Rainchime Fellowship
The Rainchime Fellowship is an ascetic order of the Way of the Biocosm. Members of the the Fellowship eschew most material possessions, take alms to surive and support their work, minister to the poor, and care for animals as a means of better communing with the all-encompasing Biocosm.
Structure
The Rainchime Fellowship is organized more loosely than other Biocosmist covens, united more by a shared set of vows than any formal leadership. Members of the Fellowship are usually drawn from the membership of pre-existing covens, but join regional covens when they enter a region and leave when their travels take them elsewhere. The Codex Biocosmia lays out the rudiments of the lifestyle so that, even if all Fellowship members were to dissappear all at once, new members could be raised up from those within covens who feel the call of the vocation most strongly.
Culture
Members of the Rainchime Fellowship value the time they get to spend in coordination with other members and, when several meet in a region, may work together to accomplish greater acts of charity than they would otherwise be capable of on their own. Such gatherings are also occasions to share news, observations of holy nature, and spiritual devotions. In this way, the collective knowledge of the Rainchime Fellowship constitutes a hidden information network - similar to a thieves' guild or spy ring except non-malicious in nature - and has proven a valuable resource for those willing to seek its counsel in the spirit of peace (i.e. the Sorority of Solace).
Public Agenda
Though of the luddic strain of Biocosmism, members of the Rainchime Fellowship do not impose this view on others, as the choice to live mostly on what nature provides comes from a very personal desire to life a simple life stripped of temporal desires. Instead, Rainchime ascetics carry out their lifestyle for its own spiritual rewards and, thus, hope to inspire in others a similar sense of charity and unity with the greater cosmological whole. Some members of the Fellowship take a vow of silence to further embrace a naturalistic state.
In daily life, each member of the Rainchime Fellowship wanders the Manifold Sky, meditating in natural places and ministering to the impoverished and infirm wherever they might be found. As they are drawn from all walks of life, members may sometimes ply skills gained along their travels or before they joined the Fellowship to accomplish higher goods than they might otherwise; for example, a member who was once a carpenter might volunteer his services in the construction for homes for the needy, while a former botanist might help elderly members of the community tend to their gardens. The Rainchime Fellowship rejects violence unless absolutely necessary to preserve life, and, even then, may choose self-sacrifice or martyrdom to best embody their ideals.
Most people under the Manifold Sky find the Rainchime Fellowship very difficult to dislike. A brother or sister of the Fellowship provides charitable work, carries nothing of value to steal, and strives through his or her actions to bring a simple peace to the lives of others even when these efforts might be rebuffed. Even organizations which might otherwise persecute members of the Way of the Biocosm, such as the Voxelian state or the Daughters of Misfortune, know better than to openly move against Rainchime ascetics, as doing so would merely prove the brothers' and sisters' devotion while bringing public disrepute to the perpetrators.
Assets
A member of the Rainchime Fellowship assets has few material possessions, and even these are considered somewhat to be the shared possessions of the Fellowship as a whole or, perhaps, even of the Biocosm itself. Each Rainchime ascetic wears clogs, a thick, coarse robe of natural homespun, and a very broad, conical hat of wicker rimmed with hanging bamboo tubes. This special hat protects the ascetic from the ravages of sun and rain and, in combination with the insulating nature of the robes, helps to obviate the need for more elaborate shelter. The bamboo tubes are long enough to partially conceal the ascetic's face and make noise when they are jostled.
Aside from their apparel, every member of the Fellowship also carries a small pack containing tools to make and repair their votive garments, a wooden bowl for alms, and no more than three days of food and water. Some Rainchime ascetics carry a walking stick capped with a set of bamboo wind chimes not unlike those depending from their hats, and this stick may be planted in the ground at crossroads to gather the attention of passers by for the purpose of gathering alms. Except when required to restock the above items, all money and other material goods which come into the possession of a Rainchime Fellowship member are to be donated to those in need.
Type
Religious, Holy Order
Ruling Organization
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