Pentawardism

Main Pentawardism Symbol

Pentawardism is the common religion of Bravos, the human nation within Okan. The religion focuses on the five main ‘paths’ that are represented and headed by a particular saint and focuses on one main aspect of life. This is actually how the religion got its name, as the suffix ‘penta-’ means five and the suffix ‘-ward’ means a certain direction. For ease of reading, this page will go over just general parts of the religion while other pages have been made for the five main saints and the five main paths.

## Paths Introduction

Each path has its own values, colors, practices, and associated professions. Read their individual wiki pages to find out more.

Followers of Saint Olwen, or wanderers of the Warrior Path, focus on loyalty and are unsurprisingly made up of warriors and hunters.

Followers of Saint Ena, or wanderers of the Artisan Path, focus on growing their skills in physical crafts such as carpentry, construction, and blacksmithing to serve their community.

Followers of Saint Talo, or wanderers of the Domestic Path, tend to be the farmers and cooks while they focus on the home.

Followers of Saint Sage, or wanderers of the Knowledge path, focus on their studies as they grow into roles of scholars and alchemists.

Followers of Saint Okko, or wanderers of the Explorer Path, focus on navigation of the seas, caves, and land to find new places or to make sure the markets, mines, and shipyards are running smoothly.

## Story of the Five Saints

These saints were originally commonfolk. Olwen had trained to become a knight. Okko was a messenger. Ena was a blacksmith’s apprentice. Sage was a part-time librarian, and Talo worked as a waiter at a tavern. These five would go on a quest and retrieve Daybreaker, a powerful sword, to the nation of Bravos. While not integral to the faith, they are still considered to be the path figureheads to a couple of religious sects.

## Quick Religious History

The earliest instance of Pentawardism would be the Sainthood Scholar Society. This society would originally focus on researching and telling the tale of the five saints. The saints themselves are known either as ‘The Five Saints’ or the ‘Order of the Five Finders.’ The latter is a name they gave themselves as a group trying to retrieve Daybreaker.

Overtime, there were more stories popping up about seemingly supernatural intervention or guidance given to the people of Bravos. One of the more notable stories is about the Red Wedding. The day before the wedding, the bride had prayed to Olwen, her ancestor, for a sign that she should not marry Lord Gerrad, her fiancé. The following night, the man would turn into a werewolf midway through the wedding ceremony. The bride’s family took this as an answer to her prayer and saw the man as a monster. They fought to subdue him and although he managed to kill many of them, they eventually succeeded and would burn him at the stake.

The society began to collect these stories and eventually would grow into its traditional form over the coming centuries. The society itself would be forced to disband during the Targoth dynasty under Queen Sosanna. The queen also attempted to destroy the artifacts, but Edony Flextroph formed a smuggling organization to sneak out the artifacts. The whole initiative was called Operation Flywild due to participating members merging into nearby Wildling tribes after taking their assigned artifacts. He would also try to reform the society but would be executed by Queen Sosanna in the year 607 AB. The artifacts would return to Bravos a few generations later when Jon Bolton came into power and the Official Pentawardism Association was founded. It took a few years for all of them to be collected but they all now reside in the Black Rock Vault alongside other items that they managed to smuggle out alongside the Saintly Artifacts.

## Salokena

When one rises to be a religious leader, they often have to go through a period of time where they devote themselves to completing quests related to the five areas of the faith. This practice of quests is called a Salokena, a word made by taking letters from each of the Five Saints’ names. This practice proves their understanding of what areas of life correspond with which area of the faith. It also proves their devotion to the general public, as it involves taking on work without pay similar to how one might complete service hours at school. This isn’t essential to every sect of the faith but is an important vocabulary word for the ones that do.

## Religion Structure

The general structure of the religion is the religious leaders of a denomination at the top, the trainees at the middle, and commonfolk at the bottom. Commonfolk are those not a part of the official organization. But it is also separated into two separate categories. The first are citizens of Bravos, assumed to be humans and anyone else the state recognizes as a citizen. The other category are non-citizens, such as demons, criminals, and furfolk.

