Silver Dragon Church
The Silver Dragon Church is the common name used for all the many monasteries, hospitals, graveyards, clinics and other organization that together form the clergy of the Silver Dragon. The Silver Dragon Church is dedicated to curing ailments, lessening pain and giving comfort and sympathy to all peoples, both to physical, psychological and spiritual pains. They often form clinics for those who need it and are commonly well-trained healers, though many are just as capable to heal with conversation and sympathy as they are with scalpels and medicine.
The Silver Dragon Church also is also responsible for the burial rites of the Empire, and maintains hundreds of crematoriums, tombs and graveyards throughout the empire. In this way they comfort the relatives of those fallen to age, disease or war, allowing them to say farewell and supporting them in their grief, while also giving those who pass on a dignified and honest end.
This duality of purpose represents the duality of the Silver Dragon, which encompasses both Life and Death.
The Silver Dragon Church also is also responsible for the burial rites of the Empire, and maintains hundreds of crematoriums, tombs and graveyards throughout the empire. In this way they comfort the relatives of those fallen to age, disease or war, allowing them to say farewell and supporting them in their grief, while also giving those who pass on a dignified and honest end.
This duality of purpose represents the duality of the Silver Dragon, which encompasses both Life and Death.
Structure
Like the other churches of the Dragon Church, the Silver Dragon Church is decentralized, operating by a principle of grassroot-movement and local organization, so that the clerics of the Silver Dragon may be as in touch with the faithful of the people as possible. The Silver Dragon Church is organized so that each chapel, hospital, graveyard and church will mostly maintain its autonomy. Although the church is nominally decentralized, there is still some central organization in the form of the educational systems it maintains and its exchange of knowledge. The ordinary acolytes of the Silver Dragon Church, called brothers, sisters or siblings, form up the majority of the church and do mundane and ordinary tasks. Some of these may be doctors, nurses, secretaries or whatever else the church requires of them, but many of them are trained for special roles within the Silver Dragon Church by their leaders.
Father/Mother/Parent
Above the ordinary acolytes are the fathers, mothers and parents. These are the leaders of individual churches, often guiding anywhere between a dozen and hundred acolytes.
Bishop
In areas where the Silver Dragon has particular influence, several churches may find it useful to cooperate and aid one another. These will often elect a bishop from among their number, who will represent the interests of the Silver Dragon Church in the are to officials and lead the local churches in doing their holy work.
Decarch
The decarch is nominally the highest-ranking member of the Silver Dragon Church, an individual elected by all the fathers, mothers and parents of the Silver Dragon Church and accepted by the Gold Emperor. The decarch represents the Silver Dragon in the Council of Ten, the leadership of the Aurathean Church, and their voice and opinions is important in shaping the Silver Dragon Church to a changing world. The current decarch is the gnome Amalia Winter of Goldstadt, a woman who has dedicated most of her adult life to ensuring that alchemical medical research can aid the common people of the Gold Empire and to ensuring that silver dragon clerics give treatment based in science and evidence, rather than mere tradition.
Father/Mother/Parent
Above the ordinary acolytes are the fathers, mothers and parents. These are the leaders of individual churches, often guiding anywhere between a dozen and hundred acolytes.
Bishop
In areas where the Silver Dragon has particular influence, several churches may find it useful to cooperate and aid one another. These will often elect a bishop from among their number, who will represent the interests of the Silver Dragon Church in the are to officials and lead the local churches in doing their holy work.
Decarch
The decarch is nominally the highest-ranking member of the Silver Dragon Church, an individual elected by all the fathers, mothers and parents of the Silver Dragon Church and accepted by the Gold Emperor. The decarch represents the Silver Dragon in the Council of Ten, the leadership of the Aurathean Church, and their voice and opinions is important in shaping the Silver Dragon Church to a changing world. The current decarch is the gnome Amalia Winter of Goldstadt, a woman who has dedicated most of her adult life to ensuring that alchemical medical research can aid the common people of the Gold Empire and to ensuring that silver dragon clerics give treatment based in science and evidence, rather than mere tradition.
