The Sovereign Host
The Sovereigns are with us at all times. Onatar stands at every forge, and Dol Dorn is with you whenever blades are drawn.
The Sovereigns shape the world. They offer us guidance and strength, but we must learn to listen. Honor every Sovereign in their place and time. If you hear one voice clearly, embrace their path. As a follower of the Sovereign Host, you believe that the hand of the Sovereigns can be seen in all things. What others take to be intuition or instinct, you see as the voice of the Sovereigns offering guidance. You don't need absolute proof; the fact of a bountiful harvest is evidence of Arawai's benevolence.
The pantheon of the Sovereign Host embodies all that is good in the world. The people of Allenia have followed the Sovereigns for thousands of years, and everyone knows the names of the Sovereigns and might not know the names of The Dark Six. Even people who aren't devout might still swear by the Sovereigns or offer a prayer in a moment of crisis.
The Sovereign Host is wondrously diverse. Variations and subsects of the faith thrive, and temples are only loosely aligned. In a small community, a skilled smith might double as the priest because people believe he's close to Onatar. A midwife might symbolically speak for Arawai and Boldrei. Typically, the faithful are united by their shared beliefs; no central authority seeks to enforce a singular creed.
The Sovereign Host is the only confirmed 'pantheon' of the Albion Alliance. They are a marked contrast to the majority of deities in the rest of the D&D campaign worlds due to the fact that they seem removed, distant, and uninvolved in the affairs of Allenia. This has led some to speculate that the Sovereign Host does not actually exist and the power of clerics that worship them is provided by some other force. Others say this is unlikely due to the near-universal nature of Sovereign Host worship across the world of Allenia.
Worshipers of the Sovereign Host are called Vassals and they are divided across a wide variety of churches and organizations across Allenia. There is no central hierarchy to worship of the various gods of the Sovereign Host and practices vary tremendously between sects.
Members: Arawai · Aureon · Balinor · Boldrei · Dol Arrah · Dol Dorn · Kol Korran · Olladra · Onatar
The Sovereigns shape the world. They offer us guidance and strength, but we must learn to listen. Honor every Sovereign in their place and time. If you hear one voice clearly, embrace their path. As a follower of the Sovereign Host, you believe that the hand of the Sovereigns can be seen in all things. What others take to be intuition or instinct, you see as the voice of the Sovereigns offering guidance. You don't need absolute proof; the fact of a bountiful harvest is evidence of Arawai's benevolence.
The pantheon of the Sovereign Host embodies all that is good in the world. The people of Allenia have followed the Sovereigns for thousands of years, and everyone knows the names of the Sovereigns and might not know the names of The Dark Six. Even people who aren't devout might still swear by the Sovereigns or offer a prayer in a moment of crisis.
The Sovereign Host is wondrously diverse. Variations and subsects of the faith thrive, and temples are only loosely aligned. In a small community, a skilled smith might double as the priest because people believe he's close to Onatar. A midwife might symbolically speak for Arawai and Boldrei. Typically, the faithful are united by their shared beliefs; no central authority seeks to enforce a singular creed.
The Sovereign Host is the only confirmed 'pantheon' of the Albion Alliance. They are a marked contrast to the majority of deities in the rest of the D&D campaign worlds due to the fact that they seem removed, distant, and uninvolved in the affairs of Allenia. This has led some to speculate that the Sovereign Host does not actually exist and the power of clerics that worship them is provided by some other force. Others say this is unlikely due to the near-universal nature of Sovereign Host worship across the world of Allenia.
Worshipers of the Sovereign Host are called Vassals and they are divided across a wide variety of churches and organizations across Allenia. There is no central hierarchy to worship of the various gods of the Sovereign Host and practices vary tremendously between sects.
Members: Arawai · Aureon · Balinor · Boldrei · Dol Arrah · Dol Dorn · Kol Korran · Olladra · Onatar
Mythology & Lore
Officially, The Dark Six have been expelled from the Sovereign Host, but doctrine does not hold that they have been stripped of their divinity. As a result, many vassals of the Sovereign Host still make prayers to members of The Dark Six, though these are usually prayers of propitiation made out of fear, rather than prayers of worship.
