The Imperial Theurgical Society

The Imperial Theurgical Society is the religious ministry of the Verdonese Empire. It is closely associated with local temples through a rather simple bureaucracy. It is not intended to legitimize the Empire through religious means, but rather mainly serves as the Empire's primary source of domestic soft-power.

Structure

The Theurgical Society is structured as a council with 50 High Priests that represent large regions of the Empire, who discuss matters affecting worship in their regions and how to represent the Empire's decisions and policies in a way that will make sense to the people. The Emperor appoints a high priest to be the Imperial Theurgist, representing the Emperor on the council, and the Council chooses a Primarch to lead them.
Below the council are a number of Inquisitors whose job is mainly to travel around between temples in a given district and listen to the needs of the priests there, reporting back to the central temple twice a month. There are a number of Special Inquisitors whose job it is to travel to areas of reported Apostasy and investigate, but they have little real power and often when the laws need to be enforced they merely report to local nobles, law enforcement, and/or the Yeomanry.
The rank and file Priests are the backbone of the Society. They are not magically empowered but can be the source of some divine interventions, miracles, and proofs-of-existence when they meditate in prayer, however it is important to note that they cannot perform divine magic at will. Their main function is as counselors and timekeepers for the people, marking the passing of seasons with rituals and their congregants' life events with the appropriate rites. A temple can have nine priests (one for each God), and up to eighteen acolytes (or trainee priests).
Ancillary to its normal duties are the various Holy Orders of Clerics, Paladins, Monks, and Druids. Many of these orders are part of a temple but they function separately from them, with their own hierarchy. Holy Orders report to the council independently, and are recognized by the ability of their members to use Divine Magic at will. This ability separates them from the rank and file Priests. Holy Order members can become High Priests if the priests and other Holy Orders of the district agree, and many do serve on that council. However they are just as frequently found in the Magocracy (in which they are required to register as mages), the Military (in which they can serve just like anyone else and often achieve great glory), and the Yeomanry (where they can travel widely and their skills can serve especially handy).

Public Agenda

The Theurgical Society is a loose organization that organizes the Temples of the Empire and ensures that Priests, Monks, Clerics, Paladins, and Druids are preaching according to Imperial dictates. They promote the worship of nine out of the twelve Gods of Granmor, and their priests try to guide people away from worshipping any one specifically unless they receive some kind of divine calling. However, more or less, the people are free to worship as they please.
The Theurgical society also are responsible for ferreting out and punishing the worship of "banned" gods: Wodin, Mordo, and Taron. Mordo and Taron are not at all widely worshipped, although crazed cults do pop up from time to time, however the bigger problem is Wodin worship, which was popular in The North. The suppression of Wodinism in the north has been a spot of tension in the Empire, but with the help of the vicious Sergal detachments, rebellions are infrequent and the Society is making steady progress.

History

The Imperial Theurgical Society was once the Theurgical Society of Verdon. It functioned then much as it does now, only now it has grown greatly in scope and now operates far outside of Verdon. As the empire expanded, the Theurgical Society expanded with it. Their job was easier than one might expect, with most humans already worshipping the gods fairly evenly. In places where one god or a few predominated, it was not much of a stretch to introduce the others.
The constant difficulty was, in fact, the priesthood of conquered areas. Those who follow Nienna in particular rarely took well to the Empire's rule, even when they initially supported it. Priests of Radix and Jonor were often shunted into the Magocracy because of their special abilities and some did not take kindly to its strictures, or at least did not appreciate doing double duty as priests and researchers. Frequently, these devotees rebelled or protested to such a hindering degree that they were purged and chased out into the borderlands or sometimes even killed. While this would normally fall under the purview of the Theurgical Society, they did not want to bruise their relationship with the populace and so frequently the Yeomanry would have to hire mercenaries to enforce this purging.
Lately this pattern has been repeating in the North, where exclusive or emphasis on worship of Nienna and Wodin were much more widespread. However in this case, the Imperial Sergal Auxiliary Force has assisted greatly in the North, taking much of the pressure off the thinly stretched Yeomanry.

Worship

Generally, Society temples hold services four days a week. On feast days they throw lavish ceremonies, and accommodate local rituals as much as possible. Worship of the Nine is highly localized and every town may have different practices. A common creed of faith has been distributed to the temples, though, and is said at every event. Common religious materials assembled by the High Priests are also distributed to the temples, but since the fast expansion of the Empire enforcement of their use is at a historic low, and local variants on mythology are beginning to return and predominate more and more, even close to the Verdon heartland.

Faith Practiced
Ecumenical Pantheonism

Type

Governmental, Ministry

Alternative Names

Theoc, Imperial Church, Temple of the Nine, the Society

Demonym

Priest

Parent Organization

The Empire of Verdon