Of Lords and Ladies: The Elven Religion (IAURISM)

OF LORDS & LADIES:
IAURISM & THE ELVEN GODS

The story of the elves, as does many creation myths, with the Mother.

In the elven tongue, she is called Ontaria by the Iaur and Aemilia by the Sylvanar, respectively. Her name translates to "mother" or "begetter" and she is the ultimate creator god in the elven religion. And she is believed to have been the first star.

When she washed away the sins of the clay people and fled,  the Mother left behind her sons. Eldest among them was Iaur who created the elves by plucking stars from the sky. He saw the creation of the Twilight Realms and was so enraptured with the beauty of the Dawn that he decided to make it his home. In the Forest of Iaur, he built the Starry Vale for the young elven race and guided them from his palace, Silverhome.

In Silverhome, he lived alongside his consorts and his children, who would lead to his ruin and abandonment of the mortal world.

Traditionally, Iaur is depicted as a beautiful elf with long raven black hair, bright blue eyes and wearing either long robes of blue, red and gold. In modern depiction, he has taken on a more militant appearance with silver plate armor, a long sword and shield with a blue banner. He is also often depicted with four black wings.

Personality-wise, Iaur is known to be a champion and advocate for the beautiful, the true and the good. His unequaled mastery of the arts, as an extension of his appreciation, has been passed down as gifts to his mortal children: the mastery of music, sculpture & paint, the expertise in glass/metal works & architecture, and their inherent talent and mastery with the arcane arts has allowed the elves to build wonders that are the envy of the world. He blessed his children with adaptability: wherever elves find themselves, they find a way to thrive.

Lord Iaur's appreciation for beauty is admirable but has consequences. He had many beautiful companions and concubines. Their beauty blinded his judgement and allowed them the opportunity to undermine his rule. Their envy drove them to dark and dangerous extremes.

His first wife, Lady Rin-Varna, is a goddess of love, life, and starlight. She is the loremaster and creator of the written language of the elves. It is she that taught the early elves the art of elven rune magic that allowed them to live undisturbed the strange creatures of the Twilight. She is the mother of Kuron and Hurin.

Kuron is a female warrior goddess associated with the hunt and the wild. She is often depicted as teaching martial skills to the elves, such as the mastery of the blade and bow. She had friction with her father for eschewing the finery of his court but was a loyal daughter. Her brother, Hurin, on the other hand, while embracing the finery and manners of court, took great pleasure in embarrassing his father by participating in debauchery from overindulging in fine food, drink and flesh to throwing never-ending and frivolous parties. His libertine attitude earned him reprimands from his father that rebuked by undermining his father by participating in the fey court. While he helped the fey court conspire against his father, he is no one's true ally, and instead takes pleasure in the artistry of deception and betrayal. These "jokes and japes" that he played distracted the court and allowed the machinations of the greatest foe of elfkind to go unnoticed until it was almost too late.

From the darkness between the stars, as if a dark mirror of Rin-Varna, Gwath-Yara found her way to the court of Silverhome. Born of the old one Attlakanakha the Dream-Weaver, Gwath-Yara seduced Iaur into allowing her to join his harem of wives, husbands and consorts and quickly began infecting the Silver Court with her influence. She bore Iaur a son and a daughter. This was all in her plan to have Rin-Varna killed so she could become the queen of elfkind and, eventually, turn on Iaur as well. Once her son and daugter were grown and she felt more secure in her place, once she had Iaur wrapped around her finger and Rin-Varna believing her to be as a sister, and once she had a plan that she believed could bring them all down she set her eyes upon getting Hurin and Kuron out of the way. She took advantage of their friction with court and set them up: Kuron abandoned the court and Hurin was exiled.

And then the Alliance of Gloom descended upon the Silver Court.

An army of dark fey, allied with the twin sisters, were led to the Starry Vale and lay siege to Silverhome. Gwath-Yara used information she had plied from Hurin so that they could break into the forest of Iaur and when Kuron left in a huff, her warriors went with her. This left Iaur to fight the dark forces while Rin-Varna guarded his people in the walls of Silverhome.