Even the oldest scripture makes references to "The Nine and Six and One", which seems to indicate that the division between Sovereign Host and The Dark Six predates the Schism.
Tenets of Faith
“As is the world, so are the gods. As are the gods so is the world.” This central tenet (referred to as “Universal Sovereignty”) helps encompass all of the ideas of the world under the banner of the Host. In short, the gods are present in everything, imbuing their power into reality, but also drawing strength from the world. It also explains the gods’ refusal to manifest as individuals or intervene personally, because they are already intervening by their omnipresence.
“The Sovereign Host is one name and speaks with one voice. The gods are letters of that name and the sounds of that voice.” The Doctrine of the Divine Host instructs Vassals to worship all the gods as a single entity, calling and praying to each as the situation warrants. People usually chose a patron according to their life, but reverence to all (even The Dark Six in some circumstances) is advised.
Good and evil are hard to define in the Host, as evil and good aspects can be found in any of the gods’ arenas. Farming in Boldrei’s name can abuse the land while praying to The Devourer for a storm during a forest fire could save lives. Most people pray mainly to the Nine, as they are more likely to affect their everyday lives, but the disasters and misfortunes associated with the Six also prompt prayers.
Death and the Afterlife. Vassals believe that the soul is a spark of divine power which fades as a person nears death, and when they die, they will go to Dolurrh for a gray and eternal afterlife. They believe faith will make their lives before death better, and someday the Host may enter Dolurrh and make it a paradise.
Priesthood
The Sovereigns don’t walk the world. No one expects to meet Dol Dorn in the flesh. To do so would, in fact, be unnecessary and limiting. You don’t expect to meet Dol Dorn because you know he is with you every time a blade is drawn, ready to guide your hand. Aureon watches over the wizard studying magic and
the judge presiding in court. The Devourer is present in every storm, and you can’t fight him any more than you can defeat an earthquake with a sword. A true Vassal doesn’t need proof of the Sovereigns’ existence for the world itself is the proof.
With that said, many myths depict the Nine in the flesh, performing heroic acts and setting particular elements of creation in motion. These myths are set during the Age of Demons, and Vassal doctrine maintains that the Sovereigns defeated and bound the fiendish overlords. As the overlords previously ruled reality, once they were defeated, the Sovereigns ascended to fill that role. So there are stories of Dol Dorn performing tremendous feats of strength, and you might find an artifact said to be Onatar’s hammer; but these date back to a mythic age when they were champions, not yet true Sovereigns.
The Nine are everywhere, offering Guidance to anyone who will listen. Due to the personal nature of this faith, it doesn’t have the same degree of organization and hierarchy. A large community generally has an eightsided
temple to the Sovereign Host, staffed by full-time priests. In smaller villages and towns, there might be an untended shrine or a local person who is considered to be especially close to a Sovereign and performs ceremonies. In the town of Kewick, the innkeeper Dara is said to speak with Boldrei’s
voice; she’s the pillar of the community, and people come to her
with their problems and disputes.
A Sovereign priest’s role isn’t simply as an intermediary to the divine; anyone can talk to the Nine. Instead, priests offer guidance and clarity, helping you understand the path you’re on. A temple or priest often serves another function beyond their religious duties; the The Lokenvale Athenaeum in Lokenvale
is a library and while the curators do not worship. The worshiper use it as a beacon/shire of Aureon in conjuntion with the temple, or you might find a shrine to Kol Korran at the center of the public market. Priests serve as teachers, mediators, and guides, but they are often also subject matter experts in the path tied to the Sovereign they serve.
Sects
Some of the single sects known in the Allenia that focus on a singular member of the Nine are places like any of the single temples in Blightfen and in some of the larger cities also The Monastery of the Radiant Stone in Woodbridge that worships Dol Arrah. They are more rare but do exist.
Type
Religious, Pantheon
Alternative Names
The Nine
Controlled Territories
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