EditDescription
Lameth is the name of a region where lies a group of kingdoms and cities. It would take about four months to travel from the south to the north and about six month to travel from east to west.
Beyond the eastern mountains lies Chaos. Unnatural creatures roam the mountains and the arid, desolate plains beyond. Traveling further and further into Chaos leads, eventually, into the Abyss, where the will of powerful demons hold sway. They are often the incarnations of universal forces.
East beyond Chaos lies another realm, similar in many ways to Lameth.
The northern extremities of Lameth are separated from the rest by a narrow sea. A great forest lies to the north and west. Traveling into the forest eventually leads to the Deep Green, a place where living forces stride the land.
In the sandy wastes to the southwest lies the path of good intentions, and to travel down this path is to arrive at the very Gates of Hell.
The five seas that bound Lameth harbour mystery in their depths.
EditCharacters
Characters are people who are noted in some way, and are usually more gifted or able than the average person. Characters can have one or more of five Gifts. They are:
- the Gift of Arms
- the Gift of the Arcane
- the Gift of Shadows
- the Gift of Tongues
- Nature's Gift
Those who receive the Gift of Arms are good at and can effortlessly learn martial skills. Similarly, those who receive the Gift of the Arcane are good at magic, those with the Gift of Shadows are naturally proficient at stealthy endeavours. The Gift of Tongues makes a character fluent in languages as well as naturally persuasive. Those with Nature's Gift are good with plants, animals and the natural world around them.
EditThe Astral Plane
The astral plane permeates Lameth and is local to it. It is supported by temples, monuments and other ontological machines, administered and maintained by various priesthoods. It is the medium through which most magic propagates.
EditPriests
Priests are the professional class who administrate the business of religion. Having faith in the religion is not a requirement. Being a member of the appropriate class usually is.
EditRituals
Priests administer religion through rituals. The vast majority of them deal with purifying worshippers who have become spiritually unclean to one degree or another. Becoming spiritually impure is defined as a sin, and sins are not necessarily evil, immoral or unethical. Rather, it refers to a failure to meet one or more stricture of the faith.
Priests preside over festivals, important rituals that take place at different times of the year. These often act as support and reinforcement for the astral plane, itself.
The main purpose of the rituals is to establish and maintain a relationship between the people who live there and one or more of the astral animates of the place.
EditSpiritual Demesne
The area that a priests religious power extends is determined largely by hieratic rank and degree of consecration to one or more altars. The altar is the wellspring of that power, and the boundaries are formed by monumental markers like stelae. The higher the priests rank, the more prestigious the altar they are consecrated to, and the deeper the degree of consecration.
Political power, economic power and prestige may extend beyond those boundaries, but spiritual abilities do not.
EditSpiritual Abilities
Priests are almost always literate to some degree or other, and often act as scribes where that function is not filled by others. They may even be skilled in arcane professions like herbalist, alchemist or physician, particularly if they are reclusive in nature.
It is rare for them to be skilled in professions of arms.
They maintain the social structure that they are attached to and the most common way they do that is by officiating at rituals of birth, death and marriage in addition to yearly festivals.
Within the area of their spiritual demesne, a priest can cast spells. It may not be called that. In fact, it's usually called 'obedience to the will of the Divine', but casting spells is what it amounts to.
Most priests can, with effort, learn a few spells. They gain special bonuses to learning spells that are curative, protective or divinatory in nature. But, the vast majority of priests never advance their spell casting beyond warding against bad luck, cooling a fever or detecting corrupt spiritual influences. The fact that priests get these bonuses at all makes it barely possible for them to learn them at all.
EditSacred Vows
Priests take sacred vows which bind them to their faith. However, common to all faiths is one that constrains the spells that a priest can learn. This applies a large penalty to everything except curative, protective or divinatory spells. This is called the Fourth Sacred Vow, regardless of how many vows a priest is expected to make.
EditLibraries
Priesthoods often maintain libraries which keep religious, social, economic and political records. A few libraries contain works on arcane subjects, including magic. These collections mean that priests can get a small bonus to learn spells of a curative, protective or divinatory nature.