20 in 20 #15

[Kailani of Admin]

A St Patricks Day inspired contest:

Does Valorn have it's own version of Saints and minor holidays - like St. Patricks Day, St. Valentines Day, St Brigids Day, St Davids Day, etc?
What would be the Valornian verion of a Saint? Perhaps 'martyrs' during the Dark Age?


Since contributions to lore is heavily encouraged - the winner(s) will find their submission become cannon (*subject to admin edits for suitability and implementation).

This contest will run for 30 days from now.
K.

[Morris]

I would think each profession would have an honoured member of their profession from years gone by perhaps s name of note that they could celebrate on the give day.

For example for warriors a day where they go around grunting in celebration of islander

[Topaz]

I suppose. But better would be leaving tributes at the "Tomb of Islander." Or a day to give names to worthy swords. Or it could be a good day to sponsor a warrior.

Hmm ...

[Turcko]

Prelude: In a world where magic exists and the very Gods walk among mortals coming from the clearly visible bright castle in the sky, it is rare to consider one a Saint performer of miracles. Instead the good people of Valorn honor great heroes of old, and the not-so-good people of Valorn equally praise great villains of old.


19th of Harvest - Duberry's Legacy
Captain Duberry has had a swamp named after him, and inspired the pirates of old to either search for his fabled gold, or seek fortunes of their own, before the seas turned too violent to sail. On this 19th turn of the Harvest, children are seen playing Duberry Gold Hunt, adults take to the inns and raise their mugs higher, and everyone all over Valorn tries to talk like the pirates of old.
Or, as they say in Killican, just another turn.


15th of Winter's Bite - Thank the Green
When one thinks of Sunrifter and its dwellers, one pictures fiery Miranda, electrifying Zeric, or mighty Kailani with ease. Since the days of old, some of the seven streams make themselves more known than others, as befits the aspects of the world they are linked to. The Green stream, for all it does to keep the world together, remains invisible for the most part.

With the notable exception, that is, of an unnamed cleric that is rumored to have lived hundreds of years ago.
Every year he would store and preserve food, water and even some coin. Then, right through the middle of the coldest, harshest cycle of the year, he would go from town to town, home to home, checking for the wellbeing of the common folk.
Resources were provided, and a simple sentence was uttered: "Thank the Green that keeps us whole, Heart's Thaw soon comes.".
Written accounts of this cleric's existence are scarce. The few that exist span so many years that it seems implausible they belong to the same person.
All through the years that passed since the fall of the Golden Age, the poor and the helpless were given sustenance, and reminded that the Green stream watches over the lands (and those on them). Thus it became costumery to honor and thank the Green on this harshest of cycles.

[Kailani of Admin]

Just a reminder this has approximately 14 days remaining.

K.

[Telvonus]

"Saints are humans so open to the influence of one of the Gods that the God can turn the color stream they represent into the human subject. They surrender their private will to the God; when suffused by the Divine, they see almost as the Gods see; their presence is marked by miracles and wonders - but they do not choose what the miracles are." Ammanis the Wistful, Lives of the Saints, Introduction.

"As long as I remember, I wanted to be a Saint. Many do, but I continued in this mind after I realized that Saints were not actually 100th level adventurers with items to match. Their wills do not turn the flow of the world like a dam or a sword; they slip through the world like a badger through the woods. Their influence accomplishes everything by doing nothing.

"But I was never able to devote myself to any one of the Gods, being interested in all of them. And I fear that my soul is the wrong shape; a rigid pen that can be turned every which way, not a glove or a chalice to be filled with Divine Essence." Ammanis the Wistful, Lives of the Saints, unfinished draft Afterword.

Blessed Ammanis the Wistful: Early in life, he became convinced of the theory that there would be exactly 1461 saints in the history of Valorn, four for each day of the year, and one for Non-Day. He also became a minor functionary in the Temple of Branishor.

When Balthazar made his fraudulent Declaration and unveiled N'rolav, saying that he would shortly slay Islander, pull Sunrifter from the sky, and end all worship but that of himself, Ammanis realized that the saints, if the 1461 theory held, provided a test for this - and set about compiling a list of saints in his spare time. Fortunately, King Deek, when he heard of this project, thought it useful, and provided a room in Laledan Palace for Ammanis, ordering that he be supplied with food, ink, paper, clothing "and the occasional bath, whether he desires one or not."

He died peacefully in his sleep in the last days of Balthazar's War; he was spared the news of the burning of Fartown and its records, which would have been a great grief to him. He left a list of 1094 verified saints, with finished or nearly finished lives, requiring only a little editorial work. He assigned many of these no date, having found that all schemes (birth, death, traditional reverence, major miracle) piled up more than four on some day or other.

While all of us who were fortunate enough to know him were convinced that Ammanis did not see as a human sees, his status in religion is disputed. He has no miracles recorded, and he was more devoted to all the Gods than to one. Most agree that he was Blessed. Some argue that the 1094 saints are themselves the miracle, being one short of three for each day; they claim him as the 1095th and assign him the first day of April.

A few believers contend that the last God to descend from Sunrifter will declare that Ammanis, out of time, was the God's only saint, and revive him to issue a short-lived second edition of 1461 saints, including himself.

