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Religion of the Depth

Religion of the Depth, or the Depthness

  • Motto: "The good inside us is hollow without a difficult road that passes through suffering. Only through worthy suffering can you fulfill your life."

  • Religious Family: It comes from an older Aelven religion

  • Current Status: The faith of the Ashduar in Pyre
  • Creed: Dualist: Depth vs Rock, Mountain vs Cave

Deity/Deities

  • The Depth: The spiritual principle opposed to Rock, one part of transcendence encompassing what lies beyond life.
  • The Hollow: What is immaterial and lies beyond life. It cannot be understood or remembered by living things.
  • The Deep One: The identity worshipped through the faith’s belief in the Depth and the Hollow. No one knows who is behind the Deep One.
  • Rock: The outside world, consisting of everything that can be seen and felt. The Depth requires Rock in order to exist. Rock is represented by Erathul, the old god, and by the mountain. The Oathwarden traditionally represents Rock among the Ashduar.
  • The Fundamental: Ar, the Fire Primeval kept in the Foundry. The Ashduar worship him because Pyre needs his fire, but their worship is born from necessity. As a people, they hate him. They revere him as both creator and destroyer, a source of warmth, guidance, and spiritual power.

Places of Worship

  • The Foundry: The place of the Fundamental.
  • The Granary: The place of the Middle Sister.
  • The Cliff: The beginning of the required descent from Rock toward Depth.
  • The Deep Cemetery: The destination of the required pilgrimage.

These holy places stand within Pyre.

History and Origins

During the first century after the Reclamation, war and famine reduced more than fifty major and minor clans to six. Trapped in the mountain and forgotten, the dwarves remained divided by clan and older ancestor and deity worship. The Dramaturg, called Forgenmelt by the Ashduar, helped the survivors.

Core Beliefs

  • Depth and Rock:
  • Reality has infinite Depth but limited Rock.
  • The Depth is within, while Rock is outside.
  • The void has infinite Depth.
  • A dwarf's Depth is their soul.
  • People form a connection between matter and the Depth.
  • Depth belongs to the priests, while Rock belongs to the Oathwarden.
  • The three Sisters govern birth, growth, and death.
  • Self, thought, and ego:
  • Truth is what can be touched. The Voice cannot be trusted.
  • A person is not their thoughts, but the entity that listens to them.
  • The ego is composed of matter and must be abandoned to increase one's Depth.
  • Only by not being can one enter the Depth.
  • Matter, emptiness, and death:
  • Emptiness is greater than matter, but matter also contains emptiness.
  • Everything is nothing, but nothing cannot be everything.
  • Thingness and Nothingness require one another.
  • Matter cannot be destroyed, only transformed.
  • Emptiness can be destroyed. This is true death and true entropy.
  • Forlorn and Apathy:
  • Priests disagree on whether becoming Forlorn increases a dwarf's Depth or strips it away.
  • Forlorn who lose everything reach Apathy.
  • Virtues: Diligent, Callous, Vengeful, Temperate
  • Sins: Deceitful, Gluttonous, Compassionate

Tenets

  • Asceticism: Avoid parties, revelry, and gluttony because there are not enough resources.
  • Unrelenting faith: The survivors of the Drop, the Ashduar name for the Reclamation, needed great strength to survive here. They will not leave easily.
  • Sacred Childbirth: newborns are the most important of all
  • Sacrificial Ceremonies: Ashduar are no longer sacrificed in recurring religious rites. The practice survives as Cineration, a form of execution.

Main Doctrines

  • View on Gender: Men and women hold equal standing, but authority is divided: men govern Rock and material affairs, while women govern Depth and religion.
  • Religious Attitude: The faith is pluralist toward outsiders but fundamentalist toward dwarves: other peoples may keep their religions, but dwarves may not.
  • Clerical Tradition: Religious authority is held by the priesthood.
  • Head of Faith: The Older Sister (of the three sisters)

  • Authority: Each person bears their own guilt. Only priests may weigh it.

  • Pilgrimage: Travel to external holy places is forbidden. Every Ashduar must make at least one pilgrimage into the Deep Cemetery to remember their fallen. Further descents are encouraged, especially for those who have sinned or hold a special position. Groups make the journey about once every five years. They descend the Cliff and follow a dangerous road through the depths. Not everyone returns.

  • Deepness: The dangerous things that come from the depths.
  • The Unreturned: A mad dwarf who haunts the deepest caverns. Pilgrims believe he was the first dwarf who failed to return from the cemetery road.
  • Marriage & Family: Marriage is monogamous, except for the Oathwarden. Divorce requires approval and was forbidden until recently. Children born outside marriage are accepted immediately because birth is sacred. Close kin cannot marry because the Ashduar need to spread.
  • Crimes: Same-sex relations and killing close kin are criminal. The faith justifies its ban on same-sex relations by the need for children. Adultery by either spouse is shunned, although male adultery was formerly criminal. Deviancy is criminal. Witchcraft is accepted. Ancestor veneration and older nature rites survive as customs within the Religion of the Depth, not as separate Ashduar religions.
  • Great Holy War: The Longing, the war to flee from this place.

Holy Texts

  • The Dramaturg, called Forgenmelt by the Ashduar

Holy Days

  • The Day of the Drop: Dwarves remember the Reclamation and ask for vengeance.
  • The Day of Acceptance: Dwarves remember when they accepted Forgenmelt.
  • The Day of Inquiry: Every five years, the council chooses one question about Ashduar survival. After the Week of Fire, the Dramaturg answers it. The council then votes on whether the Older Sister keeps her office.
  • The Week of Fire: Before the Dramaturg answers, every adult writes their own answer beside the Foundry. This act, called Forging, follows the Counter-Voice rule: think before listening.

Clergy

  • Clerical Function: Alms and pacification, the cleric must ensure all dwarves survive another day
  • Gender: Sisters can only be female and Brothers only male. Other offices have no restriction.
  • Clerical Marriage: Allowed, and mandatory for the sisters and brothers
  • Clerical Appointment: Spiritual. All ranks are revocable.

Religious Hierarchy

  • The Older Sister governs death, the Forlorn, and the religion. Creating Forlorn in the Keep requires both the Older Sister and necromancers. The process requires descent to where Brilliance is said to remain, followed by biological change.
  • The Middle Sister governs growth, nourishment, the granary, and alms.
  • The Younger Sister governs birth, children, marriage, and family.
  • The council consists of ten Brothers, including the First Brother, who convenes it. The Brothers administer the faith's necessary work. They support the Sisters, but no Brother can overrule them individually. The Hammerer is one of the Brothers and judges serious disputes and crimes.
  • Mokdath is recognized only as Warden. With no recognized Oathwarden, Rock has no legitimate representative and the Older Sister’s required marriage remains unfulfilled. This does not prevent her from holding office.
  • The Breaker: The chief Burrower, responsible for transforming stone, mines, and deep roads. Without a recognized Oathwarden, the office lacks legitimate direction from Rock.
  • The Delvers: the consecrated branch of the Burrowers. They follow the Depth, find the cemetery road, guide pilgrims, and assist descents to depths said to hold remnants of Brilliance.
  • The Readers: have access to read and copy the Dramaturg
  • The Mourners: chant the time of day in different parts of the city
  • Militant service: The Forlorn provide the faith's militant force, but they are not a separate religious order.