The Weedpriests of Khasahn
The weed-priests of Khasahn are most well known for their Grand Pilgrimage from Khasahn to the ruins of Tel Ramiya, to collect coruscatum, the radiant crystal residue of the Tel Ramiya's destruction. Coruscatum is prized mostly for its use as a universal ingredient in permanently enchanting magic items. Nearly all magic items have some ingredient of their creation that can be replaced with coruscatum. The weed-priests seek it for other reasons, though.
In ways unknown to nearly all outsiders, the weed-priests use coruscatum to enhance their meditations. Little is known of their practices, but rumors and urban legends exist that they practice a strange magic unlike the arcane and divine forces that are commonly known, and that they constantly seek to improve their mastery of it. It is unknown what these priests worship, and wild speculation ranges from harmless demigods to demons or worse. As for what could be worse than demons, no two answers are the same.
The priests are always seen completely covered in loose, unbleached cotton robes that spill out of a tough leathery suit, made from the black hide of their enormous beasts of burden. The reason for their name is the full face masks they wear, made from the same black hide as their distinctive leather armor. They feature glass lenses to see from, and a face that extends to a point, from which dangles a hose, made from the treated gut of some desert creature. On the end of the hose swings a censer, which constantly emits an herbal smoke, smelling of cowgrass, burnt rope and spices.
The core of their belief is their mystical pursuit of the Word. They believe that when Amit built the world, the Word was the tool, the brick and the mortar of that creation. They keep their minds constantly under the influence of their herbs, because they believe it grants their minds the flexibility to understand the individual Words of the language of creation. A long lived being might spend its whole life studying a single Word, and the greatest of their number never master more than 15. None have ever managed to speak a full sentence, and some fear what would happen if someone did.
Public Agenda
The entire goal of the Weedpriests is meditating in pursuit of knowledge of the Word. Beyond simple subsistence, all supplies gathered, created or purchased are in pursuit of meditation, or to support the acquisition of more supplies for meditation.
Divine Origins
The origins of the Weedpriests are uncertain, but can generally be assumed to begin with the arrival of refugees from the Tel Ramiya Crisis in Khasahn and Baqubair. The political and economic collapse felt across all of Nehemen was brutal, and conditions were even worse for the few refugees that survived the flight across the newly created desert. Over years and decades, many of these refugees found themselves seeking comfort in the arms of a suicide cult calling itself "Vinashni ben Mukti," a phrase roughly translating to "salvation sired by annihilation."
It appears that at some point, there arose a school of thought within the Vinashni ben Mukti that made the claim that annihilation of the self was a desirable thing and a useful tool of meditation, but that literal suicide was the basest and most unenlightened interpretation of its pursuit, giving rise to a heavily mystical sect within the Vinashni. Predictably, the numbers of the mainstream sects of Vinashni ben Mukti dwindled over time, but the mystics grew, and their use of alchemy and herbalism to expand the flexibility of the mind in order to encompass knowledge beyond the range of mortals, led to a shift philosophy over time into a group that now called themselves "al-Sandeesh" or "the Message."
With time, those who spread the Message came to be associated with their prodigious consumption of cowgrass-based concoctions, leading to the name Weedpriest.
Cosmological Views
It is generally accepted among nearly all the people of Rhyduania that the world began when Amit created it within the void. The belief central to the weedpriests is that Amit did so by speaking the world into being, using a language of creation called the Word that allowed him to manipulate matter into the form of his choosing, creating the world from dust and gas.
Worship
The "worship" of the weedpriests is more practical than reverent. If any deity can be associated with them, it is Amit, but he's not viewed as thing to be obeyed or revered, but an example to be learned from. Amit is simply a being who achieved mastery of the Word.
The primary goal of a weedpriest is to attain an Ilmu (eel-moo) of a Word. Ilmu translates roughly to "understanding" or "knowledge" in the sense of the power gained from that knowledge. A weedpriest who has a true Ilmu of a Word has achieved complete mastery over it and the concept it represents. Ilmu is thusly both a process and an achievment, depending on context.
The day to day practice of the pursuit of Ilmu mostly involves herbally-enhanced meditation, successive readings of texts both theoretical and practical in nature, and verbal experimentation. Meditation techniques are varied by individuals, but trends in method can sometimes be traced through teaching lineages. Sound based methods featuring droning chants or musical instruments with high sustain are well attested, but other methods are common, and some disagreement exists among learned teachers about which levels, frequencies and kinds of intoxication yield the most effective revelations.
Priesthood
The weedpriests don't tend to a congregation in the way of other priests. Every seeker of the Word is a priest, and the worship they guide is their own pursuit of knowledge. The priests are members of a monastic order more than leaders of a church. Group meditation is common, but no Mass is held and organized rituals are sparse and infrequent. The only commonly held ceremonies are initiation and funerary rites.
Granted Divine Powers
The weedpriests seek mastery of the primeval language of creation. Those who achieve a high enough level of understanding of a specific word can speak that word into the world, and influence the nature of reality according to the nature of that word. A single word might transmute other materials to iron, while another might transform solid mater into flame, and another might speak a small physical object into being where previously there was none.
While the weedpriests generally avoid conflict as much as possible, their Grand Pilgrimage does sometimes place them in danger. Those among the most powerful of the weedpriests can sometimes speak a word they have mastered with enough power to be relevant to combat, but doing so takes great effort, and often leaves them exhausted to the point of helplessness.
Comments