Revamping Spirits of the Light

[Delilah]

The Current Helpfile is:

The Followers of the Spirits of the Light are an odd sect that usually
hide their existence. All other religious groups call them heretics,
blasphemers, and worse. According to others, the Followers are doomed to
spend eternity in the abyss for their very beliefs.

The Followers believe that the Lord has turned his back on Mankind. Only
the animals receive his blessings now. They claim this is because Man has
again and again demolished itself in the destruction of an Age. The
animals, who live in their cycle of harmony, are still living as the Lord
made them.

The Followers perform odd rituals involving the wearing of animal skins.
They chant and dance 'round fires, burning secret herbs. Some rumours say
they can take on the shape of the animals whose skin they wear. More
frequent rumours claim ritual human sacrifice and the drinking of blood.

Upon death, a Follower is covered in an animal skin under the hope that the
disguise will allow them to sneak into Heaven, rather than travel to Hell
like all other humans will.

I'd like to get ideas from our PBase about what they imagine SOL to be.
It seems old world, scary native American to me- likely to fall under the Charalian culture.

[Delilah]

Does no one have any interest in having any input here? I just want to make a final check before it goes all Delilah on you.

[Wolfie]

Del,

The Spirits of the Light, to me, is the monotheistic interpretation of Charalin culture cultivated in Lithmore post-Dav and post-Days of Fire. The use of the word Lord in the helpfile is indicative enough of this for me.

I would like to see something more involved, perhaps even a less watered down version that actually -is- the animism and shamanism of the Charali as a religion we can choose in game. Two of my Charali in the past have defaulted to the Druids as they had no other choice.

I would like to work on you with this, but I am writing theological exegeses for Bennie this weekend.

[Delilah]

I believe I touched base with you this evening, Wolfie. Thanks for the interest.

[Takta]

Might as well put my thoughts here that I also gave to Delilah in-game!

So I like to recommend thinking about a few specific things:

1) What's the afterlife and how do you get in?
2) What's the creation story?
3) What's the nature of the god (one god vs. many? Creator god vs. non?
Intervenes/doesn't intervene?)
4) What's the nature of evil in the religion?
5) What do the followers generally do?

I don't really like the idea that SoL is just kind of a heretic sect of
Davism - I'd like to see it fleshed out more instead as the old Charali
religion before Davism, one that's still largely practiced there. There's
just such a great cultural fit there, imo.

If that's the case, I'm not sure about the singular Lord in SoL; I kinda
think maybe it should have multiple deities, in the whole interest of
balance. Maybe multiple deities with animal guises?

For practices, I think you need to figure out what exactly is up with this
whole animal skin thing that's the only clearly defined aspect of the
religion. How are the followers expected to live like animals in
day-to-day life? Maybe something about not doing permanent harm to the
Urth/not leaving permanent marks upon the Urth (No building stone houses,
for example?)

Their afterlife... hmmm. Should it be perhaps continual reincarnation
for the good, erasure from the cycle if you engage in destruction? This
to me fits the idea of a culture that's about living in harmonious balance
and not harming nature.

[Wolfie]

The Song of Motion has a single sort of spark creator deity that devises the five elemental siblings.

In line with the elemental bits, I was working on a catalog of Cousins to the Siblings (while stuck at my desk for ten hours) that would account for further variations in the theme. A catalog of spirits that are understood by shamans as largely benign entities that were entirely separate from demonkind.

These spirits would be consulted and employed to remove sickness, curse enemies, ensure trades, etc.

The lesser cousins would be things like buffalo associated with thunder, a green stag made of grass, spirits for smoke and iron, rain and warfare.

Since I know the Song of Motion is no longer on-grid, I will have to reintroduce it at some point. And if there was any type of shaman book made, I'd probably want to write it in Charali... and in code.

[Dice]

I think before that level of specificity it's really worth establishing the most basic tenets. What is good behavior? What is bad behavior/sin? What is the afterlife? What is the religion's view on magery? So on, so forth.