The Three of the Sea
The sea can be beautiful. The sea can be unforgiving. The sea can be resource by which empires are formed. The sea is many things, so no single God could truly encompass everything that it is. The Three of the Sea embody its most prominent aspects and form a Holy Trinity that most seafarers worship and respect. Even small communities along the coast or on islets will have temples to the Three of the Sea.
Mythology & Lore
The many facets of the sea couldn't have just one God to represent of all its enormity, and after the Deluge, the great expanse of water only became even more prominent. Thus, many Gods coveted the domain, seeking the power of worship from all that travelled on, depended on, or feared the wrath of the waters.
Umberlee sought to raise wicked waves and terrible storms to force worship through fear, and become an even greater power than Talos. However, unlikely alliance of 3 very different deities ceased her machinations. While her power has grown considerably, she dares not force her powers further lest she force a quarrel with them.
Persana (God of Tritons), Deep Sashelas (God of Sea Elves and Dolphines), and Nagakabouros (God of Sea Beasts) each took a part of the sea as their domain.
Deep Sashelas took the upper ocean, with all its beauty and bounty. Persana took the trenches and deeper waters, where he could fight against the enemies that threatened the worlds above and below the waves. Nagakabouros took the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean. The places where light had never touched and where she could suppress the unknown terrors that were better left forgotten.
Divine Origins
After the end of The Deluge, many feared the sea. That fear gave way to desperate pleas and fearful prayers. Such worship only empowered wicked Gods like Umberlee and Talos, so the people had to be shown that the waters could be trusted.
Deep Sashelas brought forth scores of dolphins dragging behind bevies of pearls, hoards of corals, and beautiful Sea Elves that offered these treasures as gifts of their God.
Persana brought forth his legion of Tritons, clad in pearl-white armour, their battle standards held high as they drove back the Sahuagin and the Drowned Damned back to the depths.
Nagakabouros brought forth her bevy of beasts, providing sustenance so that the people could rebuild their strength after so much agriculture was washed away.
With these acts, they became the Gods worthy of the people's praise and worship.
Tenets of Faith
Respect and honor the sea. She is beauty and bounty, wealth and wrath. The sea is as unforgiving as she is vast, so never underestimate her. While the Gods may offer guidance, it is the responsibility of every individual to thrive upon the waters. Taming the waves isn't for the weak or the witless.
The sea belongs primarily to those who dwell beneath it, but they shouldn't disparage those who only tread upon its surface. To do so is to disrespect a facet of the sea. Focus your wrath upon those that would seek to dominate and claim total dominion over the sea.
Worship
PERSANA
Aside from Tritons, Persana is served primarily by giant sea horses, hippocampi, nereids, sea lions, sea snails of all varieties, and elemental water creatures of all sorts. He expresses his favor through the discovery of pearls, large, empty conch shells resting perfectly atop a small mound of stone or an isolated coral outcrop, as well as valuable corals and shells useful for decorations, and blue gems of all sorts. His displeasure is shown through the discovery of broken sea snail shells or obviously sickly individuals, black stinging seaweed, and mournful tones blown from a conch shell horn that cannot be seen.
DEEP SASHELAS
Delphions expend a great deal of effort on the creation of beautiful works of art in homage to the Creator. Individual priests of Deep Sashelas create fabulous sculptures of living coral in and around their homes and in their communities. Others sculpt extraordinary jeweled and pearled living coral works of art or train fish to perform spectacular and delightful maneuvers and dances.
NAGAKABOUROS
When arriving in and leaving port, sailors throw offerings overboard in the hope of quelling her wrath. Myths about her date back centuries, and it's a reckless sailor who fails to drop the traditional tithe after docking his ship.
Seeking guidance and clarity from the Goddess is no easy feat. Her chosen avatar is called a Truth-Bearer and is the only one capable of conducting a Test of Spirit, forcing the supplicant to undergo a harsh trial of the self. If they fail, their spirit will be destroyed, but if they succeed, they will have true clarity and their wills tempered by the experience.
Priesthood
PERSANA
Like the tritons themselves, Persana’s priesthood tends to have an aloof and superior attitude towards other clergies, even those they are on good terms with. They willingly work with and help allied clergies and communities, but it can often take a substantial effort and great evidence to mobilize them; once mobilized, however, they are a force to be reckoned with under the waves. Their aloofness tends to make them skeptical of plans and ideas presented by other races, seeing them all as young and inexperienced, even the sea elves.
Once convinced, however, they readily enact plans they earlier doubted, with little or no protest. Most priests specialize within their communities as architects, magistrates and judges, or battle leaders, depending on personal inclination and the needs of the community. Those who favor architecture and building generally hold positions of greater respect within their communities than priests of other disciplines.
DEEP SASHELAS
The clergy of Deep Sashelas are more organized than most elven priesthoods because of their role as mediators and befrienders of nonaquatic races. Delphions interact regularly with dolphins who inhabit the region surrounding their home communities, and senior priests are almost always accompanied by their dolphin companions. Sashelan priests establish and maintain contacts with land-dwelling elves, if feasible.
As a result of their extensive networks of contacts, Sashelas's priests have prevented many sahuagin incursions from succeeding, gaining the latter's undying hatred. Delphions also conduct ritual shark hunts and attack sahuagin communities.
At some point in an aquatic elf's adult life, she is expected to undertake an endeavor for the local temple where her adulthood celebration was held. Each aquatic elf chooses her own endeavor, one that either relates to that elf s vocation or something that symbolizes her personality.
These endeavors aren't about doing something the temple needs to have done. They are about allowing the elf to express her sense of uniqueness in a way that directly benefits the temple and reaffirms her choices in life.
NAGAKABOUROS
The Buhru people from the Serpent Isle Archipelagos were the original worshippers of Nagakabouros, but since the Deluge, her worship has swelled considerably.
The hierarchy of the religion is based on experience and resolve. The longer a Priest or Priestess has lived according to the tenants of their religion, the greater respect they are given. Newer intiates are tasked with maintaining temples and teaching the ways of Nagakabouros.
The more experienced clergy are capable of calling or repelling Sea Beasts using massive horns. They are capable of reading the waves to guide ships through peril or hunt with greater proficiency than normal fisherfolk.
The highest position is that of Truth-Bearer, an oracle who has earned the power to channel their divinity and has greater insight into their God's will.
Currently, this position is held by Illaoi, who uses her Eye of God, a divine relic, to test the spirits of others.
"Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens."
Type
Religious, Pantheon
Alternative Names
The Oceanic Trinity
Parent Organization
Subsidiary Organizations
Deities
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