Church of Calistria
Though any individuals bearing grudges may pray for Calistria’s favor until they have been satisfied, typical lifelong worshipers of Calistria are prostitutes, spies, hedonists, enchanters, and illusionists; non-evil assassins pursuing a justified blood debt or former slaves seeking revenge on their masters might also call on her aid. Some crusaders, particularly elven ones, pray to Calistria to help achieve holy vengeance on their targets, and a fair number of shady merchants and con artists venerate her trickery aspect. Though all races are welcome in the church, elves, humans, and humanoids of mixed race are by far the most common, whereas very few dwarves worship her—even among those avenging slights against clan or kin, Calistria’s shifting loyalties and disproportionate responses often seem shameful to dwarven society. Elven society, on the other hand, is by far the most accepting of her worship, as most elves see Calistria’s independence from commitment as the only path of sanity for members of a race that lives centuries.
Calistria shows her favor with ease in obtaining companionship, heightened physical pleasure, and easy marks for schemes or acts of vengeance. Those who displease her often find themselves plagued by impotence, inability to achieve sexual satisfaction, or angry wasps with an unerring ability to sting in sensitive places. Sometimes she delays the manifestation of her ire, allowing strings of positive events to culminate in eventual catastrophic failure to heighten the sting.
Ceremonies honoring Calistria may involve ritual sex, but generally are not elevated to the orgiastic excess described in the salacious stories of her detractors (though such rites do exist, and are often extremely popular). Most ceremonies take place in the temple, or outdoors in the natural settings typical of elven rituals. Regular worship services include invocations of the goddess’s blessing over sexual encounters, the congregation’s encouragement and promises of aid to members seeking vengeance, the consumption of spiced wine, and the performance of pageants enhanced with illusion and theatrical tricks. Special rituals conducted as needed include invocations of the goddess’s blessing when a worshiper begins pursuit of a desired lover, divinations to determine her approval or disapproval of set courses of revenge, initiation rites for those who wish to devote themselves to the faith, and birth and death ceremonies.
The church puts little stock in the formalities of marriage. While such unions serve a valuable function in society, most of the Savored Sting’s worshipers don’t have a strong urge to settle down with one person (elves’ longevity makes the prospect seem stifling to many) and they usually don’t confuse physical attraction with emotional affection (with some members seeing the latter as a dangerous liability). Some faithful consider any relationship that lasts more than a few months to be a “marriage,” though this confers no legal rights. Ending a relationship has no stigma, though these ends are often the start of long-term feuds if one person feels slighted. Some worshipers do see the appeal of long, committed relationships, but even these tend to be tolerant of other partners, or even polyamorous. Lacking the weight of law in their relationships, most expect inheritance and similar matters to go to blood relatives rather than partners in mutable passionate relationships.
Good temples elevate both the sanctity of pleasure achieved—their doctrines decreeing those sexually satisfied to be more benevolent toward others and less prone to violence—and the drive of pleasure anticipated, seeing lust as a spur to creativity and ambition. The temples function as salons, ideal places to socialize, hear news and be seen, though their respect for privacy makes them good places for clandestine discussions as well. Evil temples are much like thieves’ guilds: places to plant rumors, seek evidence of unfaithful lovers, and make shady plans, while heightening the sharper and more excessive aspects of desire and its fulfillment. Neutral temples (and elven temples in particular) try to mix both, taking a casual transactional approach to entertaining the lonely and lusty, and functioning as hubs for gossip and rumors, while avoiding the more violent plans for vengeance. Many temples encourage wasps to nest under their eaves; guided by magic, the insects leave the residents alone but react angrily to trespassers. Wealthier temples may employ giant wasps as guardian creatures and spider eaters as flying steeds, while evil ones may bind abyssal wasp swarms to guard the temple. Some harvest venom from the wasps for use by the temple guards, or for sale.
The practice of building shrines has never really caught on in Calistria’s church. Life itself is a pilgrimage for Calistrians, and so they have no once-in-a-lifetime destinations of sacred nature. Ancient standing stones at the site of old temples might bear phallic or yonic carvings, and flat stones might be carved with the names of acts of great vengeance that took place at the site, but in general the church prefers to preserve its symbols and history in stories and adages.
