Black Swan
("Church of the ...") -or- ("Children of the ...")
In the beginning of time, there was the void and chaos, which was dark. But as with the randomness of chaos, in a flash, there was light. This light started as the stars, but in time some of these stars in their randomness came together and became brighter, which we now call the Sun. As with the churning of chaos, the sun had distant brothers who were red and played together, blinking as they sometimes hid and swirled around one another. After a time, the chaos formed the land and the seas, which took on form and became solid. Then from the lands and seas, the chaos formed into life, of many varieties. Early life had the nature of plants, semi-fixed, with slow growth and slower movement. Then the chaos conformed into animals which where even more chaotic in nature with the ability to easily range far and wide across the lands and in the seas. Among the animals were the fish destine to live out their existence in the seas, the beasts (large and small) that roamed the lands, and the birds who could soar into the skies above the lands and seas. Of these birds, some learned to dive into the seas to bring up fish and plants as food. Eventually leading one, a black swan, to bring up silt that it dropped along the edge of the channel over which it flew. In time, from the sludge that it brought up with its diving for food, developed into what is now known as the Silver Channel. It was from the sludge that it brought up through its feedings and next building that eventually humanoids came to be, able to harness both the land and the sea, able to tame both the plants and the animals, and able to kindle fire and fashion the earth into structures, thus becoming the most advanced life.
In the early days of the Kingdom, King Arden Rhubino Dorgard used to feed a black swan that nested along the channel. Some say that it was descended from the original Black Swan of the stories dating back to before human records existed (see above), but the bird would eat from his hand and always came back to the area to next each spring. During his reign, he did not allow any structures or docks to be built along that portion of the channel, and it remained a little pocket of treed shoreline. But after the king’s death, the swan no longer returned, so within another generation the shoreline at that location started to develop as had the rest of the shoreline of the city of Martelain. Generations later, the rulership of the kingdom passed to a daughter who had taken the name of her husband (who’s family had been minor nobles prior to that time), VanDenlendesor, after her father passed and her two older twin brothers killed one another in a duel to determine who would rule the kingdom. Thus occurred the change in name of the rule of Martelain, many generations ago.
In recent years, a young boy, who grew up on the streets of Martelain and was fascinated by the stories and history of the Black Swan became infatuated with the legends. As he grew into manhood, he spent time learning and came to the conclusion that the Black Swan had actually been the mystical spirt of the Martelain coast and started a religion of sorts, based on his teachings of the Black Swan being the mother of the Martelain Coast and its spirit still watching over and protecting the people who reside there if they pay homage and respect to its spirit.
More details to come...
May the wings of the Black Swan Mother protect and guide you...
Comments