The dark fey had underestimated the might and magic of Iaur, especially in his own home, and his wrath towards their ugliness and evil manifested in a terrible manner:

He turned the dream-like glamor of his realm into phantom nightmares that tore at their minds and bodies and each swing of his blade penetrated the dark horde like the rays of the sun. Still, his fey enemies were joined by more powerful foes: the patron gods of giants, orcs, and goblins, as well as several demon lords, joined in their invasion. He struck down many of them but their numbers and strength overwhelmed him and he found himself transforming into a great feathered serpent as he wrestled with them in the vale in a deathgrip. Without aid, they would overcome even his power and he would die…

Meanwhile, the wicked consorts, Gwath-Yara, hid inside Silverhome with Rin-Varna until they could spring her own trap. She had poisoned Rin-Varna and positioned herself as her protector and care-taker as she fell ill. With the court distracted by the invasion, she prepared to end Rin-Varna and blame it on the invaders. But, with the timing that only Hurin is capable of, he intervened and saved his mother. He had suspected some treachery was afoot and, when he saw the Alliance of Gloom descending upon the forest, he went to find Kuron. He apologized and begged her to come quickly.

Her hunters easily turned the tide of battle and helped free Iaur. They sent Iaur's enemies, maimed and humiliated, fleeing but promising vengeance. They then turned to Gwath-Yara and her co-conspirator Kytix. The girl was another consort of Iaur and Gwath-Yara had turned her against him. She had helped her the whole time out of her spite towards the other members of Iaur’s harem.

Rin-Varna lay dying.

Before Iaur could deal out his punishment on the evil beings, he plead with them for a cure for Rin-Varna’s illness. Hurin’s heart grew heavy with guilt and disgust and fury as they laughed at his father. For the first time, he felt remorse. He had not been there to protect his mother. He had allowed his pride to blind him from such obvious treachery. He had also failed to protect his father. And so, he came up with a plan:

As the two stewed in the cell, Hurin came to them with an offer: the first share the cure would be forgiven of their crimes.

Kytix immediately turned on her mistress and gave Hurin the cure. Gwath-Yara turned into a giant monstrous spider, showing her true form, and attacked Kytix. Kytix, having the body shifting powers of the elven gods, changed shape into a ghostly white spider to defend herself. The struggle was so intense that they broke free from the cell and the battle continued into the palace above. Hurin rushed to find his mother a cure as Iaur tried to contain the two creatures. He refused to kill them. A small part of him loved them but, even moreso, he did not believe they deserved a quick death.

Rin-Varna quickly recovered and came to Iaur’s aid. She first cast Kytix down into a world beneath the mountain. Never again would she gaze upon the stars and there, in the dark, she would remain transformed into a monstrous spider woman. Gwath-Yara required a more powerful banishment. She tried to flee back beyond the stars but Rin-Varna and Iaur shaped the stars themselves into a net, catching the spider and trapping her there in the darkness between the stars. No longer would she dwell beneath or beyond the starlight. She could only send her whispers along strings of shadow.

They fates of the Gwath-Yara’s son and daughter are also an important story in elf lore.

Her son, Assarr, was the perfect member of the court. Handsome, clever and chivalrous. He had the allure of his father and his mother’s cunning. He gained a reputation as Assarr the Irresistible. After all, if you could not get into the bed of the king, the prince was the next best thing. He was undeniable and he was never denied his desires.

Her daughter, Nyeera was Iaur’s favorite child. Her beauty was only matched by her talent, kindness and gentle-heart. Even Rin-Varna could not resist her and took the child as her favorite attendant. Together she helped Rin-Varna weave music into the elven tongue and she constantly impressed her father with artistic innovation. But the same charms that won over the rest of the Silver Court also put her in the cross-hairs of her own brother.

Assarr, unlike Nyeera, was susceptible to their mother’s dark corruption. She had molded him into the picture of courtly perfection with the intent of making him king some day. She encouraged his appetites. His morals were twisted and, even with his mother gone, he could still hear her whispers. She turned his desires into a madness and his wishes became increasingly impure. The only one more desirable than he was the child that none would dare approach with romantic intent. Nyeera was too pure and kind. And the sick son of Gwath-Yara developed a fantasy: to overthrow his father and rule with Nyeera as his bride!

Hurin saw the way his half-brother looked at his half-sister and tried to warn Rin-Varna. His concerns were rebuffed. After all, Assarr’s reputation was as clean as crystal. Kuron believed he was making trouble. Hurin knew better and began to keep an eye on Nyeera.

One night, while Nyeera walked in the ever-blossoming garden of Silverhome, the moon cast an ominous red light over the scene below. Assarr approached Nyeera from the shadows and made his dark confession. Nyeera rebuked him, as mercifully as she could, and begged him to reconsider. She begged him forgive her for it and she begged him to turn his heart’s desire elsewhere. Assarr had never been denied anything by anyone. In that moment, something broke and the prince showed his trueself. A monster. He attacked Nyeera. Luckily, someone was watching.

