Decima

Tenets
 Holy Symbol
 Favored Forms

## History

Decima holds dominion over the fate of all Tymarel. Though she can see all, past, present and future through the Well of Souls, she is completely powerless to act on it. Decima watched the dawn of the world, The Great Convergence, all of the wars that have taken place on Tymarel, and all of the wars that would ever take place.

## Description

Decima is oft depicted as a woman with pale skin, dark hair and eyes, wearing an elegant black gown and veil, typical of mourning. She is most often seen in the company of crows, as they are held in much regard by her followers.

## Worshipers

Many of Decima's worshipers are those closely aligned with either burgeoning life or terminating death. These include midwives, grave diggers, and morticians. Her priests are typically clerics, diviners, and necromancers that choose not to create undead. Her followers view the undead with hatred and consider them a great abomination. Decima views putting the undead to rest as a holy duty. The creation of undead is outlawed, and commanding undead rather than destroying them is deeply frowned upon as well.

## Temples and Shrines

The temples of Decima have the appearance of dark and ancient cathedrals, and are commonly adorned with intricately woven tapestries depicting the journey from life to death as issued by the Knight of Crows. They are usually found close to a graveyard. Underneath the buildings are catacombs filled with crypts of the dead, typically priests or affluent townsfolk. The services held by worshipers include chanting and singing. They are typically considered a joyous occasion, and a celebration of the circle of life and death. Members of the clergy also keep records of a community's deaths and births.

## Famous Orders

The Silent Shroud is an organization of gravediggers, embalmers, and other cemetery workers and crafters. Those of this order identified each other with a series of secret signs. Their task was to keep the church informed of undead sightings and gravesite desecrations.

## Dogma

Decima is the spinner of Fate and the matron of Winter. She marks the end of each mortal life and asks that her followers hold no pity for those who suffer and die, for death is the natural end of life. She demands vigilance against the cults of Dumat, who seek to overthrow her throne, and the ultimate destruction of undead, as they are a perversion of death and an attempt at escaping the fate that all men must face.

## Holidays

The Feast of Winter’s Veil, marks the Winter Solstice, a feast that began and ended with the consumption of the remainder of the town's ale stocks. All farmers were to come to the Temple of the Nine and bring along with them the food they needed while the feast lasted. Fires were to be lighted in the middle of the temple floor, and kettles hung over them.  At this feast all those present were to take part of the drinking of ale. All manner of livestock was sacrificed in honor of Decima, with the blood being stored in a crystalline vessel until the feast's end, after which it is used in the traditional cooking of black pudding, a blood based sausage spiced with native herbs. The meat of the sacrificed animals was to be boiled and served as food at the feast.