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Saint Tumna the Gardener (Miranda, 28 or 29 April): Tumna was no adventurer, nor a noble, but an assistant gardener in a hothouse in Waterstown, remarkable for her touch with roses. Her devotion to Miranda and her sainthood would be unknown, except for her brother Imne, who was a soldier in the unfortunate Three Gorges Expedition by the South Kingdom against the East. After the final ambush, Imne was reported dead; Tumna adopted a practice of praying to Miranda every evening, looking over her roses at the clouds of sunset, that souls be released from Aldwythe's Landing - and if she prayed with especial energy for her brother, who can blame her?

But Imne was not dead, but a war prisoner. His name was never presented for ransom, or not received, since he was accounted dead. The King of the East at that time sentenced unransomed prisoners to quarry stones for the unfinished Wall. Since they were strong people, men and women, and unwilling, they were kept chained.

Imne, however, was supernaturally released from his chains every 12th marc, and could not be chained again until the end of the marc. Word of this reached up to the governor of the quarry, who debated the wisdom of defying the will of the Gods or defying the King. Eventually he let Imne go in Branishor, and kept no record. Imne appears to have found some unskilled job.

Even though the current war had ended, travel by land from Branishor to Waterstown was difficult and expensive, and unskilled jobs allowed no saving, Imne fell into the hands of a sideshow man, who displayed his miraculous powers for pay. One 28th of April. Imne was not released at all, and the barker had to give the money back. On the next day, he was released at the end of the 11th marc, before the barker could collect his pay, and again at the beginning of the 12th, and the audience was dissatisfied - and so was the barker.

After that, Imne wandered the streets of Bran, asking the pious for money - and founding a tradition of beggary since adorned by distinguished names. He collected enough to travel home and meet his sister; it came out that she had been desperately ill on the 28th, not going to work or praying, and that she had prayed twice on the 29th.

Tumna lived to a great age and died much beloved but not famous, and without other miracles. Ammanis doubts the popular story that when she died, Aldwythe immediately had her and her brother presented before Corey for immediate judgment. "Not going to have my bookkeepping ruined by that woman again!" Its provenance is not clear, and Ammanis asks who would have told us about it: Tumna and Imne never knew what was going on, and would Corey or Aldwythe have admitted it.

Nevertheless, she is widely invoked against delaying or arbitrary bureaucracy.

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Saint Gilbert and Saint Arthur the Melodist (Xia, May 29) : Saint Gilbert began life as a player, a satirist and comedian, travelling the Kingdoms in the company of a musician, a discharged bandmaster. Due to their real talents, the two men worked their way up to becoming dramatist and composer of the most renowned light opera of the age, eventually building the Theater which now stands in Dundee to display their collaborations.

Their operettas survive when other light shows of that age may be found only on dusty library shelves, doubtless a sign of inspiration by Xia, But the miracles for which they are canonized are instances of their plots infecting their audience. They were responsible for resolving the Northern Succession Crisis: the previous King of the North had been slain by a conspiracy of nobles, and his son hidden under a false name; now that the people were tired of the nobles, it was not clear which of two young men was Prince. The Saints found that a third young man, who had believed himself the son of the Prince's nurse, was the real Prince.

Another time, all the unbonded people who drank fruitflower tea at a reception after one of the operettas found themselves in love with quite different and unintended people, and Arthur the Melodist had to be consigned to the Labyrinth to break the spell. After three years, Gilbert rescued his partner. It was then that Arthur first heard the chord that Xia had lost at the beginning of Time.

Eventually, Gilbert settled down, built a great house, and stopped writing for the Theater; he is remembered as beginning the tradition of hot pools near Dundee. Arthur reformed his dissolute ways, became a warrior, and was even appointed to the Iron Knights; he wrote a great deal of religious and patriotic music, and the Iron Knights still use "Onward, Knights of Iron" on ceremonial occasions. Nevertheless, Xia may have been less with them separately than together.

They are celebrated on 29 May, the day Gilbert drowned successfully rescuing a young lady from his pool.

[Telvonus]

Since a certain flower-loving acquaintance has asked, I add:

Saint Olbia (Jan. 5 or July 21, Devora Jane) called the Rash: a healer who practiced seeing the world as the Gods see it, as filled with breakable humans; she did so well at this, and at dealing with this as Jane would that she often forgot she was only breakable herself.

Eventually Devora Jane gave her two presents, or so the story goes: a pot of honey of which the slightest pinch would act as a death reset scroll, and a bell which would ring when she would let her hits get low, and twice when she charges into danger.

In later life, she turned to gardening, and would seriously counsel her students (Strom was the last) against risking their lives.

So she is invoked both to guard the rash, and to improve their judgment. She is venerated either on her birthday in July and on the date of her most famous miracle:

When the city of Caernivale hired mercenaries to defend trade from the centaurs, Captain Nancy led her army up an impassable slope, now the one down from Jensen's, on January 5th. The centaurs were on top hurling rocks.

Olbia had come as a medic, and stepped between the armies, calling for peace, and averting disaster. She would have been killed if swarms of bees, in midwinter, had not buzzed in the faces of both forces.

She was able, eventually, to register a treaty, thanks to one giant bee who buzzed in both languages.