the gods are known as. There are many tanshi, perhaps hundreds, although Eukos only records the names of seven he saw as particularly important and powerful. The tanshi are though to be everywhere, but they can only hear blessings and prayers if carrying with a sacrifice. Usually these are very small, a crushed herb or incense burnt to draw the tanshi, or a drop of blood, or a morsel of food; but bigger prayers require stronger sacrifices, sometimes involving animal sacrifice. Each tanshi has a calling, a domain, and often particular sacrifices or offerings are required to bring the attention of each tanshi to a particular prayer. Eukos was fascinated by the sacrificial tradition, and recorded some detail about each tanshi. No tanshi had a gender, they were referred to as spirits or divines, and seen not as people but as the forces and spirits of the world. The seven tanshi Eukos describes are:

Deni: The spirit of the forest, and according to Eukos the most powerful of the tanshi, a leader of sorts, although whether the Deno’qai actually believed that the tanshi had a hierarchy, or whether this is Eukos’ gloss, is unclear.

Zafi: The spirit of the sunrise, the morning, mists, and fog.

Inech: The spirit of snow and ice.

Wenzi: The spirit of rain and flowing water. Often offered water, splashed with the fingers, instead of a more traditional burnt offering.

Tera: The spirit of the mountains.

Bita: The spirit of bears.

Yezali: The spirit of the hunt, the moon, and the night. Particularly attracted by offerings from a fresh hunt.

On the Birth and Death of the Lesser Gods

The final mention is from a work of Esa, a Lakan scholar who lived about 70 years ago. She was fascinated by trying to understand divinity and was particularly interested in stories of what she called the lesser gods, minor powers that seemed to arise and sometimes disappear. Much of the work is theological speculation on Bhishma, Shakun, and Adra, focusing on the idea / dogma that their divinity was a gift from the Five Siblings, who bestowed some measure of their power on those who would otherwise have lived and died as mortal humans.

However, Esa also describes other “lesser gods”, focusing on three examples that seem less clear cut: the Kestavo in Sembara, the tanshi in the Northlands, and the kadaa, the “saints” of the Mawar.

The kadaa, she claims, are easy to explain as demigods in the Dunmari tradition - divinities granted their power by the Eight Divines of the Way. Guzo the Mariner, for example, was like Bhishma, a historical figure raised to godhood after his death.

The Kestavo and the tanshi are more difficult. The Kestavo, she says, are mostly dying or dead. Drawing connections to the fey guardians of Tyrwingha, Esa proposes that many of the Kestavo may not have been gods at all, rather fey creatures taking advantage of humans.

The tanshi, though, are clearly gods, and she summarizes Chardonian theology and history to support this. She then outlines the evidence that many of the tanshi, despite their divinity, seem to be gone, the people who worshiped them dispersed or destroyed. And she harkens back here to rumors – though she questions their truth – that the Drankorians attempted to exterminate the tanshi during their conquest of the north a thousand years ago.

However, she argues, all we know of divine power and magic suggests that divine energy cannot be destroyed. If worship of a divinity dies out in the world, the divine being cannot disappear. Only the connection between this world and their divine power can fade to nothing. So, she speculates, dead gods must, if they were ever really gods, be better understood as lost gods, lost divinities whose connection to the world has been severed. She then speculates that this connection waxes and wanes with the strength of belief, and that lost gods must be able to be resurrected, or at least the connection reestablished, by reviving belief in this world. She speculates about the possibility there may be many severed divinities, as she calls them, wandering the outer planes, the hidden causalities of the Great War, their connections to the world destroyed by Cha’mutte’s genocide in the north and the devastations of the Blood Years and the hobgoblin wars in the wastelands north of Lake Valandros.