## Spiritualism

It is common knowledge that the Saints were real and human at one point. But overtime as tales were told, there grew a belief that the Saints could be still wandering Bravos and its surrounding land with the intent to help the nation. For those that do believe this to be true, prayers are supposed to help the saints bond to the material plane but only those who have kept the respective saint’s tenets will have their prayers answered. Additionally, funerals are considered vital to one’s faith as it is supposed to help the spirits of ancestors to pass on. The reasons the Saints get a pass are the following; they are considered past heroes, have proven themselves to be ‘positive spirits,’ and have no living descendants (that people know of) that can properly host a funeral. Saint Okko is the one most commonly depicted as the one guiding dead loved ones to the afterlife, although this sometimes changes based on what the individual valued in life.

## Religious Sects

Sometimes religious groups split off for various reasons. Below are the few recognized denominations.

**Orthodox Pentawardism**: Practiced and organized by the Official Pentawardism Association. It considers the Five Saints to be spirits wandering the land and helping Bravos.

**Individualized Pentawardism**: The individual still practices the values of Pentwardism, but doesn’t necessarily belong to the OPA.

**Wildling Pentawardism**: Pentwardism practiced by the Freefolk, often ignoring the Five Saints to either replace them with their own saints or just focus on the different value areas. This is dependant on the specific tribe, but general practice is around the same.

**Split-Path Pentawardism**: The group of individuals doesn’t follow the OPA, but still wish to practice a form of Pentawardism based on their own ideas. Similar to Wildling but specific to the urban areas of Bravos as opposed to the wildling population. Examples are Tetrawardism and Triwardism, which takes out one or two of the Saints from their belief system and the duties of the ones taken out are delegated to the other Saints.

## Proverbs

It’s likely no surprise that Pentawardism has its own sayings that became proverbs over time. Individual paths have their own proverb sections on their wiki pages. Eventually all proverbs will be compiled and given out as a list but the original author of this webpage is currently focused on making sure all of the Pentawardism pages are writen and posted first.

There a couple core proverbs used by all paths, though. The first goes as follows: “If one knows how to get to their destination, they do not need to ask for advice.” The basic principle is about whether or not a person needs to take advice but the actual meaning of this proverb links to the decision to engage with Pentawardism or not. Freedom is rooted in personal choice, and Pentawardism wishes to preserve this choice.

This is also why an individual also gets to chose what paths they include in the practice. Maybe they focus on one, part of one and part of another, or they just mix all of the paths together into a blob. There are core principles and values, of course, and they will be judged on them if they chose to follow a path. This is why Pentawardism also has the proverb of “make sure to water the hill you die on.” In other words, if you’re going to stick to the choices you make, at least make sure you’re doing it in the correct way.

## Trivia

* When the OPA was a scholar society, the minister position was called a director, the archbishops were admins, and regular bishops were just called scholars. Apprentices were always called apprentices.
* Originally, the highest level of Salokena originates in the Sainthood Scholar Society as the ‘Directorate Salokena.’
* Those who chose a certain path are not only called the followers of a certain saint but also the wanderers of that path. A name for general followers of the religion could be 'Pentans,' a shorthand of the religion's name. (A Pentan / Many Pentans)
* The colors of the Pentwardist flag link to the different paths in the religion. For example, the white border is to symbolize warriors protecting their people while the yellow center represents home as the center of an individual’s life.
* Out-of-character, the initial version of the religion was going to be represented by animals that ruled over certain types of biomes such as tundra and desert. As time went on, these moved to be more focused on areas of life and once Bravos was declared as the fourth nation, the saints were officially human.
* Triwardism's most popular form would be with the married trio, which are Saint Talo, Ena, and Sage. Saint Ena would likely be the one taking over mining and warriorship while Saint Talo would take over fishing. Saint Sage would take over communication through messages (as that falls under Okko.
* Tetrawardism would depend on which one is left out, most likely either Olwen or Okko. This is due to Talo, Ena, and Sage all being married to each other and noted as such in historical documents. One could take one of the trio out, but the result would be a minor shipping war between those variants and other Pentan's groaning at the fact there's only two in the married group.