What man has seen the grand Cathedral of Rhonivin and not felt like he was stepping through the gates of heaven itself? The wide courtyard of white stone, ringed with the silent and still forms of saints so long in the past, the sound of the priests chant floating on the wind from within. As you step through the magnificent and enormous carved doors the sweet smell of a hundred lit candles fills your nostrils, mixed with the pungent odor of polished cedar wood that has been tended for centuries without fail.

     Light fills that place, streaming in through fifty high and colorful stained glass windows. Each one telling of the lives of those who Lor chose to be his prophets. The glint of gold covers the altar, where a plain and unadorned chalice rests, and high above it all the paintings and frescos weave their patterns across the ceiling and down the walls to meet the cold gray marble floor. Within the walls, sitting in their small alcoves, the icons of the saints, where the simple people of the city pray their daily prayers. Evil cannot exist there; such a sight would drive the darkness mad with its simple purity.

-Jelar Haman (Royal Ambassador from his majesty King Railen to the Holy Father.)

     The holy Church of Lor is a core staple of society. People get up in the morning and go to mass before usually going about the remainder of their daily tasks and it is not unusual to walk into any church and see at least some people praying at any given time of day or night no matter the weather. Every large city in the kingdom has a Cathedral and the smaller towns, even the poorest, usually contain at least a tiny chapel. Thousands of years old, its power is felt everywhere and on more than one occasion that very stability has aided Anthoria in times that seemed darkest. The basic doctrine of the church is built upon the Codex Anima, or the Law of Life, given to the prophet Gilraen before the fall of Luria. Legend claims it was given on the side of the mountain of Eirid-Dao by the Primarch Imperiel to Gilraen and that it took the holy man over three years to record all that the Primarch had to say. The basic tenets of the faith are as follows:

1. Monotheism. The Church of Lor maintains that only Lor is the one true god. They do not deny the existence of the Malachim, but maintain it is a heresy to worship these “lesser” beings and they never refer to them as the “old gods” but rather call them the “first born”. The only one of the Malachim honored in the church is Imperiel.

2. The Fire of Lor. For any one other than a priest of Lor to use the sacred fire is considered trying to ascend to godhood or take the place of Lor since it is was created by him. In essence to use magic without Lor’s blessing is to commit the original sin that brought down the Malachim Apollyon. Only the priesthood is allowed to use it an then only at need. All other magic users are considered heretics.

3. As the hand of Lor in the world, the church has the final say as to who shall and shall not enter Alysium. Only by strict adherence to the rituals set down by Gilraen can one enter heaven. Likewise to be cut of or “excommunicated” from the church condemns the soul to wander through Hades for an eternity. For this reason excommunication is feared even more so than the threat of death by those in the church. And not even the Patriarch can reverse it. It should be noted however that not all priests have the power to hand out this punishment. In fact only a Cardinal or the Patriarch himself can excommunicate someone from the church according to its bylaws. And it cannot be done arbitrarily but has to be in the form of a trial before others of high rank in the priesthood.

The Codex Anima

     “My word is your life, heed me and what I say to you now. What I have given you is my law, and by my law you shall live all the days that are allowed to you, until the day I require the life which I have freely given.”

-Lor to the prophet Gilraen

(Canticle of Days 12:13)

     It is the book by which every member of the Holy Church tries their best to live their lives. Set down by the prophet Gilraen during the golden age of man at the feet of Imperiel, it has grown over the years to include seven separate Canticles or books containing the law and history of the church. Those books are listed below along with a basic explanation of what they contain.

The Canticle of Aon: “The Book of Origin”. The story of the creation, the great rebellion and the division of the world, and the coming of the races to Aerth.

The Canticle of Days: “The Book of Epoch”. The record of the tribes of the mortal races during the Nether Time and into the Golden Age of Man.

The Canticle of the Measure: “The Book of the Law”. The book that outlines the ritual and laws that govern all aspects of life and death among those who follow Lor.

The Canticle of Heras: “The Book of Judgment”. The book that outlines the sins of mankind and the judgments that await for each. Heras was one of the early prophets of Lor during the Nether Time and was known for being a harbinger of Lor’s judgment to the sinful.

The Canticle of the Clergy: “The Book of the Faithful”. Sets the daily rituals and behavior of the priesthood, among themselves and among others in the world.

The Canticle of the King: “The Book of the Song”. While no one knows who wrote it, the Book of the Song is considered by many to be a euphemism of the story of Luria. Though by face value it seems to be little more than a letter from one lover to another.

The Canticle of Jerod: “The Book of the Promise”. Considered by many to be the greatest of the prophets during the Nether Time, Jerod foretold the coming of Taranis and the fall of Luria. Much of the book though is filled with vivid and strange imagery that is open to multiple interpretation, but the bulk of the clergy and other theologians consider it to be a prophecy of things to come beyond the coming of the Lord of Summer.

Icons & Saints

Church Structure

The Patriarch:

Cardinal:

Bishop:

Curate:

Priest:

Friar:

Scribe:

Acolyte:

The Sacraments

     There are many rituals, which govern the lives of the faithful within the church, but there are seven of these, which are more central and of more importance than the others.

Baptism:

Mass:

Sacrament of Wine:

Sacrament of Bread:

Confession:

Marriage:

Last Rites:

The Wardens

     You shall number some among you to guard the gates of the sacred fire. They will be the keepers of the chosen and shall guide them in the light.

