Theology

Suminarae, the True Lie

Suminarae is a contradictory Goddess that makes sense.  She is Goddess of beauty and peace, the lie of the outside belying what is within.  Not all that is beautiful on the inside is reflected on the outside, just as inner peace does not quell the unrest of others.  That is where the trickery comes in, the subterfuge, the lies.

She espouses the lies that heal, the passing falsehoods that make up idle talk.  The perfect false self protect the flawed true self from harm.  This is the image of substance, the protection of deceit.  This is why She believes in keeping the populace ignorant, as ignorance is blissful peace.  The romantic metropolis as opposed to the true city, the beautiful seascape versus the monotonous blue, there is ugliness in the truth, and balm in the lies.

It was Suminarae that found the world of Elqua for the Pantheon, that slaughtered its indigenous pisceans to make room for the Pantheon’s immigration.   The race that loathed itself, that denied their own worth, beckoned to Her from across the planes.  They were practically begging for sweet release, and it is Suminarae that now lies about that horror, that covers it up with the lie of omission.

But the Insidious Doubt has more secrets that define Her.  Perhaps the most unexpected lie of Suminarae is that She is not whom Her flock worships.  She is, in fact, the shard of Trishna known as Tornesh, the male twin/face of the Binity of Desire.  Be it the seduction of lies, the lust for the beauty, or the luck of random chance, Tornesh is now a twisted falsehood of His former half-self, a fully free Goddess at peace with Her lies.

Suminarae, the Omission, the True Lie, the Hidden Truth, Insidious Doubt, She Who Knows, Malvy of the Deceit

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Symbol: Pearl clenched in a scorpionfish’s mouth.
Domains: Chaos, Healing, Luck, Travel, Trickery.
Preferred Unguis (weapon): Spine
Clerical Unguis of Choice: Spear
Cleric Alignment: Chaotic evil, Chaotic good, chaotic neutral, true neutral.

Sociology

Fish and Circuses

Traveling entertainers is nothing new to the pisceans of the Endless Blue.  Vexillifers have brought news of political and military upheaval across the Known World since before the First Khan.  But not all such travelers bring dour news.  Some wish only to entertain, to bring moments of awesome joy that most pisceans never get to experience during their limited lives.  Those pisceans are the performers, and together, they form the greatest entertainment for the masses: the circus.

Mythology

The Lernynge Lax, or the Salmon of Knowledge

The tale of the Lernynge Lax is thought to be folklore inspired to help keep the masses of the Known World uneducated.  By shedding personal illumination in a negative context, the more educated hope to keep the population from seeking enlightenment.  Without education, the wealthy keep the advantage in survival to themselves.

Theology

Trishna, the Binity of Desire

Trishna is a two-sided goddess, embodying both monogamous love and unabashed debauchery.  She is both the tenderness of love and the desperation of lust; the innocence of youth and the wisdom of parturition.  The need for play and the fulfillment of employment.  With this two-sided nature, She is treated as two deities, twins: Trishna and Her twin brother Tornesh.  Unity in Binity.  They are extensions of the same divinity, treated as one, referred to as either.

Her dogma is seductive.  Give in to temptation.  Experience everything. Revel with abandon.  Life is to be experienced first hand, to be filtered through all the senses, embraced and given into with all the passion one can muster.  Trishna represents all aspects of hedonism, metered out through the cycle of life.  To Her, spawning of children is a blessing; the act just as holy as the offspring.  Every aspect of survival of the species is espoused as sacrament.  A sin, to a Trishnan, is to deny one’s urges, to spurn one’s child, to purposely break a heart, to live in anguish, to languish in numbness.

She is wed to Sashelas, and is truly devoted to him.  Yet, Her very nature inevitably leads her astray.   Polyamorous and omnisexual, Trishna is the very act of reproduction.  At Her core, Trishna embodies the intrinsic urge to continue the bloodline.  Sex is holy.  The more, the better.

Trishna, Soul of Desire, the Libertine Muse, Seducer of All, Luxuria of the Lust

Alignment: Lawful Good
Symbol: Two koi — one melanistic, the other albino — swimming in circles after the other’s tail.
Domains: Good, Law, Magic, Strength, Trickery.
Preferred Unguis (weapon): Net
Clerical Unguis of Choice: None (Manipulation, see below)
Cleric Alignment: Chaotic good, Lawful neutral, neutral good, neutral.

Theology

Sashelas, the Knowledgeable One

Through introspection is the only method to truly know one’s self, that shows the path to enlightenment and improvement.  Not just improvement of mind, but of body.  Martial excellence is just as vital as keen intellect, as perfecting  the physical form brings out its full potential.

Sashelas is a chaotic god trying to impose law on the world.  He has taken on responsibilities from the absent Ahto that are beyond His domains.  By doing so, Sashelas sees himself as the most important of the gods, shouldering the responsibility of two deities.   Despite one of which he is ill suited for, Sashelas refuses help.

He is husband to Trishna, who has a wandering eye.  Sashelas seems to turn a blind eye to her escapades, but it is unclear if this is because He does not care or because He does not notice.

Sashelas, Lord of the Undersea, the Cetacean Prince, The Knowledgeable One, Superbia of the Pride

Alignment: Chaotic Good
Symbol: An upturned cetacean (species varies by congregation)
Domains: Chaos, Good, Knowledge, Protection, War.
Preferred unguis (weapon): None
Clerical Unguis of Choice: Cestus
Cleric Alignment: Chaotic good, chaotic neutral, neutral good, neutral.