Fyrhþgáster

The Coven of the Woodland Spirits, or Fyrhþgáster in the Gwezteodoù language, is the ancient faith of the Holzmarkernaer people. It is centered around the worship and praisal of a biosphere of devine like nature bound creatures who inhabit the Holzmarker forests. These creatures, called the “Gástes”, inhabit many of the different biomes and layers of the Holzmarkerwald, as well as using power to feed of it.

Aldorfird & Cwalufird

Fyrhþgáster is an animistic, dualistic faith. In it, all things, including quite abstract ones like ideas and perspectives have a soul of their own, and a lot of those souls have enough sentience to overthink that on their own. At the same time, all souls are alligned in their allignment towards life or death, in Fyrhþgáster, this is called "ones true nature towards Aldorfird, or Force of Life, or Cwalufird, or Force of Death". They are sometimes also referred to as Dwolma and Gelógung, or Chaos and Order, where Life is Chaos, and Death is Order. Other paralels are with Aldorfird being the power of the sun, where Cwalufird is the one of the moon.

Plants with a lot of Adolfird in their nature for instance grow fast and drink water quick, an animal might be very fertile, while a rock which is high in Adolfird would fester with moss, which would weaken it. If the same rock would be high in Cwalufird instead, it would instead wear off all outside influences, stay clean and survive into the ages, while an animal or plant would most likely be very sick and die under those circumstances.

Note that Aldorfird & Cwalufird are not an amount or a matter of sorts, they are simply two points upon a scale where almost all things fall in between. No creature can be completely in Aldorfird, just as no object can be completely in Cwalufird. That is, with exeption to the Gástes & Ogásts, who are decribed below.

Gástes & Ogásts

Gástes, literally meaning "ghosts", are being of ultimate life, the very essence of Aldorfird. They are always divinity, although that does not automatically mean they hold supernatural powers of any kind. Still, together they hold a very important task, as upon them alone rests the task of keeping Cwalufird's power in check, eliminating it when it threatens to become more dominant.

For worship, people make sacrifices to the Gástes for things like; Fertility, progress, learning, recovering from wounds.

Ogásts, meaning "anti-ghosts". are opposite to the Gástes, beings of ultimate death, the essence of Cwalufird. Just as the Gástes they are always divinty, but that is with the Ogásts hard to notice most of the time. As expected, being of ultimate death are not very talkative, often inhabiting materials in the hearts of mountains and caves as iron or steel, with adamantium being a popular one because of its natural hardness and inability to rust, two factors that point at a high natural standing to Cwalufird.

For worship, people make sacrifices to the Ogásts for things like; Strenght, laying emotions to rest, strenght in storm, recovering from diseases.

Both Gástes and Ogásts have a union of their own, and although they are with many hundreds spread out over the land also arn't always exactly friendly to eachother, they do meet eachother at least semi-often.

Although they do not have any hiarchy in their sturcture, as this structure tends to change over times, with both Gástes and Ogásts becoming stronger or weaker with the time, priests have made a structure for the purpose of defining general purpose more then authority.

Type

Religious, Druidic Circle

Alternative Names

Coven of the Woodland Spirits

Demonym

Fyrhþmàner / Fyrhþfruer