Hurin intervened, having been watching from nearby, and came to Nyeera’s defense. The two half brothers became locked in combat and, quickly, Hurin realized he was no match. Hurin called for Kuron and, like a swift wind, she came. The huntress threw him out of the garden and the prince’s ferocity immediately turned to cowardice. He ran to his father. He threw himself upon the floor and begged for his father’s protection. He spun a story:

According to Assarr, it was Hurin who was the predator in the court. He had intended to assault Nyeera and, in the process, ruin Assar’s reputation. Hurin disguised himself as Assarr since, after all, he was a master of disguise. When he heard his sister scream, he came to her aid, only to be attacked by Hurin and Kuron.

As Assarr finished spinning his elaborate lie, his other siblings arrived. Iaur demanded an explanation and relay the accusations of Assarr. Hurin pointed out the falsehoods in his story and that the blood upon the white-haired lord's lips was not his own. In his lustful attack, he had bitten Nyeera's neck. Rin-Varna banished Assarr to the deep, dark depths of the material plane, in the World Below, and Iaur cursed him:

He became the monster within. From that day onward, Assarr recoiled from the sun and was filled with unending lust for blood. Assarr was the first vampire. Perhaps, Iaur and Rin-Varna would’ve kinder and wiser to destroy him. After all, this scandal proved the final straw for many of the first elves. The elves that had been loyal to Gwath-Yara and Assarr felt betrayed by Iaur. They abandoned Silverhome and fled to Assarr’s side. Those most loyal became the first vampire lords, the Assarrites, and the first “drow”. These “drow” or “dark elves” were pale with fangs, red eyes and bat-like features. The drow were a slave race for the vampire lords and built an empire beneath the world surface, terrorizing the citizens of the underworld, and Assarr reigned as a living god.

Eventually, during the Wyrd Wars, this empire was weakened by multiple conflicts. In the final battle between Mal-Dorig and the gods, Assarr took the dread conqueror’s side and was dealt a devastating defeat by his father. Many of the surviving by vampire lords fled to the far corners of the world to infect the above world with their curse but others took Assarr deep below the world to recover. Other drow finally escaped enslavement and found a way to break their vampiric curse but still had adapted to live beneath the world and returned there.

The drow have a reputation for being evil-doers; most interaction those in the world above have with drow is with drow raiders but not all drows are slavers. Those slavers are most often Gwathnir, those who turned to Gwath-Yara for guidance, and are villains among most other peoples of the dark underworld. But others worship other gods and have other careers. Some are pirates, some are merchants, some are cultists, some are priests, but they are all artists. And they come in all manner of unusual hues. The Assarite drow may have been so pale as to be almost translucent but the freed drow are spectrum of reds, blues, purples, and darker hues.

As much as it is a shame that the elf-father has lost a connection with his children, it is even more a shame the world cannot appreciate the beauty these elves have cultivated out of their pain.

As a last note, it is important to remember most known version of the elven religion are written by the Iaurdin, who left Saesun at the dawn of the second epoch and their religion, as well as their gods, reflects their values. The Sylanar, the elves who stayed behind on Saesun, often envision the gods in a more naturalistic way as embodiment of natural forces and include the druidic gods, like Silvanus, in their versions of elven myths.

Like the Iaurdin, the Sylvanar value beauty, but in more natural and liberated form compared to the heavily constructed and controlled beauty of Iaurdin society.

Iaur had many more consorts and children. Their tales remain to be seen as we discover more of elvenkind.

Faiths of Sublanarya: House Fortuna: Moira the Spinner, Glamora of the Weal and Dysrae of the Woe

Some old tales speak of fate taking the form of three women: the spinner of fate, the drawer of lots and the inevitable shearer. It is said when a person is born, the spinner spins out their life like a thread. She sets their fate in motion. The drawer of lots duty was to help measure out the life's thread and to tie knots where they would make important choices. Lastly, the shearer's purpose and her pleasure was choosing when to cut life's short. Together these three daughters of the primordial Nyx determined fate for the peoples of Narya. Those are the old stories. Others say all three are one goddess: Moira the Spinner of Fate.

Much like Erys, Moira is often depicted as Grimnir's sister but her true origins have been lost to the sands of time. She is the one who wields the spinning wheel of fate but whether or not these threads can be manipulated are debatable. For one, her very continued existence is debated and some believe her daughters are the result of the Mending tearing her in half.