Calistria’s church is organized democratically, and each priest receives a vote in temple affairs. Its hierarchy is very casual, with priests valued more for their ability to persuade others (or feared for their history of revenge) than their magical power. The high priest or priestess of a temple is addressed as “Revered One,” but otherwise, titles are often unique to their bearers. Individuals might earn various honorifics based on deeds, assigned by the head of the temple and customized for the recipient, such as “of the Gentle Hands,” “the Heartless Avenger,” “of the Hundred Faces,” or “the Shameless.” Most temples focus on local issues and ignore the works of their counterparts unless actively engaged in a vendetta against them.
Calistria’s emphasis on personal freedom means that there is no “typical day” for one of her priests. Good clergy address the goddess’s vengeance aspect by assisting patrons in finding legal recourse against those who wrong them, though they may resort to public shaming of guilty parties when the offense is inconsiderate rather than illegal (such as shoddy business practices, slander, or broken promises), or when the legal system does not provide satisfaction. They engage in sacred prostitution, and to a small extent they work as matchmakers, though usually for sexual interest rather than marriage.
Evil priests seduce others as leverage or future blackmail on behalf of themselves or clients, exchange valuable secrets, and make plots to unseat influential leaders or strong-arm reluctant merchants. A few work as thieves or assassins for the church, or even for the highest bidder, acting anonymously or under a pseudonym. The most alluring members demand payment in the form of secrets, exacerbating clients’ lust in order to drive their prices higher, and fanning the flames of jealousy to inspire acts of revenge. Some lead double or triple lives as spies in extensive secret plots. Evil priests tend to be very competitive, trying to outdo their rivals in feats of intimacy, trickery, and vengeance, and as a result many are forced to wander for their own safety.
Priests of neutral temples advise petitioners on how best to pursue vengeance, usually urging them to find non-injurious recompense, though if the offense is great enough, they are not averse to giving advice or explicit aid in fulfilling a debt of blood. Viewing knowledge as valuable but neither good nor evil, they often fill their temple’s coffers by brokering information, remaining aloof from the help or harm done with it. In some communities, a lone priest may be greatly respected and feared for what they know and the careful web of peace they broker with flesh and promises.
Alchemy, herbalism, and potion-making are common pastimes among priests, and some make a living selling poisons, aphrodisiacs, love potions, contraceptives, abortifacients, and their counteragents. Even good priests sell nonlethal poisons designed to embarrass or humiliate the target (such as laxatives, those that simulate drunkenness, and so on). The followers of Norgorber carefully watch Calistria’s priesthood to make sure they aren’t overstepping their bounds or undercutting prices. If a temple has guardian wasps, the priests might be responsible for caring for or magically influencing them, and many become used to stings and resistant to venom. Some keep unusually large specimens as pets, and a few priests are known within the church for their cat-sized pet wasps with abilities similar to a familiar.
While temples rituals can vary, one of the most common is the Rite of the Triple Sting, a test faced when a temple initiate has completed their novitiate. In this test, the initiate must disguise themself and, in this new guise, seduce someone who has wronged them. The candidate must play upon the target’s lust for them to lure them into revealing secrets that, if publicly exposed, would humiliate or even ruin them, or if they have no such secrets, into activities that could do the same. Once they have obtained this power over their target, they must expose the vulnerability in public, and, their vengeance accomplished, reveal their true identity. Once their sponsors in the temple have judged their attempt as worthy of Calistria’s approval, the priest undergoes their initiation into the priesthood. This usually starts with a fast from sunset to sunset, alone in the temple, that they might experience the hunger that drives people to revenge. At sunset, a masked priest leads them to a private chamber, where they drink from a cup of sharply spiced, honeyed wine, that they may taste the fire, the sweetness, and the intoxication that together comprise lust. Masked clergy members attend them and they select a partner. The priests remove their clothes and burn them, discarding their old identity and welcoming them to their new one as a servant of the Savored Sting. Hallucinogenic herbs laced into the wine heighten both the mystical aspect and the disorientation of the experience as the initiate couples with a priest that may or may not be the one they chose. Some clerics who have dared to remove their partner’s mask during the rite claim that the goddess herself lay beneath it, though such claims are usually dismissed as braggadocio or the effects of the psychoactive herbs in the wine. After the effects wear off, the new priest is escorted to a ritual bath and given their first set of clerical robes. His sponsors declare them sealed to the goddess, and begin filling them in on the temple’s secrets.
