Urian, God of the Air

God of the Air and Sky, The Radiant, Thunderous, the Wind Lord, Sky King, Sky Father, Great Sky, the Moon and Stars, Windwright,

Myth, Dragging sun and moon

Doctrines of Urien

Holy orders of Urien

Places of worship

Urian (YUR-ee-uhn) is the neutral good god of the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the winds, freedom, and salvation. His voice is heard in thunder, and his countenance is seen in lightning. To most, he is the father of storms, though all agree that rains come from Shalimyr, the waters. Icons show Urian as a mighty old man, with a great white beard made from the winds, and wild hair that crackles with lightning. In his eyes are stars and the moon, and when his mouth is open it shines with the light of the sun. He is sometimes shown with four beasts behind him on leashes of chain—the four winds, two of which are shown to be snarling, fierce beasts, while the other two appear placid and kindly.
Urian’s faith visually represented with an orb of half gold, half silver. The gold half casts off the golden rays of the sun. Urianath clergy and some lay followers both wear this symbol. In times of haste when such symbols are not possible, this is made as just a simple orb flanked by four lines: the winds. This symbol is not used if the more formal symbol is possible, but can be found stamped on the bottom of weapons or items fashioned to honor the god.
The god of the sky is associated with no animal more than the eagle, though all the beasts of the feather are considered his children and wards of his domain. He is associated with the griffin, which is part eagle and was born of his servant.
Urian is ardently worshiped by primitive people everywhere, and has among them more names than can be counted. The odds are very good that barbarians and nomad societies worship Urian, or some aspect of Urian (like the sun, stars, or lightning), under some name of their own devising. Among those who understand Urian’s place in the pantheon, he is most often worshiped by the elves, who love his stars and the moon, and by humans and halflings, who love his sun and sky. Subterranean races care little for Urian.

Bring Light to the World

Urian is the sky and the heavens. His purpose is to shine on the earth with his sunlight and make the landscape glow with the silver light of the stars. Bound up in this, though, is the central mystery of the worship of Urian, Shalimyr, and Rontra; all three gods are the elemental parts of the world, but they are also the guardians of those elemental parts, wandering among them and looking after them. There is a legend of Darmon stealing stars from Urian, and Urian finding the fakes with which the Wily Darmon replaced them. How is this possible if Urian is the stars? It is a mystery that anyone who worships him must ponder.
Urian wishes to reach the world’s ignored nooks and crannies. There are places in the that none care for—perhaps they are ugly, horrible, or devastated by evil, but Urian reaches them still with his sunlight and starlight, his moon and his winds. He brings the beauty of the heavens to all peoples and all places, and for this he is dearly loved by those imprisoned and enslaved, for he represents their hope and their freedom. The most common visual theme among these faithful is a prisoner reaching through the bars of his cell for the stars.
Urian is profoundly uninterested in the various petty conflicts of the gods, and he straddles both sides of the disputes between chaos and law. Sometimes he sides with one, sometimes the other; sometimes he takes no side at all. This is because Urian, more than any other of the gods, has a dual understanding of the world, and a dual interaction with it. Sometimes he is radiant and lovely and sometimes he is dark and cold. He sees both as legitimate, and he contemplates what is the proper time for each— when must he unleash the warm and gentle winds, and when must he let fly the bitter and cruel?

The Eyries of Urian

The church of Urian has weakened in the civilized world, though worship of the god remains strong in wild places. As people move into cities and have ready shelter and warmth, the need to fear the winds and revere the sun is sublimated to reverence for more earthly forces like commerce, craft, war, and medicine. For this reason, the eyries of Urian (as his Churches are called) and the Urianath (YUR-ee-uhn-ath) who worship there have become rare in cities.
The eyries are not secularly strong, and one of their holy orders has vanished from the world. Indeed, the greatest eyries stand high in the mountains, ancient and magnificent structures that offer a commanding view out across hundreds of miles of valleys. These eyries are remote and hard to reach, and it is rare for the skylarks—priests—to journey down from them. This does not make for a popular religion. And yet, for those who seek freedom from enslavement—of the body, the mind, or the spirit—there are few greater places than the eyries. Homes of contemplation, beauty, and austere wisdom, the eyries are a boon to many in their deepest need.
The eyries are roused to action when asked to aid the enslaved and the downtrodden. Just as Urian’s wind reaches every corner of the world, the Urianath believe Urian’s care should be available to all people and therefore abhor slavery. However, the Urianath are now so marginalized that, should they seek to topple a major power, they would need aid from another church to carry out the task.
The stance against slavery is universal in the faith. There are other points on which the Urianath vary. There are some devoted most to the sun and light of the Sky King. These Urianath strive against the undead and other forces of unlife. Others among the Urianath revere the Sky Father’s cold light of the moon and stars above all, and seek individual strength and glory, as the stars are individual points of beauty and light.
Urian has a peculiar view of the world: He either focuses on the highly specific details of peoples’ lives, or pays attention to trends across hundreds of years. This is best understood as the sun and the stars. The sun rises every single day; its cycle is one of the daily repetitions. Stars hang in the heavens, unchanging, for thousands of years, their fire never dimming. Their cycle is either so slow as to be immeasurable, or they are not on a cycle at all.
Urian sees the world through these eyes: the day-to-day and the very, very long term. Nowhere is this clearer than in his attitude toward the Urianath faith. He can become intensely involved with the mission of one skylark in a very specific predicament while ignoring everyone else in her eyrie, or he can go for hundreds of years without sending guidance or aid to any of the Urianath—even the most powerful. Most of them accept this as the reason the order of the griffins (see below) have been gone from the world for so long; they imagine the Sky Father hasn’t even noticed yet. Urian certainly has no reason to mistrust or dislike his church, but he also has the very practical details of being the heavens to attend to. And if he is capricious and uninvolved in his dealings with the Urianath eyries, he is even more so with the various nomads and barbarians who worship him on the fringes of the world.

Type

Religious, Pantheon