Octaf

Octaf is the cult goddess of song and music in the traditional Hamalfite faith. On the surface of her worship she is the muse to inspire creativity and poetry. Though her poets and fundamentalists have explored her concept most deeply by claiming she is not just the inspiration but the rhythm and cadence of the world from which their lyrics are inspired.
Her popularity is greater among the Hamal-i Shea tribes of the Hamalfite who have long had a stronger relationship with the poetic arts.
== Origins ==
There isn't a precise theory on how Octaf came into being or what may have been her creating moment among Hamalfite society. Attempts at assigning some manner of history from the oral histories suggest she came into existence as a concept with the first poems and songs composed by the proto-Hamalfite tribes. She has often been invoked as a sort of muse, a source of inspiration for the composition of poetry and music.
Her worship over the course of time hasn't often been centralized and there often aren't any rituals to her name. At the highest point of her worship observers of her cult would often have held great gatherings and concerts to her name, but little more mattered. Thus worship of Octaf is considered a much more interwoven practice among the other cult gods in the folk faith. Prayers and songs to others being referred to as divinely inspired and written by Octaf herself in praise of her brothers and sisters, and for use by the lesser mortals. To hard line elements in the other cults this has often been considered subversive to their practice and has throughout history been incited as a reason to prosecute cultists of Octaf when tribes, villages, or kingdoms have undergone moments of monotheism and following only one cult.
Octaf hasn't herself has only a few brief moments of dedicated worship throughout Hamalfite history. Konfar of Nedjz was known as primarily worshiping Octaf and much of the settlement likewise worshiped her to a majority extent. Her shrine was however destroyed during the battle for Nedjz by Mombadin's men and it wasn't reconstructed until after Rashdun passed away, the statue now standing over the Nedjz district of Haison being the current status of her original place of worship.
=== In Mythology ===
In myth, Octaf was born when the first starling sung on the second day after creation, making Qumba her official day. When the bird's primordial song was completed its notes swam to Heaven where it intermingled and bred into the post-creation magical soup, giving new life and personification to the song. The essence was given form by L'wna who with a soft breath urged it down to earth as an embryo, where it grew to a great diamond bird.
Like many gods, this was not the only avatar for the goddess. It sang through history as a bird, a horse, a gray woman inspiring the early humans to sing and play with the passion of a starling. Her followers, enticed by her beauty and magnificence accepted her challenge and set to capture her beauty in music. Their attempts were passionate, but not fulfilling. But she did not turn from them in spite but urged them silently from the very fiber of existence - metaphysical and physical - to nurture the growth of song and its expansion in humanity's young minds. In all ways she encouraged the exploration of one's self and others - as friends, lovers, or sexual encounters - to feel attachment to one another to as well seek the infinite dimensions of one another as they should the world by the creator around them.
These associations have as well inspired many to consider Octaf and her partner Al-V'yl as respective goddesses of love and sex. Or by many critics: drunken hedonism.
== Worship ==
Octaf has rarely enjoyed enough centralized worship to ever warrant canonization of any singular worship ritual. Often the adherents to her cult simply abide on the measure that the performance of her art is all the praise she needs as it all she desires, being the distant teacher and critic of all music and poems. There is no weighted measure if they need to include her in its content or not, all are preferable so long as bards and musicians of all caste seek the perfect song that had created her.
In contemporary Hamalfite society many of the instruments used by tribal and court bands or street musicians are crafted with poems to Octaf carved inside or on the body as a modest praise towards her. Tribes who thus often ban her worship further de-facto to banning music, if from this and her connection to the art itself.
== Depictions ==
Octaf's primary artistic form is that of a crystal starling or a silver-feathered bird. Though as traditions evolved it became canonical to often depict her as a horse. Following that is the concept of depicting her or writing of her as a slender woman in soft gray. In either form she is depicted with a instrument in hand, hoof, or claw: zither, viol, lute, or anything related.
== Octaf and Homosexuality ==
While the Mim'nwa forbids marriage between individuals of the same gender, the relationship this god often shares with Dejah may at times be interpreted as a same-sex love affair. Although this interpretation isn't universal and there are alternative literary allegories to their supposed closeness it does make up for a noticeable approach to the two among some groups. These stories themselves are not expressly modern either, although the relevancy of the age of these stories is contested. While some camps attest these legends were supported by the Safferids others posit the claim they are older still.
Some theories believe that this close romantic or sexual relationship is a hold-over from a time where women were considered a "non-sex" individual and not strictly bound by marital custom.
All the same, in the underground or among brothels iconography of Dejah and Octaf may be found as a blessing to those seeking same-sex companionship, despite the ire of the religious establishment.
Category:New Voldrania Category:Haisonuuna Category:Religion