The Religion of the Heirophancy

[Jubal]

The Heirophancy is a shadow of its former self, having contracted to its core territory: but it is nonetheless, even in its shrunken form, its religion is important to vast numbers of souls living at the heart of the world.


The Syarami

The Heirophantic religion is dualist: they believe that the Syarami, the tribe from who the Heirophants come, were given the privilege and duty of keeping balance between the two fundamental deities or forces (in this sense they share some inspirations with Pal and Tul religion, giving the sapient peoples of the world a central place in cosmic order).

Suyr is the force of growth and chance, forwardness and movement. Order comes from Suyr through the changing of the seasons, the bringing of new life, the teaching of children and the expansion of the Syaramislei, the earthly domain of balance.  Chaos comes from Suyr through the horrors of war, rage, and anger.

Beyi is the force of stopping and slowness, permanence and solidity. Order comes from Beyi through peace and calm thoughts, the maintenance of the rule of the heirophants, the protection of things past and the deliberation that slows new action. Chaos comes from Suyr through the corruption of plague and the slow decay of neglect.


Common Folk

Commoners do not take direct part in the dualist rites of the Syarami, whose cults are strictly initiatory. Some of the general principles, such as the belief that the Syarami hold the balance between Suyr and Beyi, will be well known and widely believed in, but these ideas are not key to the faith practices of commoners, which tend to involve the worship of local spirits.

The Heirophants tend to restrict worship of other gods among the common folk, but not the worship of spirits (both these words being slightly awkward translations for the relevant concepts: notably, whilst dawn-folk are in a sense "spirits", they are absolutely not permitted to be worshipped). Common folk thus have shrines to small, usually localised, protector spirits, often two or three that are specific to each village and embody or inhabit certain places, so "Phenem of the Vineyards of Talnid", or "Micur of the Oldest Olive", or "Kurki the Waterfall". There are a sort of order of priests, the Sertants, who are commoners whose role it is to travel between villages and care for these shrines to small gods: a Sertant (who may be of any gender) may travel around five or at most ten villages as a matter of course, sometimes leading ceremonies but often just performing upkeep on the shrines.


Cults and Heresies

There are myriad local cultic, heterodox and heretical beliefs across the Heirophancy, not counting those who follow other faiths entirely (followers of other gods and pantheons are tolerated as merchants, or even in their own villages in some areas, but attempting to convert people away from belief in Suyr and Beyi and fundamental forces and the Syarami as their balancers is quite strictly forbidden). Cults and heresies come in a number of forms: one of the commonest being questioning the Syarami as the sole group chosen to balance the cosmos. Some also suggest prophet or deity figures who will bring a final balance to the cosmic forces, or that one or the other cosmic force is actually good or evil. Some examples are given below.

The Pansuyrite heresy is a not wholly uncommon one: the positions that Suyr is a good deity and Beyi an evil one, and that if all the corruption was rooted out from the Syarami they would be able to bring a final victory to Suyr. This is a mostly elite heresy, a position held by members of the Syarami who are more theologically radical or wish to justify particular courses of action of programmes of renovatio.

The Tarudanists believe in the coming of Tarudan, a figure known as the Whisper of Light and Darkness, the Blade of Time, or the Keening Maiden. Tarudan is a feminine warrior deity or demigod who it is claimed will slay both Suyr and Beyi, ending their struggle ushering in a new order under her chosen viziers and consorts upon earth. A mother deity known as Tirud was popular in parts of what is now the southern Heirophancy many centuries earlier, and it is likely that Tarudan is linked to her if only by name. Rituals dedicated to Tarudan are participated in by some Syarami and commoners alike, though they are strictly illegal.

The Petorcites are named for the now-razed settlement of Petorca, where their cult briefly took over the small city's government before it was flattened. They believed that their local heirophant, a charismatic Syaramite called Mestot who gave up command of a Takinary regiment to rule a sleepy hill town, had been especially chosen as the child of both Suyr and Beyi. Mestot was killed when Petorca was burned and salted by a Heirophantic army, but this did not entirely stop the underground cult, and Mestot, also known as the Burned God or the Salted Man, is worshipped in secret as a bringer of peace and unity. Mestot is also associated with bird imagery, especially hoopoes and phoenixes.