Calistria’s church is not known for its altruistic healing, though its priests have been known to sell cures for money or favors. Sometimes they heal without demanding payment, saying only that they will collect a service at some point in the future. Priests concerned with the goddess’s lustful side are usually skilled at Acrobatics, Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Escape Artist, Intimidate, or Sense Motive. Priests more attracted to her vengeful aspect study methods that aid them in finding their targets, such as Diplomacy, Disguise, Intimidate, Knowledge, and Sense Motive. Priests attracted to her trickster role usually focus on skills appropriate to thieves, deceivers, or diplomats, depending on the type of deception they enjoy.
Calistria has long been a favored goddess of the elves because of her focus on personal freedom, and it may be that the elves’ long lifespans are what make her hard-nosed approach to individual liberty so popular. (After all, some relationships grow old after a few centuries, and an elf who follows Calistria is always free to reassign their affections.) Half-elves and other half-heritages who were the product of exotic unions often support her as a way of embracing their heritage, and gnomes’ constant search for variety and novelty makes her a natural fit for them as well. Calistria herself is generally imagined in the form of an elf, yet seems perfectly willing to accept the worship of anyone with a slight to avenge or a desire to make their body an altar.
Calistria shows her favor with ease in obtaining companionship, heightened physical pleasure, and easy marks for schemes or acts of vengeance. Those who displease her often find themselves plagued by impotence, inability to achieve sexual satisfaction, or angry wasps with an unerring ability to sting in sensitive places. Sometimes she delays the manifestation of her ire, allowing strings of positive events to culminate in eventual catastrophic failure to heighten the sting.
Ceremonies honoring Calistria may involve ritual sex, but generally are not elevated to the orgiastic excess described in the salacious stories of her detractors (though such rites do exist, and are often extremely popular). Most ceremonies take place in the temple, or outdoors in the natural settings typical of elven rituals. Regular worship services include invocations of the goddess’s blessing over sexual encounters, the congregation’s encouragement and promises of aid to members seeking vengeance, the consumption of spiced wine, and the performance of pageants enhanced with illusion and theatrical tricks. Special rituals conducted as needed include invocations of the goddess’s blessing when a worshiper begins pursuit of a desired lover, divinations to determine her approval or disapproval of set courses of revenge, initiation rites for those who wish to devote themselves to the faith, and birth and death ceremonies.
The church puts little stock in the formalities of marriage. While such unions serve a valuable function in society, most of the Savored Sting’s worshipers don’t have a strong urge to settle down with one person (elves’ longevity makes the prospect seem stifling to many) and they usually don’t confuse physical attraction with emotional affection (with some members seeing the latter as a dangerous liability). Some faithful consider any relationship that lasts more than a few months to be a “marriage,” though this confers no legal rights. Ending a relationship has no stigma, though these ends are often the start of long-term feuds if one person feels slighted. Some worshipers do see the appeal of long, committed relationships, but even these tend to be tolerant of other partners, or even polyamorous. Lacking the weight of law in their relationships, most expect inheritance and similar matters to go to blood relatives rather than partners in mutable passionate relationships.
Temples & Shrines
A typical Calistrian temple is a converted mansion with many rooms that can be locked for privacy. Each city can hold multiple temples, which often vary wildly in their interpretations of Calistria’s wisdom, and sometimes engage in serious and bloody doctrinal disputes. Even within a given temple, arguments can be quite dangerous, as few feuds escalate as drastically as those between two Calistrians. The Savored Sting’s faith is as changeable as the goddess herself: each temple tends toward good, evil, or neutrality, and this influences the activities that take place there.Good temples elevate both the sanctity of pleasure achieved—their doctrines decreeing those sexually satisfied to be more benevolent toward others and less prone to violence—and the drive of pleasure anticipated, seeing lust as a spur to creativity and ambition. The temples function as salons, ideal places to socialize, hear news and be seen, though their respect for privacy makes them good places for clandestine discussions as well. Evil temples are much like thieves’ guilds: places to plant rumors, seek evidence of unfaithful lovers, and make shady plans, while heightening the sharper and more excessive aspects of desire and its fulfillment. Neutral temples (and elven temples in particular) try to mix both, taking a casual transactional approach to entertaining the lonely and lusty, and functioning as hubs for gossip and rumors, while avoiding the more violent plans for vengeance. Many temples encourage wasps to nest under their eaves; guided by magic, the insects leave the residents alone but react angrily to trespassers. Wealthier temples may employ giant wasps as guardian creatures and spider eaters as flying steeds, while evil ones may bind abyssal wasp swarms to guard the temple. Some harvest venom from the wasps for use by the temple guards, or for sale.
