Clergy

Organized religion based in Crisillyir. Every mortal can empower himself, even reach godhood, if he confronts the challenges of the world. Beyond this world exist many planes, each a more perfect manifestation of some aspect of our reality, and they are presided over by powerful gods, angels, and spirits that can be entreated for power. Actually pretty corrupt and practically interchangeable with the Family, which has driven Ottavia Sacredote among others to join the Obscurati.

## General

According to the church’s holy text, one thousand years ago a human fisherman named Triegenes from what today is Danor discovered the secret of divinity while lost in a storm at sea. He returned and preached about the divine spark within all mortals, and how by constantly challenging oneself, a person can become like a god. He inspired followers to fight beside him, and together they toppled tyrants, slew legendary monsters, and eventually established a new nation, based upon a hierarchy of divinity, where rank and reward were based solely on merit.

After his kingdom was established, Triegenes undertook the greatest challenge left in the mortal world: to defeat the demonocracy that oppressed the lands to the east. He confronted the abyssal lords who had taken residence on this world, sacrificed himself to banish them forever, and then left his mortal shell and ascended to godhood.

The Clergy believe in many gods, with no pinnacle godhead, but they preach foremost the teachings of Triegenes, that every man has greatness within him, and he merely needs to be challenged to awaken his potential. And while a thousand years have burdened this original message with a complex celestial bureaucracy, vaguely-interpreted visions of a multiverse of planes, and a strong emphasis on the superior potential of humans above all other races, the simple dogma that anyone can improve their life, and that indeed this is the main purpose of life, holds strong appeal. The Clergy is now the most widespread faith in Lanjyr.

Many devas find a place in the Clergy, where through special training they can act as vessels for invoked celestial beings. Such angelic visitations never last long, and occasionally result in the death of the vessel, so they are only used in situations where the priesthood feels inadequate to answer questions of guilt or opine on matters of morality. These are actually experiments with the Sacrament of Apotheosis, as the Clergy wants to figure out the version that ascends one to godhood.

In a similar way, on certain bleak holy days the priests of the Clergy will reach through the veil into the Bleak Gate and capture uneasy spirits, which they parade in front of crowds of worshippers. Compelled by magic, these undead specters wail about the sins they committed in life that left their souls trapped in “Purgatory.” The priests then offer absolution, and destroy the unholy beings.

## History

The Clergy's war with the eladrin drove Nicodemus and Kasavarina together, the pair planning to use the Sacrament of Apotheosis to trick the Clergy into summoning a god of war and killing its avatar to eliminate who worshipped it. Unfortunately the Clergy flipped it around, using Kasavarina's daughter Dala as an avatar for Srasama and killing nearly all eladrin women.

In the present day, the Clergy seeks the greater version of the Sacrament granting godhood.