Aspects of the Flame

Aspects of the Flame

Creation

The Beginning

In the beginning, there was the Great Ocean, and no land farther than the eye could see. Galtea, daughter of Dalai heated the ocean floors to create the currents that allowed life to flourish beneath the waves. Galtea, however, quickly grew bored of these sea creatures that her mother created. She tried to make her own life, but under her mother's demanding conditions, the life simply ceased to exist. Galtea raged against the harsh conditions of the sea, time and again to create life, but each time it simply died. Summoning all of her power, Galtea raged once more throwing her powers at the ocean, erupting in a blaze of passion, she created the first lands. Seeing her creation, she rose up through her volcano to find that what was once nothing but endless ocean, was now land.

Her first order of business was to create life. Once more she tried her hands at creating creatures. The first few starved to death. Unlike with the ocean, there was no balance to maintain, no food, no resources. She could not maintain a balance without assistance, and refused to let her mother see her struggle like this. Concentrating her powers once more, she decided to give birth to the first life that would not need her help. Birthed from her mind was Ulyn, the Lady of the Seasons, bringing change and balance, but as things grew unchecked, Ulyn also struggled, flawed more than her mother. Using her own power, the light of the sun, and a tear for nurturing, she gave birth to twins Baigal and Anmal, the Great Farmer, and The Groundskeeper, keepers of life and balancing nature's growth with her changing of the land.

Dalai watched her daughter's growth with mixed feelings of pride and anger. How dare she be so defiant with her, shunning the watery gifts that she offered. At first, Dalai tried to bring rains to the land, a peace offering to help their creations grow. Galtea only responded with anger, trying to protect her creations from the water that killed them so many times before. She strengthened Ulyn's power, and that of the sun making an eternal summer. This was folly, as everything would only burn, and for a short time, it did.

Dalai had to do something about the sun. The sky was an extension of the sea, a sea of air and nothingness, clouds and rain. Like her daughter before, Dalai gave birth to a new being that she called Shuga, Lord of the Winds. The flames and heat were only harming her daughter's creations, so she sent Shuga, and unknown, to guide the winds and rains and storms to Galtea's people. While he was doubted at first, Shuga demonstrated his gifts before his sister, and she agreed to let him help. Crops grew more abundantly in her lands. Baigal and Anmal got along well with their uncle, and used his powers to amplify their own in guiding new life to the land, but the creatures were tired.

The creatures were tired because there was nothing but endless sun and rain. When they found shelter, many just passed out, enjoying a break from the harsh light and weather. Dalai once more tried to assist, this time, extending her reach out to the sea that was the sky. Sho was her next son, and he would gain strength from the sun. Enough that he could block it's harsh rays for a period of time using the starry sea as his strength. Sho quickly realized that his powers waxed and waned with Ulyn's work. Someone who could affect a being of his strength quickly caught his attention. The God of the night quickly became infatuated with her, and as winter came, would try to woo her with his new strength, but she never took notice.

Galtea raged at her mother once more. She needed to stop interfering with her work. Dalai claimed to know best, but this only angered Galtea further. Her volcano erupted once more. New lands began to appear around the world. Dalai fought back, not wanting to be covered over by her daughter's willfulness. In a great storm of fire and water, ashes and ice, to wills collided over and over again until they were worn out. Lakes were filled, rivers began to flow, rocks rose up from the depths, and the tides began to turn. Dalai and Galtea stared each other down as the ash settled and mist cleared away. Neither dared take a step, lest the other one gain the upper hand, watching, waiting. A sound of wailing came from the side, and both turned to look. A young woman was on the ground, crying, but not just any woman, a woman born from their power.

The Goddesses named her Khelta, and agreed that she should have a place in both halls. They named her Khelta, The Goddess of the Scales, The Gatekeeper, and The Lady of the Horizon, the boundary between Galtea and Dalai, who would allow travel between the Emberic and Oceanic Courts.

Monsters, Daimons, and the Undead

Monsters are the remains of Galtea's first attempts at life. Creatures beyond the balance offered by her and her kin. As the world took on a new balance, Galtea created her next creatures. Humans. These were a life form she could work with. Hardy. Adaptable. Full of the desire to live, and as the Gods found their balance with Khelta between them as a mediator, humanity thrived. Galtea poured into humanity all of her aspects, and Dalai gave them the ability to see beyond her raw emotions. Khelta tempered those feelings, once more acting as the go between.

Galtea's first creations grew jealous, twisting their feelings toward suppressing those that Galtea preferred over them. They rise up wherever humanity is at its weakest, where nature turns against itself, and they breed where life cannot reach.

