The Church of Hidden Radiance
The Church of Hidden Radiance at Carafon is the expression of the state religion and exercises supreme spiritual authority over all citizens.
Structure
The leader of the church carries the title of the Focus of Light with ultimate spiritual authority over the members of the faith, which is the only sanctioned faith in the Cavern City of Carafon. He is guided by the Radiant Council, where the senior representitives of each of the major branches of the church meet to determine policy and (when it is necessary) choose the next Tyrant of Carafon from amongst their number.
Culture
The church and the city are dedicated to the recovery of all the Hidden Radiance buried beneath Carafon, and they revere the metals and gems as holy. It is important to appreciate, however, that whilst some of the finest examples of the valuables recovered from the mines do circulate within the city and go to adorn the Cathedral of Hidden Radiance, the Tyrant's Palace and the coffers of the Lords and Ladies of the Lode, there is absolutely no prescription on trading them with the wider world. The holy orders say only that the gold, silver, rubies and sapphires in the mines must be brought into the light. They do not say that the light must be the light of Carafon and it is quite within the teachings of the church that fine metals, gem stones and jewelry be sold for other goods, which is just as well since the wealth of the city depends on it.
Mythology & Lore
The Pantheon of the Hidden Radiance derives from more widespread polythestic religious ideas throughout the realm of the Lost Retreat and shares some of their stories, but it has uniquely local features which emphasise the importance of metals and gemstones.
Divine Origins
Although it builds on religious traditions found in the wider world of the Lost Retreat, the faith promolgated by the Church of Hidden Radiance has a peculiarly local flavour, concerning itself almost exclusively with a pantheon of gods and goddesses with specific interests in the Spine Mountains. Outsiders often remark on the peculiarity of such a narrow perspective on the universe, which might be accounted for by the relative isolation of Carafon and the constraints of living underground with a physically close horizon that perhaps mirrors a spiritually blinkered one.
The creed of the Church, grew out of traditional miner's myths and stories, clearly based on some common elements found even today in other lands but uniquely spun and codified in the sacred text, "The Words From The Dark" , six hundred years ago around the same time that the settlement began to be called a city. The first author of "The Words From the Dark" was the miner,Heruld the Bald, but it has been modified by a number of anonymous hands who embelished the text several times during its first hundred years before it settled into the fixed form it has now assumed. It seems likely that mine owners played a part in the parallel development of the early Church. One does not need to be excessively cynical to notice how the tenets of faith, happen to co-incide with the interests of mining.
Cosmological Views
Of the origin of the world, the Words From The Dark says only that those who cannot be named and who dwell in the Hall of Stars, decreed a time when our sun should be kindled, as they do for all stars, and that they were the ones who appointed the Elder Gods in the Pantheon of the Hidden Radiance to rule over the system they had brought to life.
After a relatively brief introduction to the Elder Gods and their children, the central story on which so much of the faith of the church is based, begins in the section entitled "Of the Imprisonment of Aurum and Argyros" with the famous words:-
'When all the world was young and all the hills were empty and all the streams were pure, two gods came to the lands of the Spine Mountains.'
Tenets of Faith
The central story at the heart of the religion, concerns the unjust imprisonment of four of the Younger Gods in the deepest depths of Carafon Hill. Aurum, Argyros, Saphira and Rubina are the source of the Hidden Radiance, gold, silver, sapphires and rubies, which embody their magical outpouring of love for one another. It is the task of humanity and the miners specifically to bring the Hidden Radiance to light, so that Gaia and Sanguis, who hold these Younger Gods prisoner may see their divine creation and be merciful, releasing their prisoners to walk in the sun again and resolving a feud between the Elder Gods that will set all wrongs to right.
The full story of these mythopoetic events can be read within the pages of the Words From The Dark where the interested reader will find much more detail.
Worship
The Church celebrates light in all aspects and the things that give radiance to light, most specifically the four holy materials made by their gods; gold, silver, rubies and sapphires. Services at the Cathedral of Hidden Radiance and in smaller chapels thoughout the city always include the artful use of lighting effects, the symbolic lighting of candles, the play of focused sunlight through the great gem the Radiance of Carafon and contrasting moments of darkness and shadow that surround the light.
There are a number of festivals and feast days, thoughout the year. The most important of them is the Festival of Thyme and Spice, an early summer celebration which takes place over two days and includes ritual fasting before a symbolic meal and singing and dancing.
In addition, each of the imprisoned gods have their own feast day.
Sects
For reasons which are explained within the Words From The Dark, the orthodox faith of the church makes a close association between silver and sapphires and between rubies and gold. It is more than merely traditional to pair the stones and metals this way in any artefacts and jewelry that combines them, it is an act of reverence. There does exist, however, a secretive heretical sect that make artefacts combining silver with rubies and gold with sapphires. They call themselves, "the Star Crossed" and are known to have members in the Warrens and the Carafon Deeps, an association which has given rise to the name of "Heretics Way", a road in the Warrens, once the home of prominent members of the sect in historical times, before it was outlawed.
Although the blasphemy of the Star Crossed is condemned in the strongest language from the pulpits of the church, it has never been eradicated. Even now, it is thought that some churches in the lower levels of the city may have been inflitrated with contemporary sympathisers, such as, for example, the Lithos Street Chapel.
Type
Religious, Organised Religion
Leader
Ruling Organization
Leader Title
Founders
Divines
Location
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Controlled Territories
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