The practice of building shrines has never really caught on in Calistria’s church. Life itself is a pilgrimage for Calistrians, and so they have no once-in-a-lifetime destinations of sacred nature. Ancient standing stones at the site of old temples might bear phallic or yonic carvings, and flat stones might be carved with the names of acts of great vengeance that took place at the site, but in general the church prefers to preserve its symbols and history in stories and adages.
Clothing
Formal clothing for Calistria’s clergy is generally scant, typically dark leather or yellow silk that covers little and conceals even less, often augmented with henna dyes on the palms of the hands and in narrow bands on the arms, though individual clergy members tailor their clothing to their own styles of seduction. Some priests like to add other accent clothing like a wasp’s colors, but most eventually grow out of this habit, as the insect represents the goddess but is not inherently divine or worthy of emulation. Adventurer-priests favor gold jewelry and gold plating or decorations on their armor. Church paraphernalia is usually made of slender wood or fine gold, and often includes erotic carvings or sculpture.A Priest’s Role
The church sees prostitution as a sacred calling of power and pleasure, and its clergy are adamant about ensuring the safety of those who engage in sex as a profession; temples do not make their priests into victims, and accept only willing adults as initiates. In cities where the church holds sway, residents tread carefully around courtesans and streetwalkers alike, lest an abused escort call on the temple for aid in avenging themselves. All clergy undergo extensive training in the arts of conversation, body language, and seduction. Even the most uncomely or disagreeable priest knows how to turn on the charm at the right time, often surprising those who witness the change. Others may work—alone or in groups—as spies, investigators (for individuals or the government), or smugglers of exotic materials.Calistria’s church is organized democratically, and each priest receives a vote in temple affairs. Its hierarchy is very casual, with priests valued more for their ability to persuade others (or feared for their history of revenge) than their magical power. The high priest or priestess of a temple is addressed as “Revered One,” but otherwise, titles are often unique to their bearers. Individuals might earn various honorifics based on deeds, assigned by the head of the temple and customized for the recipient, such as “of the Gentle Hands,” “the Heartless Avenger,” “of the Hundred Faces,” or “the Shameless.” Most temples focus on local issues and ignore the works of their counterparts unless actively engaged in a vendetta against them.
Calistria’s emphasis on personal freedom means that there is no “typical day” for one of her priests. Good clergy address the goddess’s vengeance aspect by assisting patrons in finding legal recourse against those who wrong them, though they may resort to public shaming of guilty parties when the offense is inconsiderate rather than illegal (such as shoddy business practices, slander, or broken promises), or when the legal system does not provide satisfaction. They engage in sacred prostitution, and to a small extent they work as matchmakers, though usually for sexual interest rather than marriage.
Evil priests seduce others as leverage or future blackmail on behalf of themselves or clients, exchange valuable secrets, and make plots to unseat influential leaders or strong-arm reluctant merchants. A few work as thieves or assassins for the church, or even for the highest bidder, acting anonymously or under a pseudonym. The most alluring members demand payment in the form of secrets, exacerbating clients’ lust in order to drive their prices higher, and fanning the flames of jealousy to inspire acts of revenge. Some lead double or triple lives as spies in extensive secret plots. Evil priests tend to be very competitive, trying to outdo their rivals in feats of intimacy, trickery, and vengeance, and as a result many are forced to wander for their own safety.
Priests of neutral temples advise petitioners on how best to pursue vengeance, usually urging them to find non-injurious recompense, though if the offense is great enough, they are not averse to giving advice or explicit aid in fulfilling a debt of blood. Viewing knowledge as valuable but neither good nor evil, they often fill their temple’s coffers by brokering information, remaining aloof from the help or harm done with it. In some communities, a lone priest may be greatly respected and feared for what they know and the careful web of peace they broker with flesh and promises.