As Monsters thrived, Galtea helped to keep them in check, granting her strength to new life, dedicated to keeping the monsters in check, she called the Daimons. The Daimons saw their fate as secondary creations, and with their greater power quickly turned on humanity, creating an unlikely alliance with the monsters from before. Each group was vying for Galtea's blessings as the dead piled up on both sides.

The clash with Dalai several years earlier left the earth filled with creative energies. Their largest clash created Khelta, but the rest of the energy was drank deeply by the earth. As the dead piled up, those angry at the creatures that killed them, and the humans for letting them die began to rise up. The dead found new life, and the Blue Flames began to appear around places prone to the dead rising.

The Embodiments of the Flames

Galtea will always be the Embodiment of the Red Flame. She is a Goddess of passion and power, and will never give that right to anyone.

As more creatures rose up to attack her precious humans, Galtea knew she had to respond with force, but her own anger would only hurt the land. She had to section off more of her power once again. Willing all of her righteous anger into a single White Flame, she cast it at the earth, and there appeared a young woman. The woman went by the name Riuna, and she was a champion to humanity. Taking up arms, she became a deity among men and women, people worshiping her as she passed. As culture and languages developed, some began calling her Leandra in a more modern tongue.

Riuna lead the way to many victories, and those victories left many dead in their wake. As undead were purified, and souls started to be free, Khelta began dealing more and more with the dead, guiding souls back and forth between the courts. She was growing weary, and in turn, souls were returning. The dead began rising in force once more. Galtea met with Dalai one more time. Together, they gave Khelta the power of the Blue Flame, Galtea's power tempered by the ocean, to aid her. Strengthened, she became a the Gatekeeper in ability as in name.

With their new champion, and the dead being properly managed, the next Embodiment was Ulyn as the Golden Flame. Handling the seasons around the world as people emigrated to new lands was difficult. She could not properly manage the seasons, and during a period known as the Decades of Chaos, wherever Ulyn was not, the seasons would change rapidly. Frost would suddenly kill crops one day, and the next a heatwave would overwhelm humanity. Her sons tried to help, to little avail. To improve the world, once more, Galtea gave a piece of her power to a daughter.

The Great Sleep and the Black Flame

Galtea, having given out her power to others, was tired, and slowly her influence waned as the other Emberics and the Oceanic Court took to managing the world. Satisfied that her creations were safe, Galtea closed her eyes to rest.

Dalai, the mother that she is, decided that if Galtea wasn't going to work on the world, she would. Imposing her will on the world, a new flame came into existence. A flame that could not produce light because it was born in darkness, Dalai's flame, the Black Flame. The Flame for those that did what they had to, a Flame that said humanity is capable of doing anything, good or evil, because survival was the most important Aspect to a life.

Elves

The history of Elves is a unique one. How did they come to exist? Seeking to teach humans to be even better at harvesting and hunting, Baigal and Anmal decided to try their own hands at creation, but lacking the ability to do so were only able to modify humans into what they deemed were superior creatures.

The Creation in Dance

A performance of the Creation by the Riverlands Troupe, under the patronage of Duke Kenneth MacArbin of Perdan, at the first event Renewing the Alliance between Perdan and Caligus, under the Auspices of the Great Hunt Guild, in the Region of Meuse, during the first Summer of the Year 2021, Scribe's Reckoning:

The hunters had washed the worst of the blood and other detritus off, food was circulating on carefully balanced platters as meat was carved off the slowly rotating spits, and drink was flowing freely.  Kenneth gave a small signal, and began circulating among the celebrants, directing them to keep an eye and ear out, as the main entertainment was soon to begin.  The music began to die down as the various performers finished their songs, and if not silence, then at least less of a raucous din settled over the area.

It was time.

One of the open spaces near the main feast area had been cordoned off, with a few retainers in the livery of the Outer Walls guard of Bescanon keeping it clear of boisterous guests or drunken hunters.  The reason for that suddenly became clear as a burst of flame erupted, and steam or smoke covered the area.  Within, dancers in blues and greys and muted greens slowly became apparent, moving sinuously, creating currents in the fog.  White scarves mimicked whitecaps and curling waves that never seemed to reach any shore.  Two figures stood out: One dancer in magnificent sea green; and another, smaller dancer in a dark, dark red.  Where the red dancer moved, the other dancers congregated in their wake, seeming to multiply and thrive.

