The Gatekeepers
The Locker's Temple is a faith popular within the former heartlands of the Melisternian Empire. It lost a large part after it's fall, yet after a Voidborn appeared from the altar in Melistern City and the destruction of the great war that was fought to recontain it, it quickly grew in following, althought the faith would quickly change in nature to one that had containment of the Voidborn as it's utter most priority.''Aul tel’ lahr everae from tel’ ar, teshuel bren of'er rom feer, o nehel sillen keter dro' ar penten.''
- Common prayer said before the Offering.
Worship
Worship within the faith is mainly done in three different ways:
The Celebration, the Offerings and the Sanctification.
The Celebration
The Offerings
The Sanctification
The Celebration, the Offerings and the Sanctification.
The Celebration
The Celebration is the occasional ritual within the faith in which thanks is expressed for the church and the sun for their blessings. Followers do this by performing a brief ritual during which sunlight is reflected into the follower's own face with a small mirror. Followers commonly have a small mirror on them at all times for this purpose. This ritual is still done indoors and when the sun does not shine, but never at night. If the follower does not have a mirror on hand, the palms of the hands are used instead to simulate a mirror.
The Offerings is a ritual that is dones less frequently than the Celebration, but is done with a lot more variability in how it's performed. The Offerings is a ritual that has it's core purpose being to teach humility and respect before those above you, especially the church. Common ways the Offerings gets executed are; throwing the last parts of your meal in the river, making donations to the church in either goods, gold or labour, killing an animal and letting it rot.
The Sanctification is the last part and maybe the most important one, as this is the only one in which the presence of the clergy is neccecary. The Sanctification refers to the process of cleansing both body, mind and soul of any "etherial darkness", a term that combines both literal darkness and moral darkness into one. Sanctification is done both for the purpose of cleansing a follower as well as arming him with the tools to withstand the darkness better going forth. Cleansing the body is done with religious steambaths and healing magic, cleansing the mind with confessions and prayer, cleansing the soul with the priest's rituals at mass and keeping the whole thing better clean from then on with preaching, a lot of preaching.
Priesthood
Before the fall of the lamps during the Wágþeorl, the priesthood was a lot more vague that it is nowadays. While the exact number of priests and wardens were unknown in those times, it was known that the number was across the centuries no more than between 65 and 105. They didn't speak outside of the tenets and the prayers and little was known about their origin. Known is that they were no Uruque at all and that they seem to come out of the portal around a week offerings are made to the Gate.
This changed after Wágþeorl, as native diciples of Melistern were allowed to learn for priesthood on the other side of the gate, returning back to serve the faith after several years of training, the lenght of their education fluctuating between the 4 and 8 years. It was during the 2nd Melisternian Civil War that the clergy came to it's modern form as a highly organized ecclestial body. From the smallest country-side preacherman to the bishops, the cardinals and finally at the top, the Custodian of the Divine Key. Noticable is that after the fall of the empire and the massacres and exodusses at the end of the era this ecclestial body solidified more and more into it's structure, as this church was the last remnant of the Empire, or any form of extratribal authority.
Over the last years of the Melisternian Empire, over 200 monastaries had been built throughout the heartlands, of which many have now fallen in abandonnement and ruin, but many have also been well kept, also keeping the amount of freshly trained theologians to healthy levels.
Founding Date
267 AAA (Basis of the faith laid in 34 AAA)
Type
Religious, Organised Religion
Alternative Names
Clústoþalhn, Locker's Temple, Gatism, the Melisternian Church.
Predecessor Organization
Demonym
Gatist
Leader Title
Permeated Organizations
Deities
Location
Related Ranks & Titles
Related Ethnicities
Comments