Sometime during the Year of the Halflings Lament Zar Ambercrown, a priest of Kelemvor out of Waterdeep, recieved a vision from his god. In the vision he saw a great temple buit on a large floating black rock far to the south near the lake of Steam. He immediatly set out with a group of followers to found this temple in the sky. Upon finally reaching the Lake of Steam, Zar was left with only a handful of followers, there was much rejoicing among them as off in the distance they say the large black Earthmote floating in the sky, however the celebration soon turned to dissappointment as the group had no way to get there. The group decided to find a place to camp for the night and figure out a way to get there in the morning. The group found a cave along the shores of the lake of Steam, which they decided to use a shelter, Unfortunatly or perhaps fortunatly for them there was black dragon laired in that cave, according to the legend Zar made the challange of Tooth and Claw, and single handedly fought the Dragon and won, the dragon agreed to take them to the floating rock, what they found there was not expected in the least...
Ok I gots to go to work, I'll finish this up when I get off, I promise!
(otherwise it will be on Deviant art)
Ahem, yes Zar and his fellows made it to the Earthmote, only to find a group of Elven priestess of Sehanine led by one Illeanna Moonsilver, who were already in the process of performing a ritual to consecrate the Earthmote to Sehanine. Zar, fearing he was about to fail his god, quickly uttered a blessing in the name of Kelemvor. The dragon, having completed his task, quickly departed at this point. The Elves, now noticing these humans who obviously arrived on a black dragon and who interupted their sacred ritua, were understandably quite upset. Voices were raised and weapons were drawn, it was about to be a blood bath, but something miraculous happened. Both blessings seemed to merge and created an even stronger effect than either party had hoped for. According to the story a moonbeam washed over the area, leaving a lingering glow over the whole earthmote, a glow that persists to this day.
The two groups agreed to put away their weapons, and began talking. Zar humbly appologised for interupting the Elves ritual but explained that he was quested by his god to come here. Illeanna explained that she too recieved a vision from her goddess. They decided that perhaps there was room enough for both temples to reside here, but after further talks they realised that their two beliefs had alot of common ground, Sehanine being the prominant Elven death deity, so the two groups decided to work together under the same roof combining their beliefs and traditions. This is how the Holy Order of the Shining Death came to be.
So thats the tale, although I think the Holy Order of the Shining Death would sound better in Elven, I'll need to look that up latter.
Later I'll go into more detail about the Glow and the temple itself.
Eldath's blessings to you delta
Still its good seeing that project you two were working on getting around.
Still a wimp to me!;)
It sounds cooler in Elven, everything sounds cooler in Elven. Any way I came up with
Suor Tathyr Tel' Delimbiyr Mor. Thats assuming that Seneirril Tathyr which means Mooncrescent Order can be split up with Tathyr meaning order, also asuming that I have the words in the right order Im not really up on my Elvish, does anybody here speak Elvish? How would an elf say the Holy Order of the Shining Death?
I was using the Elven DIctionary over on candlekeep for reference, pretty niffty and handy to have, Done up by a Steven Sypa, why does that name sound familiar?
Right...
Still its good seeing that project you two were working on getting around.
last I saw it, it had faded away into obscurity....... or some hand of KArsus's Obscuring mist spell....
As word of the Holy Order spreads, rumors will likely spread even faster. Are they a cult of assassins? Are they a death cult dedicated to returning Myrkul or Bhaal to power? Or are they crazed murderers looking to slay nobles and steal their spirits to create an undying noble court that will rule the Lake of Steam and its environs for all eternity?
Or are they crazed murderers looking to slay nobles and steal their spirits to create an undying noble court that will rule the Lake of Steam and its environs for all eternity?
That would be fun. ::Lightbulb::
serve noone but bane..... so sayeth the uknown clone of Manshoon- said on the eve of Bhaal's return
Most people in the Realms scoff at the idea of Sehanine and Kelemvor being together, many in the Realms believe Sehanine to be the consort of Corellon. Members of the order just laugh and roll their eyes at this and patiently try to explain the situation to non believers. Acording to thier beliefs Sehanine goes through cycles much like the moon, In her current cycle as Sehanine, the maiden, she is the consort of Kelemvor and guardian of the dead. In her cycle as Angharradh, the mother, she is the consort of Corellon, then theres her cycle of Selune, the crone. There are some who suggest that Shar is merely one of these cycles, but most in the order believe Shar to be an aspect of Lolth.
The order has a vast libary of various last rites and burial practices. They pride themselves on knowing burial practices of all known races and religions on Toril, and a few from Abeir as well. Even the secret mumification process used by the Mulhorandi are known to the order.
Aside from acting as morticians the order also specializes in the hunting and eleminattion of undead, especially vampires, and Lycanthropes.
Makes it all seem more realistic to me.
Question: does the order know about the Eminence of Araunt or have they dealt with this power group yet?
I like how you've set up the belief systems of the order to be contrary to those held my other members of the same faith(s).
Makes it all seem more realistic to me.
Question: does the order know about the Eminence of Araunt or have they dealt with this power group yet?
Yeah I think most temples in the Realms should have slighty different beliefs from town to town, especially with Kelmvor, being that hes still relatively new, and Sehanine who has been revealed to be Selune but how many people in the Realms actually know this? Its not like the majority of the populous talk directly to the gods, so really all they got to go on is what relegious leaders tell them, and really whos to say that any of them really know what theyre talking about?
But any way I havnt really thought about the Eminence of Araunt, they would obvioulsy be opposed to them, especially with their beliefs in life cycles and what not, Undeath isnt part of that cycle and screws the whole balance up. Not sure if the Order would of even heard of the Eminence, not unless theyre making alot of noise around the Border Kingdoms. I did have an idea for Adaerglast - the land of Mages in the Border Kingdoms, basically the idea was that many of those mages went mad with the onset of the Spellplague, but a select few learned that they could still power their spells by using souls from living beings, so they then become powerful Necromancers and raise an army of undead, the Order of the Shining Death woulld obvioulsy have a problem with that and work to stop them, which is why its become somewhat customary for those in the Border Kingdoms to leave the tending of the Dead to the the Order, makes it harder for those Necromancer to raise an army of undead if the dead are all buried in a cemetery a few hundred feet in the air, I'll post more on that when I flesh it out more.
So Shar would be the Enchantress Phase of the Moon, The New Moon?
Yeah I think thats the jist of it. Its an idea that I picked up from 3e's Power of Faerun. It has a listing of popular heresies, one of them being the Dark Moon Heresy, the belief that Shar and Selune are merly 2 faces of the same goddess, so believing that the moon goddess goes through changes or different cycles, it kinda makes sense, ya know?
I did have an idea for Adaerglast - the land of Mages in the Border Kingdoms, basically the idea was that many of those mages went mad with the onset of the Spellplague, but a select few learned that they could still power their spells by using souls from living beings, so they then become powerful Necromancers and raise an army of undead, the Order of the Shining Death woulld obvioulsy have a problem with that and work to stop them, which is why its become somewhat customary for those in the Border Kingdoms to leave the tending of the Dead to the the Order, makes it harder for those Necromancer to raise an army of undead if the dead are all buried in a cemetery a few hundred feet in the air, I'll post more on that when I flesh it out more.
Dude that's brilliant! It ties in culture with conflict and makes perfect sense as an extension of what people would do given the existence of the Order and the Necromancers of Adaerglast.
It also turns the floating cemetary into a juicy target for bad guys. That's just awesome.