As for fate, it is argued that, perhaps, when a person is born, they are destined for certain outcomes but perhaps these outcomes can be changed. Some believe that you must take risks to change those outcomes and, to some that is where luck comes in...

In the border between Terra Nada and Mechanis, there is a place that some would describe as a temple, others would describe as a casino and most would describe as the final resting place of many gamblers. This place is called House Fortuna and this where fates are rewritten. This massive golden complex rises of the sand and lures in souls and beings from across the planes. Angels, demons, devil, gods and mortals can all be found here playing games with the souls of mortals and the fates of many at stake. The mistresses of the house are Moira's daughter's Glamora and Dyrae.

Glamora AKA Lady Luck favors the bold, the daring and the reckless. She rewards those who takes risks, often tilting fate in their favor, but, while she admires the skilled and cunning, those who cheat too often or without challenging themselves often find themselves on her bad side. Lady Luck is the roll of the dice when a gambler gambles and a risk-taker takes risks. While she is known to show favor towards her adherents, she is most often neutral in the outcome. She loves a game and is known to especially manifest, leaving the confines of House Fortuna, when the stakes are highest. She finds no greater beauty in the universe than when fate is tempted.

While she is associated with good fortunes, she is neither good nor evil, and would say she favors neither. Her sister Dysrae is associated with bad fortunes and, while she favors neither good nor evil, she certainly enjoys the suffering of others.

Dysrae AKA Miss-Fortune hears the prayers of those who wish ill upon others and manifests when fate turns against the proud and the powerful as well as the humble and the meak. She takes pleasure the more luck turns against the hapless and loves to see the downfall of the high and mighty. She has little sympathy or care. She is the cruel needling whisper, the bitter words, and the envious heart of the immortal and mortal plane alike.

While her sister prefers an iconically glamorous form that borders on the gaudy, with lots of materials, dice & coin imagery, and gold, gems and sequins, like a show-girl or magician, Dysrae prefers simpler dress but often takes the form of a red haired noblewoman. In this form, she is mentioned as witnessing many murders and betrayals at the noble lords of Thule.

Both gods, as well as their mother, are often found depicted in gambling houses, thieves guilds and other places where good fortune, as well as bad, are called upon.

Faiths of Sublanarya: Saint Umber, The Nameless God and the Lost Crusade

"Aye, sir. I seen it. I seen it with me own eyes. I've seen them.

There was a storm, a storm so bad we was lost for weeks. Lot of good swabbies fell o'board, we ran out of chow and grog and the captain, oh the poor captain he went mad. The clouds and fog were so thick we ha'nt seen a spot of sunshine or blue-sky in days. The captain was at the wheel. The ship ran aground in the frozen wastes; he landed her just north of the Devil's Bident and it was the bitterest cold, sir. We was bundled up tighter than sausages but we still felt the old man death nipping at our fingers and noses. We should've seen about turning the ship around, sir, but, sir...

The captain had gone ashore. The poor fool.

I was his first mate, sir. I had no choice. I took a row boat and a few men ashore. The land there is so dead that, over the whistle of the wind, the only sounds were us: each foot step crunching on the frozen ground, each shiver chattering our bones, and each raspy breath we took seemed to stop just out of our field of vision.  Still, it weren't too hard to figure out. We found the captain's trail. We found the other rowboat, we found his footsteps, we found his clothes-- the captain was surely dead but we pressed on a little farther into the biting wind.

There's nothing up there. Just empty wastes and ice and, or rather sir, or so we thought. We saw an outline of somebody out in the cold darkness. Lantern held high, I called out for the captain, sir. They walked forward sir and, for a moment, there was hope. But as we stood there, silently, staring in the darkness, we heard clacking of joints and clinking of chain, and we knew something was wrong.

It weren't the captain, sir. It was a soldier, a legionnaire, sir, a knight of the Imperium. 'cept they was long dead. When the lantern lit their face, we saw there was no skin or flesh or anything, so to speak, to talk to. Just a skull. The men fled, mad, back the way we came. I froze there, just for a moment, just long enough to see them.

To see that there were hundreds sir, no thousands, an army, sir! An army of the dead!" An account by Captain Lou Bluetooth recorded by the Imperian bishop Deacano

The Legend of the Lost Crusade begins not in the frozen wastes of the Hold or in the valleys or mountains of the Imperium but in the desert kingdoms of northern Ptah-Hamut and Nadjabad with the Bloody Crusade in the 64th century CE.