The music that accompanied all this was mainly deep, resonant drums, but with a more vibrant, frustrated thrum of brighter strings following the movements of the dancer in red.  This figure would occasionally conduct a frenzied dance around silent, unmoving figures on the ground, who would begin to stir.  Until the dancer in sea green swirled by, and they stilled once more.

Then the figure in red danced in a fierce circle; once, twice, thrice, and flung herself to the right through a new eruption of red flame.  Out of the mists, she landed in the direct view of the audience, as a brassy fanfare urged her on.  And they could now see a powerful, stocky, triumphant woman holding a long staff that burned red from both ends, and she dipped an end in one of five braziers in the clearing, which began to burn with its own red flame.  She danced around more unmoving figures, now revealed in the shrunken mist, and this time they were not stilled by the figure in sea green.  They rose, and for a brief moment several danced with the red woman.  But soon, the music changed from triumphant to frustrated once again, as the movement of the other dancers became jerky, and they fell once more unmoving.

The woman in red, face contorted in her efforts, then threw her staff in the air, quickly removing a layer of her voluminous robes, pulling one of the still figures to their feet, and wrapping the cloth about them.  The reverse of the dark red showed a bright gold, and as the red woman caught her staff, she wrenched a portion of it free, tossing it to the new dancer in gold.  This dancer swept it across another brazier, from which now burned a golden flame, and her own small rod now burned with red on one end, and gold on the other.  Her ascension was greeted with a metallic melody, less severe than the red.

The golden woman now danced around two more of the silent figures, who rose and reversed their dark robes, showing gold as well.  One held a sickle and cornucopia as he danced, the other a bow and golden arrow, and they danced behind the woman with the golden flame.  And while all this took place, the red and gold women gathered the fallen figures once more, and they danced for a time all together.  But the sea green dancer sent figures from the mists, and they strove to pull the mists with them, and the red and gold women strove against them, and between them the other dancers were pushed aside, only to fall once more.

Then the sea green dancer reversed the coat of one of her people, and out of the mists a new dancer came.  Rather than striving against the flames he flew with them, friendly and airy, his coat the light blue of a summer's day, and his robes rustled like the wind in the trees, and reed instruments breathed his motif.  Slowly the fiery dancers seemed to be convinced, and working all together they once more gathered the others to the dance.  And for the first time, the dance was whole.  They completed a round, ecstatic in their triumph, but the lesser dancers continued, beginning to stumble in apparent exhaustion, hiding their eyes from the flames.

The woman in sea green danced her anxiety, reversing the coat of another of her people of the mists, and a man in a midnight cloak with scattered stars joined the flames.  He spread his cloak as he danced, protecting the others from the harsh light of the braziers, but he craned his head to always follow the golden woman, and he began to move opposite her, following in her wake behind the golden men.

The woman in red, busy in her own dance, suddenly saw the new man in the dance, and whirled in fury toward the mists.  The flames flared again as she charged at them, the dancers scattering before her save one woman who could only backpedal.  At the very edge of the mists she was met by the woman in sea green and the green and red fought for a time, each buffeting the hapless dancer between them, until she fell with a cry and the rest of the dancers, both within the flames and within the mists, recoiled in obvious fear.

The sea green and red dancers, grudgingly, then worked together.  The figure in red flung her staff up again as the figure in sea green pulled another robe off her, reversing it to reveal a vibrant, shimmering blue.  The red woman caught her staff, wrenching another piece off, that she again gave to the new dancer, who lit a third brazier that flamed in blue, and her rod flamed red on one end, and blue on the other. The new blue dancer stayed in the boundary between flame and mist, and whenever one side or the other lunged out she was there to slow them, guide them, and so the balance was kept. The music that followed her steps was a mixture, partaking of the drums as well as the brass in a more harmonious whole.

But in the great clash, some of the other dancers had fallen, in their fear or haste to escape, and they now rose again unbidden by any of the rest. They now wore masks of bone, or monstrous snouts, or horns and tails. They menaced the lesser dancers outside the mists, and while the red woman could drive them off, there were too many of them, too many to protect. And so with a cry of anguish she tossed her much-reduced staff in the air again, removing another robe, and reversing it raised one final figure and clad her in brilliant white raiment. And when she gave a part of her staff again, the new rod was no shorter than what was left to the red woman, and the fourth brazier burned a brilliant white as a new champion strode forth to gather and guard all from the onslaught. With her bright white flame and shield emblazoned with a flaming sword, none dared stand against her, and her music was proud and knightly chanting, the ringing of steel, and the tramp of feet.

