Church of Brigh

Also known as the Whisper in the Bronze, Brigh communicates with her followers like a mentor or a learned professor, dispensing advice, proofs, and data to push the limits of her audience’s understanding and inspire greater and more impressive creations. She is distant even with her own worshipers, as she doesn’t like to show favoritism. Many of her worshipers prefer the company of tools and machines to other living beings, however, and thus don’t consider this aloofness unusual. Brigh and her church understand physical and emotional needs such as food, sex, and friendship, but think people shouldn’t make such base needs their top priorities.
Typical worshipers of Brigh are experts who craft with their hands, especially blacksmiths, gemcutters, jewelers, inventors, and toymakers. Some alchemists more interested in pure research than the practicality of their inventions revere her, and their experimentation yields many novel items, including the occasional useful one. Inventors who pray to her see her as the personification of their art.
The Whisper in the Bronze is a patron of all invention, even destructive devices, for a dangerous tool can still be used for creative purposes. Her church opposes destroying information, which sets back the advancement of technology for everyone. Her priests often seek out and rescue notes, records, and journals that might otherwise be eradicated by fearful enemies of a dangerous inventor. If a person’s research leads in a direction believed to be dangerous or immoral, however, that person is free to stop pursuing it. The inventor is then expected to share why he stopped and inform others of potential consequences.
In art, Brigh is typically depicted in her living or her clockwork form, though she is sometimes represented by a bronze mask hovering in place. Gnome artists depict her proportioned like a gnome instead of a human, with long eyebrows and hair made of multicolored metallic wires.
Worship services mix bells, the sounds of music boxes, and the recitation of formulae (such as the inverse relation between gas volume, pressure, and temperature, or the quantities of metals in a salt bath needed to produce electricity). Offerings are made to the goddess during these ceremonies and usually consist of highly refined oils, rare materials, well-used tools, and demonstrations of new inventions.
Brigh has little interest in mortal marriage or families. However, she recognizes that her worshipers may need such things, and that talent for intellect and invention are often inherited, so if a mortal wants to devote energy to such matters, she accepts this. Even offspring with no talent for study can be useful for cleaning work areas, taking dictation, transcribing notes, or performing grunt labor—assuming they are old enough not to endanger themselves or the experiment.
Most of her worshipers are humans, but she also has gnome, half-elven, and half-orc followers. Many intelligent constructs consider her their patron god.

Temples & Shrines

There are few temples to Brigh, and most are built like workshops, with places for crafting and tinkering.
Many include a shop selling items crafted by the temple, or warehouse space for items destined to be sent elsewhere. The head of a temple is called the High Clockmother or High Clockfather, and is usually the most knowledgeable priest at that location, if not the most powerful. The luckiest priests have sponsors who provide funds and supplies, allowing them to devote all their time to their work; many temples accept donations for this purpose or sell useful items to fund their resident priests. Some temples craft a clockwork shell in Brigh’s likeness and use it as an object of veneration. One of the largest temples to Brigh is in Alkenstar.
Shrines to Brigh are much more common than temples, and many workshops and laboratories have a bronze mask or large gear mounted on the wall to honor her. Successful inventors who feel they owe inspiration or their foundational knowledge to Brigh often leave offerings to her at such altars. Less often, unsuccessful and disheartened inventors who give up on their work leave dysfunctional devices at these shrines in the hope that the more learned faithful might find a way to perfect them.

Clothing

There is no formal dress for the clergy, but many wear a leather work coat accented with bronze buttons and clasps for both work and worship. Somewhere on the coat is usually a large button or brooch in the shape of Brigh’s mask. A pair of oversized leather-bound goggles and a close-fitting leather cap, which double as protective laboratory gear, complete the outfit, which acquires a respectable assortment of scorch marks, acid burns, and patched areas over time. A priest might add a decorative badge showing her field of interest or indicating a significant invention or accolade given to her by other inventors for her contributions to technological progress.
Worshipers often wear a toothed gear as jewelry, and some carry sets of miniature tools as ritual objects when full-sized versions would be unnecessary or impractical. Adventurers who serve Brigh often wear helmets in the shape of her holy mask, decorated with bronze accents.

A Priest’s Role

Priests are expected to devote much of their lives to research. For most, this means experimenting and inventing in a workshop or laboratory. A few priests pursue interests that require fieldwork or exploration, followed by time in a settlement where they refine their experimental methodology or expand their notes into monographs that can then be shared with other researchers.
Other priests of Brigh become peddlers or tinkerers, selling their inventions or those created by others and spreading the word about how these devices can make life easier, more efficient, or more entertaining. Brigh’s priests loathe quacks, charlatans, and sellers of fraudulent goods—though some peddler-priests of the Whisper in the Bronze sell controversial items to armies, thieves’ guilds, and tyrants. They may create subtle traps for doors, more powerful (and expensive) variants of crossbows or firearms, clockwork spies, or crank-powered electrical torture devices. Brigh’s clerics are usually trained in Craft (alchemy, carpentry, clocks, glass, leather, or locks), Knowledge (engineering), and Profession (architect, engineer, miner, or scribe). Those who perform dangerous research train in the Heal skill as well, in case something goes wrong. Adventuring clerics usually have ranks in Craft (weapons) or Disable Device.
Because their interests are so specialized, priests of Brigh usually don’t have active roles in their communities. The exceptions are in Alkenstar, where the clergy are heavily involved in the development and manufacture of firearms, and Numeria, where they catalog artifacts scavenged from the surrounding lands. Brigh’s faith is so small that outside of those two technology-minded lands, few people have even heard of her, and fewer still have met one of her priests. Most priests have no interest in proselytizing, and many avoid discussing religion with layfolk.
Each morning, a priest typically rises, eats a simple and efficient meal, and refreshes her mind in preparation for the day’s work. Many are so driven that they work long hours and forget to eat or sleep, and must be reminded to do so by a spouse, assistant, or timepiece. The use of stimulants to increase productivity or waking hours is common. Priests are used to erratic schedules and may become frustrated by others who prefer a more traditional routine. More practical folk say these inventors are “married to the Whisper,” in much the way that new lovers are so obsessed with each other that they forget all else. Those who work in a group environment (such as a temple-funded workshop) are used to consulting with others about problems, and long, enthusiastic talks between colleagues often contribute to the late hours. Those who have larger roles in their communities might work on projects such as better ballistae to protect the town, more efficient ways to stabilize mine tunnels, or experimental clinics offering free (and potentially unorthodox) healing.

Adventurers

Devout adventurers serving Brigh usually see adventuring as a way to come into contact with new ideas and record that knowledge for posterity. Most operate like priests undertaking field research. They might include searching the records of old civilizations for hints about their metallurgy techniques or lost technology, looking for higher-quality sources of alchemical materials, or taking advantage of natural phenomena that can’t easily be reproduced by mortal hands (such as unusual magnetism, pockets of magma, or frequent lightning strikes). They take side treks to see new inventions or contact noteworthy thinkers, and offer their services to inventors.
Adventuring worshipers of Brigh are known for keeping detailed journals tracking their observations about the world or ideas for ways to make work easier or accomplish new things. Most carry an astounding variety of adventuring gear and wondrous items. New and strange forms of equipment, alchemical items, and weapons like firearms quickly draw their attention.