Banyak Dewa

A primarily **Hjen** religion originating from the dry cold of The Aainkaain Plateau within **Kwaungmo** Mountain Range. Though many lived on the outer more hospitable edges where they could settle and build homes and workshops for their craftsmanship in large monasteries devoted to Banyak Dewa and The Verse that preserve themselves through trade of the things they create. Banyak Dewa followers believe every object is a god, each individual object having its own. Their worship focusses greatly upon change, progress, recycling, and appreciation of what already exists.

**Relation with The Weave**

Banyak Dewa is not a replacement of **The Weave**, nor a refutation of it, instead the two coexist. Those who are teachers within Banyak Dewa, are often called Seers teaching what they know to others within their monastery. Those who go on pilgrimage to other monasteries to learn more and discuss with Seers of other monastries are called Seekers. Seeker and Seer are not official titles within Banyak Dewa, more terms of respect, used in ways akin to pupil and master rather than the more standardized use they have in the greater weave religion.

**Meaning of Objects**

Each material is believed to represent different things to strive for as a person, each material holding 3 meanings, relating to the body, the soul, and the world. Everyone holds different beliefs on what each thing means for the body, soul, and world.

The meaning of an object with relation to the body, represents how one wishes their body to be. To explain this to others, Banyak Dewa followers will often explain how they view a specific material, often pine wood, describing how it is strong, yet flexible, and how it can inspire one to strengthen their body, while remaining flexible.

When it comes to the meaning of an object in soul, it is representative how one wishes to shape their mind and emotions. To explain this concept to others, many will tell stories of how grass can inspire one's mind towards being bendable, able to flow with ideas like grass blowing in the wind.

The third meaning of an object relates to the world, and how one wishes to change the world around them. One object often used to explain this is gems, as most believe gems to often represent pristine beauty. Inspiring one to preserve and enhance the beauty of nature.

**Worship**

Gods are believed to have an ideal form in which they thrive most within. As an example, the god of a home thrives when it is lived in. There are several ways in which those of Banyak Dewa worship the gods of the many objects around them. Larger and more complex objects have greater gods. Every god is worthy of worship and offerings, even if just passing acknowledgement and short prayers, though greater gods often are given greater offerings and worship.

The most prolific and common way of worship is through artisan craftsmanship, creating objects, turning raw material into refined pieces. When doing this, craftsmen don't so much think about what they wish to create, but instead focus on what the material they are working on wishes to become.

When an object is shattered, broken beyond repair, it is believed that this is because it desires something new, a change in form. So it is considered a powerful act of worship to reuse the materials of something broken, just as it is to repair something from wear and tear. This can be seen strongly in the ritual known as Perbaikan Emas which involves fixing cracks and damage in things with obvious substitutes, such as fixing a crack in a bowl with gold, drawing attention to the damage that has been fixed, giving more character to the god of the object. This is seen as such potent worship as its shows the history of the god proudly, not trying to hide its hardships.

When recycling the material of a god that wishes for a new form, it is common practice to include depictions of its previous forms into its new form, for example, a chain that is reforged into a blade may get engravings and depictions of chains on its length.

A few other common forms of worship involve debate, song, and offerings. Debate involves discussing with others the meaning of objects, discussing what one could learn from an object, for example, two disciples might discuss whether it is greater to learn sturdiness and strength from stone, or learn to smooth off the rough and reveal what is beneath, this debate is seen as integral to Banyak Dewa. Songs, poems, and other such things are sung or spoken to objects that the song or poem is about as a form of worship to it, as it is seen as a grand form of acknowledgement. Offerings are often given to large, grand, and complex gods; these offerings often come in the form of small bits of food, incense, and small valuables that can be used to decorate the god.

**Ritus Potensi**

This ritual is among the oldest practices of Banyak Dewa, between that and its believed power, it is among the most sacred of things to the followers of Banyak Dewa. It also goes by the name Ritual of Potential. It involves going to nexus points, places where gods are supreme and great, places of power, places like the top of a high mountain, where the god of the mountain is at its greatest, as close as one can get to a volcano and the heat of its lava, the heart of a desert where the god of the desert is unchallenged. One then builds a place to create, shape, forge, all within a circle to focus the attention of both the craftsman and the gods. Creating points of focus along the ring of the circle with smaller circles or other ways to draw attention, one places smaller gods, the gods which they wish to bless the object they craft with aspects of themselves.

The craftsman before beginning the process of crafting, will go about praying to, worshiping, and begging each god to grant an aspect to the coming god that will be given a new form. After begging each of these gods, the craftsman then beseeches the great god of the place they have decided to craft to grant these smaller gods the power to grant their aspects. This ritual is reserved for the most experienced of the monasteries, people of great skill able to give the god they shape a near perfect body to hold the gifts from the other gods.

**Anathema**

There are few things that Banyak Dewa finds as sacrilegious and anathema to the faith. One is theft, as it is seen as taking a god from its place of choice. Less awful, though still against Banyak Dewa, is intentionally destroying an object outside its natural course of damage, as this is seen as taking choice from the god of the object from how it wishes to be. This would not apply to things such as breaking a blade by blocking its course, as this is the god's purpose that it had chosen to serve, but melting down a blade that has not been catastrophically damaged would be, as The god has not yet chosen that it time for a new form.