Theurgia
While not every priest, shaman, or cleric on Tel is capable of performing supernatural acts of theurgia, those who are possessed of a certain innate wisdom are able to reduce their ego-consciousness through sincere and intense meditation and prayer to the point where they can act as conduits for their deity’s will. As beings originating during the 1st Age, Telian deities are closer to the origin of the Ar, and thus, are able to manipulate it to a greater degree than mortal beings in the 4th Age. However, because they are from a different age, deities must expend more energy to act on the current world directly. In part, this is why they encourage devotion and worship from their followers, so that the most faithful can provide easier access to this plane of reality through their momentary ego-surrender.
To accomplish this union with the object of their worship, Telian clerics invoke the diety using ritualized hymns and chants. The cleric supplicates him or herself to the deity and beseeches them to act upon their request. Through a successful divine invocation (i.e., “theurgies”), the cleric experiences a brief henosis with the deity as the cleric’s physical form is used to channel Ar into this reality to be shaped by the will of the deity. Depending on the nature of the particular deity, this experience may be one of pure ecstatic bliss or the deepest experience of terror. Regardless of the nature of the experience of divine union, the cleric experiences a certain level of fatigue after performing the theurgy. As the cleric deepens his or her relationship with the deity, the cleric is able to channel greater amounts of divine Ar for more powerful theurgical works.
With the fall of the Rexan Empire into the darkness of Nexra, many in Tel have turned to religion for guidance and salvation, as it is feared the rise of the undead Rexan necromancers are a portent of the coming of the 5th Age of Darkness. The nations of Tel have built great cathedrals, temples, pagodas, and other places of worship to their gods, and beings flock to them for physical and spiritual respite. The clerics of the various faiths wield a great deal of political power due to their position in society.