Alchemy, herbalism, and potion-making are common pastimes among priests, and some make a living selling poisons, aphrodisiacs, love potions, contraceptives, abortifacients, and their counteragents. Even good priests sell nonlethal poisons designed to embarrass or humiliate the target (such as laxatives, those that simulate drunkenness, and so on). The followers of Norgorber carefully watch Calistria’s priesthood to make sure they aren’t overstepping their bounds or undercutting prices. If a temple has guardian wasps, the priests might be responsible for caring for or magically influencing them, and many become used to stings and resistant to venom. Some keep unusually large specimens as pets, and a few priests are known within the church for their cat-sized pet wasps with abilities similar to a familiar.
While temples rituals can vary, one of the most common is the Rite of the Triple Sting, a test faced when a temple initiate has completed their novitiate. In this test, the initiate must disguise themself and, in this new guise, seduce someone who has wronged them. The candidate must play upon the target’s lust for them to lure them into revealing secrets that, if publicly exposed, would humiliate or even ruin them, or if they have no such secrets, into activities that could do the same. Once they have obtained this power over their target, they must expose the vulnerability in public, and, their vengeance accomplished, reveal their true identity. Once their sponsors in the temple have judged their attempt as worthy of Calistria’s approval, the priest undergoes their initiation into the priesthood. This usually starts with a fast from sunset to sunset, alone in the temple, that they might experience the hunger that drives people to revenge. At sunset, a masked priest leads them to a private chamber, where they drink from a cup of sharply spiced, honeyed wine, that they may taste the fire, the sweetness, and the intoxication that together comprise lust. Masked clergy members attend them and they select a partner. The priests remove their clothes and burn them, discarding their old identity and welcoming them to their new one as a servant of the Savored Sting. Hallucinogenic herbs laced into the wine heighten both the mystical aspect and the disorientation of the experience as the initiate couples with a priest that may or may not be the one they chose. Some clerics who have dared to remove their partner’s mask during the rite claim that the goddess herself lay beneath it, though such claims are usually dismissed as braggadocio or the effects of the psychoactive herbs in the wine. After the effects wear off, the new priest is escorted to a ritual bath and given their first set of clerical robes. His sponsors declare them sealed to the goddess, and begin filling them in on the temple’s secrets.
Calistria’s church is not known for its altruistic healing, though its priests have been known to sell cures for money or favors. Sometimes they heal without demanding payment, saying only that they will collect a service at some point in the future. Priests concerned with the goddess’s lustful side are usually skilled at Acrobatics, Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Escape Artist, Intimidate, or Sense Motive. Priests more attracted to her vengeful aspect study methods that aid them in finding their targets, such as Diplomacy, Disguise, Intimidate, Knowledge, and Sense Motive. Priests attracted to her trickster role usually focus on skills appropriate to thieves, deceivers, or diplomats, depending on the type of deception they enjoy.
Adventurers
A follower of Calistria declares themselves either a thrill-seeker and hedonist or someone who never forgives a slight. If they carry vengeance in their heart or a strong desire for the pleasures of the flesh, then they will find a willing ally in Calistria. In their mind, the world is a garden of delights, and they are determined to experience them all. If something stands in their way or causes them injury, they are more than willing to take revenge until their enemies call for mercy. A follower of Calistria is not necessarily cruel— though they can be—nor are they evil unless it suits their natural predisposition to be so. While they might enjoy crushing his foes, they might also find an equal satisfaction in bringing joy to another and allowing the person to find bliss and release in the union of their bodies. When someone worships the Savored Sting, they choose above all to live life on their own terms, without the moral compass others might try to impose on them.Calistria has long been a favored goddess of the elves because of her focus on personal freedom, and it may be that the elves’ long lifespans are what make her hard-nosed approach to individual liberty so popular. (After all, some relationships grow old after a few centuries, and an elf who follows Calistria is always free to reassign their affections.) Half-elves and other half-heritages who were the product of exotic unions often support her as a way of embracing their heritage, and gnomes’ constant search for variety and novelty makes her a natural fit for them as well. Calistria herself is generally imagined in the form of an elf, yet seems perfectly willing to accept the worship of anyone with a slight to avenge or a desire to make their body an altar.
Type
Religious, Organised Religion
Demonym
Calistrian
Deities
Divines
Controlled Territories
- My life is my path, and none will sway me from it.
- I devote myself to the pursuit of my passions.
- I take what I desire, by trick or by force. If others resent my actions, they may attempt to take vengeance against me.
- All slights against me will be repaid tenfold.
- I am the instrument of my own justice. If I am wronged, I will take vengeance with my own hands.
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