Culture
The Silver Dragon Church is an organization dedicated to healing people and bringing kindness into the world, and the entirety of the Church is defined by a few core beliefs:
Everyone has a right to live
Each lifeform has been made in the image of the Silver Dragon, and all are under the protection of Life. Different followers of the Silver Dragon follow this commandment differently, some interpreting it as counting all animals and cell collections, while others only treat this commandment as extending to humanoids. This belief in the sanctity of life has a few consequences for common beliefs in the Silver Dragon Church:
Everyone has a right to die
Life can be long and hard, and all creatures have the right to give up their physical bodies and join the Silver Dragon in eternity when the time comes. Death represents a natural end to suffering and a final great equalizers between all humanoids. People who try to cheat death thus try to upset the natural, and are contemptible to the Silver Dragon clerics.
It is our duty to heal where we can
Silver Dragon clerics have a duty to the people, to limit their suffering with kindness, scientific medicine and magic. They are optimistic peopole, firmly believing that all illnesses, wounds and traumas can be cured with the holy trinity of faith, medicine and compassion. They do this work as doctors, psychologists, chiropractors and nurses. Thus their most important decree is simple: cure rarely, relieve where you can, show compassion always.
When the time comes, Death must do his work
In spite of their optimism, clerics are not blind to reality, and know that there is a time for everything, including death. When their charges grow more and more sick, and death looms close, the Silver Dragon Clerics try to lessen the pain of their patients with balms, medicine and spiritual counseling. When death finally comes, the silver dragon clerics take solemn care of the bodies of the departed, preparing them so families may get closure and find peace in death that was elusive in life.
Everyone has a right to live
Each lifeform has been made in the image of the Silver Dragon, and all are under the protection of Life. Different followers of the Silver Dragon follow this commandment differently, some interpreting it as counting all animals and cell collections, while others only treat this commandment as extending to humanoids. This belief in the sanctity of life has a few consequences for common beliefs in the Silver Dragon Church:
- Most Silver Dragon clerics are pacifists, or sworn against killing
- Many Silver Dragon clerics are vegetarians, though not all
- Some Silver Dragon clerics are against growing cell cultures or bacteria purely for research
Everyone has a right to die
Life can be long and hard, and all creatures have the right to give up their physical bodies and join the Silver Dragon in eternity when the time comes. Death represents a natural end to suffering and a final great equalizers between all humanoids. People who try to cheat death thus try to upset the natural, and are contemptible to the Silver Dragon clerics.
It is our duty to heal where we can
Silver Dragon clerics have a duty to the people, to limit their suffering with kindness, scientific medicine and magic. They are optimistic peopole, firmly believing that all illnesses, wounds and traumas can be cured with the holy trinity of faith, medicine and compassion. They do this work as doctors, psychologists, chiropractors and nurses. Thus their most important decree is simple: cure rarely, relieve where you can, show compassion always.
When the time comes, Death must do his work
In spite of their optimism, clerics are not blind to reality, and know that there is a time for everything, including death. When their charges grow more and more sick, and death looms close, the Silver Dragon Clerics try to lessen the pain of their patients with balms, medicine and spiritual counseling. When death finally comes, the silver dragon clerics take solemn care of the bodies of the departed, preparing them so families may get closure and find peace in death that was elusive in life.
Public Agenda
Decarch Amalia Winter has formulated several goals for the Silver Dragon Church throughout the Gold Empire and its conquered territories:
- Ending the spread of virulent diseases throughout the Gold Empire
- Mitigating the disparity in health between rich and poor
- Ensuring that everyone who needs it has access to affordable healthcare, especially by supporting provinces with large rural populations, such as Sceya and Tveiharr
- Giving all provinces a robust healthcare-system, ideally a socialized one, by making deals with the different noble families and different churches
History
Formation
Hobgoblin rebellion
Hobgoblin rebellion
Education
Silver Dragon clerics are among the highest educated clergies, as many of them are doctors and nurses, with both professions requiring long educations from alchemical universities and the church's own universities. Acolytes undergo between three and ten years of education before they can call themselves clerics of the silver dragon. This educations consists of a religious component for developing good morals and magical talents, as well as a professional component to teach important skills they will need in their work. This education varies from province to province and within provinces, but decarch Winter has done important work in formalizing the process to secure the quality of Silver Dragon Clerics.
