Khat

Monotheistic worship of a singular mother goddess, Khat.  Sometimes Khat is depicted as an embodiment of the world of Caligos herself.  The popular religion of the people in Belore east of the Vhargas Mountain Range.  Monasteries devoted to the Mother of Creation cover the misty cliffs of the Vhargas in some places, and can be seen from leagues away across the plains of eastern Belore. The religion has immigrated to rather far flung places since its adherents and the people of Belore in general are an itinerant people.

## Depiction and Iconography

Khat is depicted as being everything from the land below, to the night's sky. Some art shows her to be a beautiful woman wrapped in a robe of the night's sky, dotted with the Dona.

The goddess, perhaps due to the phonetics of her name has become deeply affiliated with the creature of the cat. One city in Belore depicts her on an altar as a great jungle cat, with another group envisaging her as a displacer beast, a creature seen commonly throughout Yan, uncommonly in Shenea, and even spotted as far as Central Vaanth. Her temple in the south east, though depicting her as a humanoid woman robed in snow covered moss is filled with cats, hundreds of feral cats, which the priests and monks lovingly feed.

Khat's iconography is generally represented as a stylized mortar and pestle, as such physic, medicine, alchemy and divination and their various symbols feature in her icons. However, a storm cloud, winter and rebirth also play heavily in her themes. Her holy day has been immortalized by the cosmopolitan efforts of the Dorian Estimate Calendar as being the third day of the week, Khattdaeg or Khaday.

Stories depict her as calm, and given to long planning. She fulfills the trope of the clever or trickster god/goddess who outwits foes with knowledge of nature and the world.

## Spheres

Khat's Spheres are as follows:

* Major - Creation, Divination, Elemental (Ice), Numbers, Summoning, Thought.
* Minor - Animal, Elemental (Air, Earth, Water), Plant and Weather.
* Lesser - Elemental (Negative, Salt, Vacuum)

## Domains

Khat's clerical domains are:

* Arcana
* Forge
* Knowledge
* Nature
* Tempest
* Trickery
* Twilight

## Oaths

Khat's paladin oaths are:

* Ancients
* Conquest
* Glory
* Vengeance
* Watchers

## Lore Developments

Much about Khat has come to light by the actions of her chosen priest and her marked paladin, Takvor Demirdjian and Gadja Andonian respectively.

### **The Book of Madakos Servant of the Goddess**:

Their traveling companion Tyrion Slavesh would find a text in the hands of a Belorian bardess that would reveal bits and pieces of tantalizing information and confusing lore:

> "Excerpt [Many among my brothers and sisters in Khat are not prepared to read these texts, so I write them in the tongue the Goddess has given me to see, that of the Lahwita. It is a tongue unknown to my kin and even the scholars I have sought out, thus I think it safe to write in this tongue, having learned it now. I believe the revelation of the truth is something that my people will need to learn, but in its time. For now, I leave this as a record, so that others who learn the tongue from the Goddess might read these things and learn the value...] [She is not what we are taught, she is a Goddess of mystery and power. But learning the truth did not turn me from her, but to her, in greater ways.] [The Goddess called. She was not as I expected, she was both greater and far different than my humble mind could imagine. As I spoke of in my previous discourse, the Goddess Khat is only a hint, like seeing the curvature of a woman's form in shadow. To know her in her fullness, is as to take the mystery woman as bride to your bed. What you saw before was only hints, now you see her fullness and are swept away. She is ecstasy. Oh, What conceptions I had! And yet she was strangely so other! I saw her at Paratam, that is, the Mountain of Para, West of Mada. I was compelled to climb the mount in the month of Shak, during the high snows. Madness said the servant of Borg at the market. I...] [the seas I traveled. I went with my companion...] [at the land Solaran, so it was called in the ancient days. Yet I would learn, that which I thought ancient was worthy of derision. Solaran was its name 2000 or so years..] [much older still, of the time of the Great Calamity I thought. Yet I would learn it was older still. For it belonged to the days in the world beyond. Isdelle would tell me...] [came at last to the temple. My heart was overawed at what I saw. What small creatures we are! What we have lost, what we have forgotten! Tomorrow we will venture deeper. Its so very large, so impossible, people could not possibly make this.] [I saw him, it has broken me, to see so beautiful...] [the figure hung there, both beautiful and abominable. Shelk and Berrit fell to there knees and prayed, they could not be consoled...] [She took my hand, and told me to be at peace. I loved Isdelle for that. She led me from the broken men praying at the foot of the Servant and we walked into the great hall. There at its far end, beyond the beautful, glowing columns, beyond the bridge over darkness, beyond the broken, godly form was the Gate, and behind it the Throne of the Prayers. Isdelle had been so strong, so sure, to that point. She had even held her strength at the sight of the broken being of power, yet here she crumpled to the floor, and would not be consoled. She saw them before me. The door was sealed in their power, the magic of the mysterious people the Lahwita called the Ba... [this word appears intentionally burned] ....ns. I was foiled at last, by the power of this ancient people, only a weapon blessed by the gods could...] [returned to Belore, to the temple at Sheth. I came with Isdelle, I had married her, and we loved and deeply, but she was broken, and would never be the same. At Durn Mara I began to meditate, and to search the texts...] [spoke with exaulted Jenner, a priest of the Enneans. The new Khatabine, Grevor, was quite upset at this turn of events, but I must find...] [It is Piercer, the Blade of...] [Magibane, the Blade of the Gnosi, it has had so many names. We found it, at last, that which can break the spell of the] (a word is burned out) [Would that I had known of this in my youth, when the strength...]
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> [Isdelle has died, and I am a weary old man. I have neither the years nor the will to fight any longer. To you, my descendant in the power of the Goddess, I plea. Heed all of these words and seek it..] [break the gate of the Ænlic Bindh.]"
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### The Pronouncements and Visions of Khat

#### Differing Forms

Khat has made herself known to Takvor and Gadja as well as a number of their companions. Some of her most curious visions has been to appear as a constantly shifting female figure, never holding one shape. Additionally, she has appeared before her servants as a tri-partide woman, or trio of women, elderly, motherly and childlike.

#### Other Names

She rarely speaks outside of the context of cautious, cryptic riddle-speak, but when she speaks clearly her words are shocking, as in an episode on the peaks of Mount Param, when she spoke through Gadja to castigage Takvor: Gadja calmed down, and looked at Takvor sternly, and her voice changed, deepening, echoing, and she said, " "Heed me, my priest, I Zeadra, who you and your people call Khat, had to take you from that realm quickly.  There was no time to speak with depth.  So here, in this place close to me, I speak:  Do not be deceived.  I am beyond wroth at your permissive attitude toward the Neetghyng.  Your reckless dalliances with such abominations will never earn my wrath again, but I shall, in stead, eternally turn my back upon you, never to look upon you, as my son, again."

#### Brotherhood and Sisterhood

One of the most shocking revelations that Takvor and Gadja have had was discovering Khat's disclosure of being siblinged to other gods. She has spoken of her brothers Atarak, Teyiv the Warmaker and Berham and has spoken of sisters as well, Shoah and Gea. At first, she enticed her priest and priestess to slay the Lahwita that controlled her gate, but her latest vision would be a recension of that as her avatars spoke to her servants:

> "Light, and the Dusk freed,"  and, "Order and Balance freed," and "Darkness and freedom must be delivered to keep the scales from tipping too far, Berham must be he who is set free."
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> "Speak with The Warmaker, speak with him in the Mountain beneath the eld city, where you first felt my touch by your faith, where first we spoke to you!"
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