Johannes the Visionary
Saint of Prophecy, Divination, Fate, and Time
Titles: Saint Johannes the Visionary, The Eternal Overseer, The First of the Punished, The Timestealer, He who saw all, The Lord of the Third Eye
Favored Weapon: Starknife
Alignment: Void
Elemental Lord: Mokmonid, The Everdark Emperor
Obedience: Spend an hour comitting the deepest reasonings for why you seek the power to bend the unbendable aspects of reality to paper, as well as your acceptance of the penance that will come at the end of your journey.
Effect: You may cast Commune 1/day with a CL equal to your HD. You can choose to take a 20 on one combat initiative roll per day.
Divine Domains
Death, Knowledge, Magic, Luck, Law
Holy Books & Codes
The Everloom
Divine Symbols & Sigils
A skull with an eye in the forehead and stars in the eye sockets
Tenets of Faith
Only in death does duty end. Stay loyal to your lord, cause, or given word and carry out your duty to its bitter end.
Place yourself in the hands of fate and trust your own luck. Bear and conduct yourself as your own master, showing your good or bad fortune as confidence in me. Chase your own unique goals, and I shall aid your chase.
Be bold enough to stand against your fate and that which is immutable - dare to change the unchangable and seek the unseekable, and I shall bless your efforts. Once you turn down this path, never hestitate - seek it at all costs until the end no matter how painful the path you must forge yourself may be.
For each boon gained, there is a penance paid. To defy the undefiable demands a heinous price - find those that would defy or manipulate the immutable(Time, Fate, Death, Etc) or who would seek and carry out the forbidden or heretical and see them punished as penance for that which you seek.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
The foster the elite enforcers of the immutable aspects of reality, even if they themselves must break those aspects in the process.
To see those who would defy their fate and time itself punished.
To ensure loyalty is upheld across the planes.
Followers & Priesthood
Johannes's followers are a curious bunch - they are not too inclined to gather themselves into churches or congregations, as the relationship each follow has with their Saint is somewhat personal, and related to the specific reason why they chose to become a member of his flock to begin with. This is not to say they do not form churches - they do, and they exist - simply that they are rarer than those of other Saints. His followers mostly claim a personal connection to the Saint in some form, whether it be a vision, dream, or hallucination on the brink of death - they each have a personal goal that they follow him to see achieved, for his faith is a simple one for many to grasp. The simple notion of "Follow your path, and never falter" appeals to many - unlike many Saints, his followers feel as though HE is there to support THEIR goals - what he asks of them in return is comparatively quite simple. His followers often decorate themselves with imagery that contains the central motif of a "Third Eye" - this generally involves drawing eyes with paint on their foreheads and/or helmets, in various stages of open. Eyes are drawn as more open as followers near their goals or draw closer to their goals. They often decorate their bodies or armor with strange script, magical circles, and other strange drawings designed to channel the favor of their saint, which can vary in appearance from person to person - some might hide these symbols, others might display them openly and in different forms depending on how the Saint appeared to them. They are not organized into specific ranks - the extent of the rankings their followers have is the status of "High Priest" - the title given to the one in charge of the faith as a whole - and the title of "Lord Priest" - the title given to those faithful in charge of his churches or of a given area. Beyond this they are all considered to be mostly the same rank.Ethics
Uniquely, there are few tenets central to the faith of Saint Johannes - the one defining tenet central to all the faithful is the notion of "Never faltering once you have set your path" - to hestitate or have doubts is seen as a sin, as is having doubts or questioning one's direction or position in life. Similarly, they have a uniquely hypocritical belief that they each have a duty to find those who bend the immutable aspects of reality - Time, Gravity, and the like - or those who carry out forbidden and/or heretical tasks and punish them accordingly to the severity of the transgression. This means that, unlike many followers of Mokmonid, The Everdark Emperor and his other saints, followers of Saint Johannes do not strictly seek out necromancers and those who bend the rules of death - they seek out any who would dare bend these immutable laws as a whole, such as Gravity, Time, Death, and others. Even wizards who grow supremely powerful and learn to stop time fear their attention - for it brings death. They see this as their duty for traveling down what is usually a similarly forbidden path, and this often leads them to punish members of their own faith who have achieved their goals - meaning that when a follower of Johannes succeeds at long last in their task for which they have joined his church, they are often met not long after by a blade from a fellow faithful as penance for their goal that should never have been achieved. This is a strange point of pride to the follower of Johannes - that they alone can punish those who bend the rules of reality, because they alone know the sin of doing so - none, they believe, are qualified to judge them or punish them but themselves and their Saint Himself.History
The origins of the church of Saint Johannes are unclear and shrouded in confusion, as is the origin of the eponymous Saint Himself - records of a 'Saint Johannes' are all but entirely absent from the historical record until a very abrupt beginning, when he first began appearing to prospective followers in their dreams many centuries ago out of the blue. This has led to many conflicting theories as to the origins of their saint, but one central, popular theory holds that Johannes existed long, long ago as a follower of Mokmonid, The Everdark Emperor who dared to peer where he should not - to see beyond the curtain of reality and learned the methods to bend them to his will - and as a result of his transgressions, was punished by canonization into a saint and wiped from history, doomed to lead others to a treasure he himself could not possess and see that they are paid penance for their goals. He is believed to be the originator of the 'Third-Eye', and his followers believe that it is a symbol of his unnatural powers of clairvoyance and control over fate and time.
No one pledges themselves to him without wanting something. We follow him because we each chase something we shouldn't - could be as grandiose as wanting to wind back time to bring back family, could be as simple as forbidden love - all he asks is that once we vow to do it, we don't hestitate or stray - that we follow our cursed path without faltering, and see it to the end no matter the pain along the way. And more importantly, that we accept the penance for it when the time comes - even if the penance comes at the end of a blade wielded by a friend.
Divine Classification
Elemental Saint
Alignment
Children
Example Divine Oaths
Oath of the Timesplitter: You cannot cast or use spells dealing with time(GM Discretion) more than 3 times in your life unless done in the pursuit of punishing others according to this oath. You cannot seek lichdom, undeadhood, or any process that would extend your lifespan. Each time you are resurrected or restored to life after death after the first, there is a 15% chance those spells will fail on you. Find those that do cast such spells as well as those who artificially extend their own lives or find ways to avoid their fate and put an end to them without fail.
Oath of the Duty Bound Friend: Protect your closest friends and allies with your life, even if that means sacrificing your own. Make their goals your own, and always act in their best interests even if those do not align with their goals. Be there to support them no matter what, and defend them even if it costs you your dignity, life, or limb. Take no reward for what you do unless it is offered to you first.
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