Biblio Praterism

## **Summary**

Biblio Praterism is a polytheistic religion, believing in recording the world and its past. The libraries of Biblio Praterism worship a pantheon of 13 gods, each representing a set of ideals and aspects of the world. They also believe in The Seven Tenets of Ivene's Will.

The religious text of Biblio Praeterism tells of the birth of the pantheon of 13 gods. The legend goes that long before mortals walked the land a grand library spanning an entire continent existed, and that library held all that was to be known within its walls. This grand library was overseen by an unknown deity with immense powers of both creation and destruction. A deity who was content with the world staying in a state of order, where no mortal could ever exist and keeping all knowledge of creation and freewill within the libraries walls. However, this would not last, as in the deepest section of the grand library, which contained the darkest knowledge of the world, Medra, god of Ignorance was born. Medra was born of the library's chaotic knowledge and as such was a god of chaos and wished nothing more than to destroy the grand library, and send all knowledge within its walls to the corners of the world to bring about a new species to roam the land and spread chaos to the once ordered and empty land.

Mortals came to exist when the god of ignorance, Medra set fire to the grand library and attempted to fight the unknown deity which oversaw the library. The knowledge of who was the victor of the clash is unkown, but in the end the unknown deity had vanished leaving nothing but Medra, and a new Goddess, Ivene. Goddess of records, Ivene despised the God of Ignorance for their very nature clashed, and as such they fought, however, Medra was weakened from his fight with the overseer, and Ivene was a goddess much weaker than the overseer, and could do no great harm to each other. After countless centuries of clashing, in an attempt to break the stalemate the two gods used the knowledge of the destroyed grand library to bring deities to life, each hoping the new gods would be able to tip the scale in their favor. This period in which eleven new gods were born would lead to the creation of the Biblio Praterism pantheon as it is known today.

## **The Pantheon**

The Biblio Praterism pantheon consists of 13 gods each ruling over their own ideals and elements, and each having their own birthday to be celebrated. The pantheon also has a set of 7 tenets that are to be followed by worshipers of Biblio Praterism.

### **The Gods**

1. Ivene (Goddess of Records, Past, and Knowledge.)
2. Medra (God of Ignorance, Amnesia, and Chaos.)
3. Chekit (Goddess of Language, Deceit, and Creativity.)
4. Perval (God of Distractions, Procrastination, and Hunger.)
5. Orduan (God of Geology, Craftsmanship, and Architecture.)
6. Vizua (Goddess of Myth, Fate, and Dreams.)
7. Puraem (Goddess of Purity, Life, and Compassion.)
8. Irecenotal (God of Conflict, Logistics, and Renown.)
9. Ephesto (God of Travel, Weather, and Disaster.)
10. Neralica (Goddess of Solar, Truth, and Harvest.)
11. Abistare (God of Lunar, Decay, and Hallucination.)
12. Enzanea/Insania (Goddess of Insanity, Opinion, and Fear.)
13. Morgreal (God of Arcane, Unknown, and Undead.)

### **The Tenets of Biblio Praterism**

1. Do not steal, murder, or otherwise cause chaos.
2. Record all history as it happened and alter nothing of past events.
3. Do not shame those who are not of the Biblio Praterism Faith.
4. Strive to lead those around you away from the path of chaos and the teachings of Medra.
5. Follow the words of Ivene, goddess of records and head her commands.
6. Do not allow those around you to destroy records of the past.
7. Keep libraries open to the public, so all may look upon the knowledge of the gods.

### **Location**

Currently Biblio Praterism is mainly located in the nation of Santos with the current acting Grand Library sitting within the capitol of Santos. The Grand Library acts as the current holy site for Biblio Praterism and is where most members of the faith go to worship Ivene and other members of the pantheon.

### **Symbol**

The symbol of the Biblio Praterism faith is of a book with black flames on a dark grey background. The brown book is the primary symbol of the goddess Ivene, and as such reflects her ideals of recording the past and bringing ancient knowledge back to the public. The black flames that engulf a portion of the book represent the eternal war between Ivene and Medra, as such the flames represent the clash between Ivene's nature of recording history and Medra's nature of forgetting it. The book and flames are placed upon a dark grey background symbolizing the turmoil that has befell the world from the destruction of the Grand Library. The grey is also a mark of mourning for the loss of the unknown deity that acted as the overseer for the Grand Library.

