2023/03/22

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms: Religious epiphanies

It had been about a month and a half since the ending of the war for independence, the party was spending their new free time relatively peacefully. The city was prospering, with the parts of the city that were damaged by Alexandr Pandorin's generator have been mostly been rebuilt. There was talks of some people that were having statistically improbable luck at the casinos though outside of attempts to determine how they were cheating nothing had come of it. This tranquility would continue, though something required the party's personal observation. A new cult had sprung up within Five Fingers amongst the elven population. And while there was freedom of religion there was concerns as to the nature of the entity that they worshiped. On a more personal note Avross also asked the party to look into it, as he was concerned that someone was taking advantage of the elves' desperation. The cult was known as The Brotherhood at the Precipice, though outsiders tended to refer to them as Void Callers, in reference to the strange magic invoked by their head priest, an Iosan by the name of Thael Raefyll. The party agreed that this was worth making sure that everything was on the up and up.

After a little deliberation, the party decided that they were best off starting talking to the cult. The cult held services in the basement of a community center/bar in the poorer sections of Five Fingers. As the party walked into the repurposed room for the service they were looked at as newcomers, though not in an unfriendly way. The service was relatively short, with Thael preaching that the cult needed to help others like the Outsider had chosen to help the elves in their hour of need. Afterwards, Thael came up to the party in order to welcome them. While the party wasn't the only non elves in the room they were by far in the minority. Once the introductions were over, the party began asking Thael as to the nature of the cult and the divinity that they worshiped. Thael couldn't say too much as to the entity that had contacted him, though it reached out to him while he was on an expedition out east to study the religious rites of the ancient Lyossan Empire of the elves. While out in the wilderness, That Which is Outside came to him and expressed concern about the plight of the elves in the absence of their gods. From there, Thael returned to civilization and then eventually began his ministry in Five Fingers. He understood the suspicion concerning the Brotherhood though hoped that with time people would see them without prejudice. The party thanked Thael for his time and let him get back to his congregation.

The party then decided to get the opinion of an academic, as none of them knew anything about a god known as That Which is Outside. The best expert that they could find was a professor of exodivinity at the local community college, a man by the name of Dr. Preston Bender. Dr. Bender's office was a cramped room with books and strange sigils taking up much of the wall space. Dr. Bender was happy to answer the party's questions however and explained that once you moved past the major gods there were a number of other minor divine entities out there. The most well known of these would be the Clockwork Maiden Cyriss, who while still a minor divinity compared to Menoth, Morrow and the like, had a sizable following. When asked as to if it was common for such exogods to reach out to mortals, Dr. Bender said it wasn't impossible, it really depended on the nature of the divinity in question. While he too had never heard of That Which is Outside, it wasn't impossible that Thael was the right sort of person in the right area to allow for communication. With those sorts of questions answered the party had one final question, if it was possible that the Brotherhood was an infernal cult. Dr. Bender said that while there were some overlap between exogod cults and infernal cults, the infernal cults tended to have a hunger and desperation in their actions. As infernal cults are formed on contracts to provide souls for their infernal masters and thus are often sacrificing people to keep up on the payments so to speak.

Lastly, the party checked in with the Church of Morrow to see if they had any evidence concerning the Brotherhood doing anything suspicious. The Church was aware of the cult, and while suspicious, for the time being considered them to be relatively harmless. The works that they were doing in the community seemed to be genuine in spirit, and that had earned them the benefit of the doubt, even despite the concerning possibilities concerning the Outsider. The party asked the church to get in touch if anything seemed to change and filed the matter as closed for the time being. This status quo would last another week more or so, until the church would inform the party that the Brotherhood seemed to be preparing for some sort of ritual.

The party then went back to Thael to see if he could explain the purpose of the ritual. Thael said that the ritual was for one of his followers, an Iosan woman by the name of Falcir who was pregnant with a half Iosan child by her human husband Morgan Bartley. Thael would elaborate that half elven children are dangerous to the mother, especially after the death of Scyrah and Nyssor. The ritual was to make sure that the birth wouldn't be harmful for Falcir. To ease everyone's concern, Thael invited the party to witness the ritual to make sure that everything was above board. To further prove his intentions, Thael told the party to bring their weapons and if everything wasn't to their satisfaction they were free to kill him if they wanted. With that accord set, Thael told the party that the ritual was set for the following night in a park where hopefully no one would interfere.

The night of the ritual then came and the party saw Thael, along with Falcir and her husband and the midwives. With a nod to the party, the ritual began. Seeing Thael's magic in person, explained why people called them Void Callers, Thael's magic was like gaps in space, radiating a strange blackish light that formed the core of the circle for the ritual. Towards the end of the ritual, the atmosphere suddenly changed to something far more malicious, as four nightmarish creatures seemed to step through to Caen and promptly attacked the party. The party defended themselves and then once the ritual was over went to Thael to get an explanation. Thael denied that the creatures were from the Outsider and his god was rather upset at their interruption. Charlotte told Thael that he should probably avoid future rituals for the time being until he determines the cause, or at the very least have adequate security. Thael agreed though was then drawn over by sounds from Falcir and the midwives. Apparently the ritual had an unintended side effect: The child that Falcir had given birth to wasn't a half elf like expected, but rather a full blooded souled Iosan. All of the elves were struck mute at the first soulled Iosan birth that they had heard of for the past five years. At that the party congratulated the new mother and went off to give the final seal of approval.