Now the red woman knelt, exhausted, only one small rod remaining, her form revealed now to be no more powerful than any of the others under a single layer of bright red fabric. And while the white lady led the fight against the greatest onslaughts, always something slipped past her guard, always someone she trusted and guarded turned out to have a secret mask. But the red woman did nothing, and so the sea green dancer came out, revealing a rod of her own, and she lit one end with the red brazier. But when she thrust it into the fifth and final brazier, the flame there was black, and black too was the other end of her rod when she lit it. And this flame was not given to one dancer alone, but shared among the lesser dancers. Whenever some dark thing crept up on them, the nearest would snatch it and menace the beast. It was not always near, the flame did not always protect, and sometimes there was a struggle between dancers on who would hold the flame, but it was enough, and the number that fell and the number that rose under the guidance of the gold woman were finally equal.

And in front of that tableau, a lone man strode out, wearing robes of red and gold, blue and white, and with black trimming. He held a double-handful of ash, and flung it across all the braziers, flaring them into a brilliant, chaotic mix of all colours, as all the dancers flew forwards, and came to a graceful halt before the onlookers as the music rose to a glorious note-

And then silence, and stillness, as water was heaved across the braziers, and the rods were doused, covering all in a thick mist once again.

Emberic Goddess

• Galtea - The Goddess of Flames, The Avatar of the Volcano, Earth-mother, Light-bearer, Goddess of Passion

Lesser Emberics

• Ulyn - Daughter of Galtea, Lady of the Seasons
  • Baigal - Son of Ulyn, The Great Farmer, Lord of Feasts
  • Anmal - Son of Ulyn, Lord of the Hunt, The Groundskeeper
• Riuna - Daughter of Galtea, the Embodiment of the White Flame, Champion of Humanity and Justice

Oceanic Goddess

• Dalai - Mistress of the Depths, Shadow-mother, The Avatar of the Ocean, Goddess of Wisdom

Lesser Oceanics

• Shuga - Son of Dalai, Storm-bringer, Lord of the Winds
• Sho - Son of Dalai, Star-keeper, Lord of the Star Sea

The Goddess of Scales

• Khelta - The Gatekeeper, Lady of the Horizon

Symbols and Talismans

The symbol is typically done in a circle, star, shield, anything that can house the points. The Aspects are considered equals, each an integral part of mankind, and can be placed in any order. The top flame is used to mark your chosen path in the faith, however, it is also traditional that the Red Flame is at the top if one does not wish to disclose the path of their devotion.

Many adherents also like to carry stones with them, made by the pressure of the earth, and, like obsidian, symbolizing the conflict between Galtea and Dalai, they are used as talismans and prayer objects

The Aspects

The Aspects of the Flame are represented in various colors of flames, signifying the power that the Goddess of Flames used to give life. All of life is like a flame, once snuffed out, it ceases to exist, and like the many colors, no life is the same as another, and is made of many different aspects. The ones revealed to us at this time are as follows:

Red Flames

The Avatars of the God are known by their eyes, red flames cloud their mind and give way to visions, rage, etc... Red flames are the sign of the Goddess Galtea.

Devotees to the Red Flames typically carry a ruby, garnet, or other red gem on their person.

Gold Flames

These flames are the light of the sun, nurturing life and crops. Traders and Farmers often favor this path.

Devotees to the Gold Flames typically carry a topaz, a piece of gold, or another golden stone on their person.

White Flames

These flames are the flames or righteousness, justice, and honor. The morals of mankind were poured into white flames as a sign of warmth and home, something worth fighting for and defending.

Devotees to the White Flames typically carry a diamond, a pearl, or another white stone on their person.

Black Flames

The flames of violence and mankind's baser nature. These flames are not necessarily a sign of evil, but a sign of acceptance that some things must be done. The Black Flame is a welcome home to Infiltrators and Adventurers, though none are restricted here should they wish to seek another path.

Devotees to the Black Flames typically carry a black diamond, a piece of obsidian, or another black stone on their person.

Blue Flames

All must die at some point. People who say they've seen spirits have seen the goddess' will on the world in the form of the blue flame. These Wisps are echoes of what once was. Often they are seen in areas with lingering regrets, or around the undead, twisted remains of what they once were, and wish to aid in freeing their bodies from this cruel fate. Followers of the Blue Flame deal in life and death, are arms merchants and traders, those who seek to commune with the dead, or seek to destroy undead.

Devotees to the Blue Flames typically carry a sapphire, a lapis, or another blue stone on their person.

Miscellany

The Texts of Bahn the Illuminated

Controversial texts aimed at educating children in the ways of the Faith. Some think they are a cruel joke by an unfaithful priest, but for some reason they sell really well.