## **Beliefs and superstitions**

#### **Beliefs**

* The more knowledge one preserves the closer they get to Ivene.
* Those who follow Medra and his ideals will bring great harm to themselves.

#### **Superstition**

* The burning of records is to incite the ire of Ivene and will bring deathly bad luck until the destroyed records are rewritten.
* Killing of any kind within a library of Ivene is an act of following Medra's will, and allows the God of Chaos to manifest within one's soul.

## **Traditions**

### **Birthday Celebrations**

* On January 11th, the mages gather around the cast protective spells to ward off Morgreal, or his unholy abominations shall plague the land with the undead.
* On February 15th, the killing and eating of all meat is forbidden as we celebrate purity and sinlessness. At this time everyone involved with the church will remain at peace until the sun has set.
* On March 14th, the library helps with insights and history during wartime to celebrate Irecenotal, putting their best heads to apply in strategy and logistics
* On April 22nd, we create and adorn mythical costumes, feeding into Vizua's Imagination and appeasing her fanatical appetite.
* On May 19th, offerings of political text and fearmongering must be sacrificed for the god Insania/Enzanea, or she shall inflict Insanity over the world.
* On June 3rd, we celebrate Ivene in recording and documenting history adorning her Grand Library in banners with scrawls of different languages and a promotion on History Etiquette.
* On July 31st, we celebrate the earth and all it has given us, Orduan and the smithing competitions to honor this god of craftmanship.
* On August 13th, the followers of Biblio Praterism gather together in one location to offer a prayer of strength to Medra's enemies in hopes that they will continue to keep the world from his chaos.
* On September 17th, offerings of all four elements must be put together to appease Ephesto, wishing for calm weathers and peaceful travels.
* On October 15th, we celebrate Chekit and her decietful creativity, disguising ourselves to lure out hungry beasts into a knarly trap.
* On November 21st, we celebrate Perval in a carnival of playful games, such as spleef and eating competitions.
* December 1st, every crop must be harvested and replanted, all the documentation up to date in order to appease Neralica, or else Abistare will decay every crop in the field and turn every cow over dead and rotten.
* On December 31st, everyone must stay in their homes during the night as not to disturb Abistare in his liar on the moon, lest you be afflicted with hallucination, death and eventual decay.

### **Offering Ritual**

Followers of Biblio Praterism understand that that gods work in ways unseen by mortals, as such when offerings sacrifices to one or more gods of the pantheon believers of the faith do not expect a response. The most common belief among those of the faith is that the gods will silently collect offerings made to them and grant those who made the offering a blessing from the gods domain. However record in some of the oldest records of Biblio Praterism there is mention of the gods themselves coming from their planes of existence and personally blessing or granting a artifact to those who peak their interests. Members of the faith do however have certain rules they must follow when making offerings, as to break from these rules would lead to a incomplete ritual and will be seen as a sign of disrespect to the faith.

#### The Rules of Offerings

1. While the faith asks that you do not shame those of other religion it does not extend to the worship of Medra, and of chaos, as such members of Biblio Praterism will heavily look down upon those that make offerings to Entities of chaos of any kind.
2. To start the ritual, one amongst those participating is to be made the speaker of the offering, they will be the one to talk to the gods themselves and they will be one of the deciding factors on rather the ritual is done correctly or not.
3. When performing a offering the speaker must openly state which member of the pantheon they are making the offering to, and they must also ensure that while performing a offering for the god they do not do anything that is in direct opposition with the gods ideals.
4. Once a member of the pantheon has been selected to be the recipient of the offering the next step is to gather offerings that are connected to the god of choice, it is preferable that the speaker tell of a few items, and how they connect to the god they are being offered to.
5. Once the offering ceremony is complete and the speaker has finished their ask for the gods blessing they must thank the pantheon for listening and allowing them continued prosperity.