An order of Imperian knights calling themselves the Bleeding Cross, a splinter off from the templar order of the Red Star, were led by the insistence of the Imperator and their order's leader, a holy general by the name of Waldar Dux. The general led his order across the Zafarian Sea and into the south-western continent on a crusade to retrieve stolen artifacts that, long before the Imperians ever arrived in Sublanarya, the Hamutians and Zafarians had taken from ancient temples of the Nameless God. General Dux's zealous conquest met heavy resistance and he died upon the battlefield. A young commander, Umber Rubela, rose to take his place and managed to salvage the crusade. After many victories, they failed to find the artifacts they had sacrificed so many lives to find and return to their homes. Instead, they found loyalty and exaltation for Umber, who the revered as a living saint.

Umber showed incredibly foresight, fortune and vision, all seen as gifts from the Unnamed God, and is victories were seen as miracles. His men saw him as the next prophet, the successor to Croma, and that he should take the imperian throne for himself. He gathered many followers and took his forces back to the imperian capitol. The imperator prepared for civil war but it did not come.

Instead, St. Umber asked for audience with the imperator. He explained to the ruler that he had a vision that they were to build a new kingdom in the northern wastes of the Hold and that he was to rule the empire jointly with his holiness. He would establish a second capitol in the north called Penumbra. The imperator and his advisors saw the young soldier's vision as madness and rejected his request for their support. He left the palace, in peace, and, disregarding their skepticism, he took his forces into the Hold and northward on what Umber called "The Dawn Crusade".

Tens of thousands of priests, holy knights,and acolytes of the prophet's vision followed him on this journey across the Shield Mountains. They were never seen again.

The truth behind the prophet's powers was discovered long after his crusade left the imperium's lands. He was born into a powerful cult within the templars that worshiped a sacrilegious aspect of the Nameless One known as samael or "the goat".

He had acquired unsavory powers and his intention was to undermine the empire to "reveal the truth" behind their god's faith.

Umber believed that all interpretations of their lord, even the cult's, were blasphemous. He led General Dux to his downfall so that he could take control of their crusade and guide it down the path that he saw.


A path where he could conquer death and prepare for the return of the Morning Star as his only true, loving and loyal servant.

The Hold is a mysterious and dangerous wasteland. There have been no good maps, save those performed by mariners of the coastlines, and it was believed that crusade had become lost and met some terrible fate beyond the mountains that guard civilization from the savagery of the Hold. There are rumors, stories and speculation that says otherwise.

The biggest obstacle of colonizing the far north is the unbearable cold. No mortals could survive in those cold and barren wastes. They are empty of liquid water or food. And the freezing temperatures are so deadly that exposure would kill any person within minutes. There were many theories on how they could survive: magic, divine or arcane, could allow them to overcome the freezing cold. Or perhaps they could find an ancient dwarven city or cavern that would guard them from it and provide subterranean vittles. But the truth is far more terrible.

The barbarians of the Hold, those who were friendly enough to trade with dwarves that live in the Shield mountains, told spooky stories of walking dead wearing white with red crosses began traveling down to imperian ears. Countless civilizations were said to have ruins in the Hold and so accounts of undead were not uncommon in the Hold but the red crosses on white cloth were the dress of the Bleeding Crosses.

A terrible and worrying legend was born: far in the north, where the sky is darkened by thick clouds and the no mortal treads, there is a city of the dead, the city of Penumbra, a capitol for an undead kingdom. The legend says that they are ruled by a saint used a dark ritual to make himself and his followers immortal so that they could survive in the isolation of the frozen north. There this undying empire waits, faithful and grateful, for the return of their god.

The Nameless God

Title(s)

The Unnamed, The Lord, the Forgotten, the Morning Star, The Betrayed

Pantheon(s)

New Gods

Power Level

??? Deity

Alignment

?????

Symbol

A six pointed star with an eye in the center of an overlapping cross

Portfolio

Humanity, creation, righteousness, loyalty, piety

Domains

Life, War, Death

Worshipers

Humans, dwarves, rebels agains the iaurdin empire, imperians, xalhoteccans,

 

Favored Weapon

All weapons

Saint Umber Rubela

Title(s)

The Servant, The Northern Imperator, The Lost Saint, The Ever-Faithful, The Saint of the Undead

Pantheon(s)

New Gods

Power Level

Lesser Deity

Alignment

Lawful Evil

Symbol

A skull with a cross on the brow

Portfolio

Undeath, truth, loyalty, zealotry, conquest

Domains

War, Death

Worshipers

Undead, necromancers, heretics of the Imperian, barbarians of the Hold, lords of Lacrimosa

 

Favored Weapon

Axes and swords