Mythology & Lore
Gods - Life and Death
The Silver Dragon aspect of Aurathear Darastrix is a god of duality, of both life and death. They take the form of an old woman and young man joined at the hip to a great silver dragon body. The old woman has long silvery curled hair, with kind glowing eyes and a radiant smile. She is grumpy, stern and serious, but also posessed of great kindness. She is Life, the god of healing, medicine and cures. Her young compatriot has dark, ashen hair and two silver coins covering his eyes. He has a sombre and melancholic demeanour, but he can show great empathy and an easy-going nature. He is Death, the god of the grave and the departed.
Both of them are kind souls who wish to protect their worshipers, and who go to great lengths to treat people with kindness, dignity and respect. Once they battled eachother, Life and Death locked in battle, but this only brought pain and misery to the people under them. Eventually they understood that they both had their place in the life of a humanoid, and worked together to give people the longest and best life possible, before bringing them onwards to the afterlife.
Today the two of them are like siblings, and the Church worships them both, though it generally pays more reverence to Life, and makes sure that Death is respected and that he gets his due.
The Silver Dragon aspect of Aurathear Darastrix is a god of duality, of both life and death. They take the form of an old woman and young man joined at the hip to a great silver dragon body. The old woman has long silvery curled hair, with kind glowing eyes and a radiant smile. She is grumpy, stern and serious, but also posessed of great kindness. She is Life, the god of healing, medicine and cures. Her young compatriot has dark, ashen hair and two silver coins covering his eyes. He has a sombre and melancholic demeanour, but he can show great empathy and an easy-going nature. He is Death, the god of the grave and the departed.
Both of them are kind souls who wish to protect their worshipers, and who go to great lengths to treat people with kindness, dignity and respect. Once they battled eachother, Life and Death locked in battle, but this only brought pain and misery to the people under them. Eventually they understood that they both had their place in the life of a humanoid, and worked together to give people the longest and best life possible, before bringing them onwards to the afterlife.
Today the two of them are like siblings, and the Church worships them both, though it generally pays more reverence to Life, and makes sure that Death is respected and that he gets his due.
Worship
Medicine
The most important worship of the Silver Dragon church lies in their craft, that of practicing medicine. Surgical instruments of silver will be blessed before operations, disinfection will be done with holy water and operations will be done in chapels of stone, under the light of glass paintings of the Silver Dragon God. Medicine is a holy craft, and silver dragon clerics work it with religious fervour.
The most important worship of the Silver Dragon church lies in their craft, that of practicing medicine. Surgical instruments of silver will be blessed before operations, disinfection will be done with holy water and operations will be done in chapels of stone, under the light of glass paintings of the Silver Dragon God. Medicine is a holy craft, and silver dragon clerics work it with religious fervour.
Granted Divine Powers
Healing
Clerics of the Silver Dragon are granted the power to heal wounds and illness by supernatural means.
Clerics of the Silver Dragon are granted the power to heal wounds and illness by supernatural means.
Sects
The Mourning Order
The Mourning Order is a group of silver dragon clerics that travel around imperial warzones and battlefields, ensuring that the warriors of the empire are given proper burials. They wear black cloaks to disguise themselves in the night, as they also travel to battlefields where the empire has lost and ensures that even the fallen in defeat are treated properly. It is dangerous work, but all members of the Mourning Order volunteer for the work.
The Mourning Order is a group of silver dragon clerics that travel around imperial warzones and battlefields, ensuring that the warriors of the empire are given proper burials. They wear black cloaks to disguise themselves in the night, as they also travel to battlefields where the empire has lost and ensures that even the fallen in defeat are treated properly. It is dangerous work, but all members of the Mourning Order volunteer for the work.
Kind words can heal the world
Type
Religious, Organised Religion
Leader Title
Parent Organization
Deities
Divines
Location
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