Pyrae

Divine Overview

Portfolio

For the Natural Gods, which represent a more primordial understanding of the base elements of the world, Pyrae is somewhat advanced. Their prime aspects' origins are clear: fire and warmth. These are two aspects clearly needed by early mortals, and crucial to the establishment of civilisation. From these flow community and the hearth, around which family units, settlements, and tradition grew.
Pyrae's portfolio includes aspects seemingly associated with more advanced gods, Ruling Gods or the Personified Gods. Reasons for this inconsistency with Pyrae's fellow Natural Gods may come from a few sources: the fact that they have lasted longer than other Natural Gods, and in fact are still actively worshipped; or that their aspects fall just shy of the advancement associated with the later classes of gods.
These more 'societal' aspects are storytelling and oral tradition, which flow naturally from Pyrae's hearth and community. Advanced beyond the primordial, natural forces of the other gods of this class, these nonetheless were essential to society's foundations. Most advanced perhaps are simple crafts, really anything that can be done sitting around the village fire. Lastly, and not in all regions, is healing - associated by some cultures with fire.

Appearance

Pyrae is, across cultures, genderless and formless. When depicted, the closest to physicality they come is as a vaguely human form in a fire. Most often, Pyrae is understood as an energy, a force - the emanating warmth of the hearth and of community.

Plane

Pyrae's plane is most frequently depicted through the lens of Tahati beliefs, as it is the final resting place for the souls of Tahati or other Pyrae worshippers. The plane comes in two main parts, the Burning Sands and the Infinite Oasis.
The Burnings Sands surround the Infinite Oasis, and are filled with the wandering spirits of less virtuous Tahati. A vast desert, it is interspersed with lava oasis, with shores of glass and obsidian. The desert itself is hemmed in by a mountain range of porous, volcanic rock.
In the center of the Burning Sands is the Infinite Oasis. This is the paradise for Tahatis who earned eternal rewards, and is protected by fire elementals from the wandering ghosts of the Sands. The Oasis cannot be found through wandering the Sands alone, but is rather led to by caravans of penitent ghosts, seeking redemption.
Entry to this realm may also be gained by getting lost in al-Tahat, or some believe from the ruins deep in the southern desert.

Historical Overview

Primordial Origins

Creation Myth

Pyrae, as the god of fire and crafts, was the most immediate assistant to Maru in the physical crafting of the world. They stood beside the All-Father at his forge, helping him craft the physical sphere that would become the Mortal Plane. Pyrae was tasked with kindling the fire at the center of the Mortal Plane, warming it for habitation by the mortal race.
Pyrae falls out of the creation myth until its end, where they return in their civilising aspects. Their fostering of community associates them with mortality, and Pyrae became the god of appeals against other gods. Even into the Age of Rule, they, like Iarus, was an appeal against overreaches by the Ruling Gods. Pyrae added here their final aspect, peace.

Contemporary Views

Anhara

Pyrae, like most of the Natural Gods, is predominantly worshipped in the "Old Ways" communities. Far flung, in the mountains of the Coquet Heights, or on the edges of forests in the Vinelands or Verdante, these communities are those which survived the College of Vestrial Priestesses' consolidation of power.
The portfolios of most gods were, some aspects more reasonably than others, slowly subsumed into that of Vestria by her priestesses. Her emphasis on noble families and kinship has taken the oral history and community aspects from Pyrae. In many noble homes, the focal point of kinship is no longer the hearth but the imagary. Healing falls to the Theurgists of Altra, peace to the diplomatic aspects of Vestria, and crafts to guilds and Obed.
Those Old Ways communities in which Pyrae is still prominent are those which remain focused on the communal hearth. They take a unique aspect there, often depicted instead as a light blue flame, like the smoke from the peat-burning fires of many rural communities.
Pyrae has experienced a slight resurgence in artistic depictions on smoking pipes. They also have found new interests in the resurgent magical community, associating Pyrae with dangerous experimentation and the risk of research into new spells.

al-Tahat

Pyrae is the supreme afterlife deity in al-Tahat, his plane being the resting place for those souls which escape being trapped as ghosts in the endless dunes. While many Ruling Gods took the portfolios of their parent Natural Gods, Tahat had a contentious relationship with the people of his nation.
After Tahat's Wrath desertified his continent, Pyrae found a resurgence as an act of rebellion and of necessity, given Tahat's dereliction of duty. Varying across the wide nation, those in the Julfar Savanna and the central desert still gather around the hearth and look to Pyrae. Across the entire nation, Pyrae remains the god of story-telling and community, oral history and genealogy.

Boreal North

When it comes to Natural Gods whose powers have survived into the present day, Mae is the clear winner. However, Pyrae's dominance over the Boreal North is a close second. The god of fire has a clear importance in frozen tundras, but their aspects are emphasised in their entirety.
The Boreal North is hardly a nation, but rather a collection of loose tribes. Those tribes are made up of extended kin groups, the closest thing to governing bodies. As the god of oral traditions and family, Pyrae is central to every aspect of life in the Boreal North.

Litoric Islands

The Natural Gods survive in their entirety in the Litoric Islands, and it is no different for Pyrae. With geographically separate landmasses and a priesthood without any of the inquisitorial aspects of Anhara, little was lost in the transitions from Natural to Ruling to Personified. All of the gods are worshipped in some capacity in the Litoric Islands.
Pyrae's worship is most prominent on the mountainous islands, where they are the preferred god of herders. Often caught out on the cold, rocky slopes, the god of fire and community provides warmth to these isolated rural islanders.

Panag Rho

Far from a preferred deity, the fire god understandably finds little purchase in a land of dense trees and foliage. On the surface, his domain is dangerous to the pacts sworn between Rhogues and Mae to protect the flora. Underground, in their subterranean cities, fire is carefully regulated. As a theocracy, all Pyrae's - and the other gods' - domains fall under the control of Mae's priests.

Divine Classification

Natural God

Domains

Arcana
Forge
Life
Light
Peace

Portfolio

Community & the Hearth
Craft
Fire & Warmth
Healing & Peace
Storytelling & Oral Tradition

Titles

Light-Bringer
The Hearth

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Gender

Neutral