-The Codex Anima (Canticle of the Clergy 11:5)

     Whereas Inquisitors are charged with the task of tracking down and dealing with rogue magic users outside the church. Priests who wield magic within it are constantly watched over by a sacred order of knights known as the Wardens. The only one of the knightly orders to take direct orders from the Patriarch, they are made up mostly of former priests who demonstrated more a talent for the martial than for prayer. Many of them are veterans of past wars who wish to try and atone for past deeds on the battlefield. An interesting side effect though of their job is that among the clergy they are the most tolerant of those who use magic. And many of them tend to form close bonds over time with those they are to guard. For this reason Wardens and those who serve as part of the Inquisition do not tend to get along very well. Incidents like the massacre at Pern only serving to fuel the hatred between the two factions. And nothing draws fire between them faster for an Inquisitor to go after a priest whom is under the watch of a Warden.

The Inquisition

     Suffer not the heretic to draw breath, nor those who usurp heaven for power. They are an abomination in the eyes of the Creator; they have given themselves and their children to darkness in strange ritual and offer their bodies in sacrifice to Hades. Destroy them all, lest their sin stain all.

-The Codex Anima (Canticle of Heras 3:15)

     If there is any part of the Holy Church that has always operated just beyond the bounds of law, it is the church’s intolerance of magic users and priests of the old gods. The church’s stance that the fire of Lor may only be used by his followers has led to bloodshed and open war on more than one occasion and even though such events are largely a matter of history now there are still those in the ranks of the clergy who feel it their duty to rid the world of these heretics.

     Only the Patriarch can call for an Inquisition, but that hasn’t stopped some from carrying out their own vendettas on Sorcerers, Witches along with Priests of other faiths and their families. And even those priests within the church who use the fire are under incredible scrutiny from day one. Such a priest can expect having to send reports to his superiors weekly and should the slightest rumor of misconduct reach them in Rhonivin the priest or cleric can expect a swift visit from a Warden to explain themselves. Such a visit may be to only talk, or the Warden may bring a writ of arrest to take the priest or cleric back to Rhonivin to be tried. It all depends on that clerics record and what news the clergy in Rhonivin has been receiving on him or her.

     Many scoff at the idea of the church trying to control all magic in the realms, but such people fail to realize that the church has managed to do a fairly good job of it for the past thousand years. Witches and Sorcerers are incredibly rare in Anthoria, and those that do exist practice their art only the deepest of secrecy, thus making them appear even more dangerous to the uneducated masses. The full brunt of holy wrath though is reserved for those who call themselves Witch. A fad among many of the young nobles in Anthoria and Darandor, they are blind to how such dalliances put their entire families in jeopardy. The spies of the church are everywhere and are trained to keep from revealing anything of their true nature until the time is right to strike. And people who do not take the threat seriously have only to look at the example of Pern to be reminded just how dangerous the church believes magic users to be.

     In 74 A.D., according to the elven calendar, 474 C.E. by human measure, the village of Pern in eastern Anthor was put to the stake. Every man, woman, and child was slaughtered because of one Inquisitors zealousness that led him to declare that the whole village were either witches or in league with them. Before the people knew what had happened, several hundred knights rode into the village and two days of slaughter and mayhem began. The knights using the occasion as an excuse to carry out all manner of evil and sadistic butchery lost all control of their reason and became little more than animals. Stories abounded afterward of girls and women being raped openly in the streets before being set ablaze by the laughing soldiers, of infants and toddlers being thrown onto pikes. On the sunset of the second day, the death toll had reached one thousand and Pern ceased to exist.

When the news of what had happened reached the ears of Gregory I, then Patriarch of the church, it is said that he vomited as he read the reports and in a rage that would have driven Mordin himself into hiding, ordered a holy crusade against those who were responsible for the atrocity. The red and white banner of judgment was taken down and unfurled and ere the sunset that day, five thousand knights, paladins, mercenaries and soldiers rode out the gates of the capital and turned to the east. Six days later they caught up with their quarry.

     For those who had taken part in the massacre, there had been little place to go to get away from the coming storm. Gates had been barred and windows shuttered as they rode through the countryside, trying to outpace the hounds at their backs. They ran out of room on the morning of the sixth day as their camp was overtaken and every man put to the blade as he fought or as he tried to surrender, no one was spared to face trial. It only took an hour then all was done. And as for the Inquisitor whom had himself ordered the massacre at Pern? The commander ordered him stripped naked, he was tied to a stake and a cloth shoved in his mouth so he could not confess, he was then excommunicated by a priest and burned alive as an example to all present. The body of course was not given last rites, and by all accounts was thrown into the camps latrine ditch to rot. For Pern itself, the commander of the crusade ordered that all the remains be given the last rites by the priests and burned in a great pit until not a bone remained, the pit was then covered over. Every timber of every building was then torn down, piled in heaps and burned, along with the palisade and towers, for two weeks his army labored and finally Pern was nothing more than large piles of ash and black coal. An altar was erected in what would have been the center of the town and there the commander poured holy water over it and named that place “Shinoa-Tabar” or Place of Wailing.

     Never again would the inquisitors have the authority to command troops. And thankfully, there has never been a repeat of the massacre at Pern, though people have continued to die more secretly. For many years after massacre, people who used magic enjoyed something of a reprieve as the church withdrew much of its condemnation of the magical arts and new laws and systems were drawn up to dictate the use of force and who could wield it. But the church’s war against magic did not end at Pern; it merely took a different turn.