#closed religion

[pinkfey]

i saw a video where a woman’s husband said hello to her best friend (they touched cheeks with a short mwah) and so many people felt that this would be a personal boundary violation for them, so i’m curious what the consensus is!!

keeping it simple, no nuance + if u think ur ethnicity or culture has to do w your answer i would love to know!! 🫂😚💕💕

[spotsupstuff]

Gold is often connected to divinity in rl religions. In Buddhism, it indeed symbolizes enlightenment and such, and it is often kept pure in order to not ruin its brilliance. In Tibetan Buddhism, statues are gilded with it and the 5 tonne Golden Buddha statue in Thailand is composed of 18 karat gold, almost fully pure.

Within this world, I like to think that gold has caught the eye of the Anemons in a religious sense upon the (,,re/")discovery of the Void Sea. The golden waves of it shaped the perception of their world, from explaining the sun as coated in a layer of Void, to giving an idea of what "cleanliness of soul" should look like. Wheel Flowers are also attributed to the Void as sprouts of it, because of their ethereal gold coloration.

The feeling of the divine has however faded when the motivations behind handling of the Void went terribly south, replaced by the extremist corruption and greed of High castes.

In other words, I wanted an excuse to draw Euros as a šarkan/змей.

[duine-aiteach]

St Brigid (Naomh Bríd) really is a fantastic example of how Ireland thrives on the pagan aspects of its Catholicism. Yes she’s a catholic saint yes her feast day is the pagan festival for the beginning of spring. We will make a bank holiday about of it. Children will make crosses out of reeds at school and mass will be said and this all works beautifully alongside each other. The church has done a lot of bad but yet it can still be part of something good; we can reclaim our roots despite few people being pagan nowadays.

[swordscleric]

I can't stop thinking about the post from a few days ago about how Critical Role has been great at doing personal faith but didn't put the necessary work in to discuss the religious/god angle of c3 in-depth. Like the fact that Cardinal Respa was linked to both the Dawnfather and the Chained Oblivion is, on a personal level, very interesting (fallen/corrupted priest goes hard) but like does that mean that there's a Papacy somewhere in Exandria dedicated to the Dawnfather? If so, are there more cardinals who ordain the bishops of the Dawnfather? Are there Conclave-level intrigues going on in the Dawnfather's Sistine Chapel? Why is the Dawnfather so Christianity-coded in vibes alone if there's no actual outline of his religious organisations? With Downfall the Dawnchild/Dawnfather thing makes the allusions to Christ as Son of God co-existing with the Father textual - was there a Dawnfather Schism around whether the Dawnchild was a separate mortal? Was there a Reformation about how the Dawnfather's Pope kept selling indulgences? Is that why the priest of the Dawnfather Grog & Pike offer a drink to doesn't partake because of a cultural shift between Protestant-Temperance-League-coded and Catholic-coded Dawnfather congregations? Why do I have so many questions about the religious organisation of one of the most important Prime Deities in Exandria and to Critical Role's 3 campaigns? How on earth were the cast (and us as the viewers!) meant to care about the gods if all they had were "really tall kings" instead of interrogating how religious organisations provide both a place of healing and community to a wide range of people and also a place of horrific harm and abuse for a wide range of people?

[vaguely-concerned]

the relationship between the chantry and the mortalitasi in nevarra is SO fucking funny. the carefully politic and civil syncretism of it all. the ‘I’ll refrain from scratching your back to bloody shreds if you refrain from scratching mine :)’. left hand politely averting its eyes from whatever the fuck the right hand is doing merrily up to its elbow in entrails because it usually knows what it’s doing I guess. speak softly, and have an army of the restless dead ready to go banapants horrorshow bonkers if you don’t get to tend to them. We Receive: being able to keep doing our goth thing mostly unimpeded. You receive: us not raising the great majority to protest your unwelcome meddling. render unto the chantry what is the chantry's and unto the watchers what is theirs (or, with all possible courtesy you understand, else…)

[totheidiot]

kira worshipper mikami has been done 17377363727 times to the point where it's overdone and so many people just ignores all other aspects of his character. but. i need to get something out. what if mikami prays to kira every day at specific times. like once during sunrise, one when the sun is directly over your head, one during sunset, and the last one in midnight. there is a very specific ritual to it and he follows it everyday, all the exact times without fail. never misses a prayer. what then.

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

[godly-rambles]

i need a devotee. someone who prays to me by candlelight at an altar they set up in my name.

i need to be divine and loved.

[slyandthefamilybook]

trying to come up with something pithy or incisive but honestly I just got nothing

"I will worship the Christian god if people die" is where we're at now, I guess

[canisalbus]

I just wanna say that your gay dogs have singlehandedly rekindled my obsession with the Renaissance, help

.

[roselynvictoria]

Closed eyes by Odilon Redon (1889)

[hephaestiions]

receive

St Peter’s Basilica— Harry succumbs to design, tilts up, up, past the altar, the baldacchino, the soaring, ornate curve of the dome, to its glowing eye. Thirty-three years and the thrall of a watching father still holds: grand, benevolent, unresponsive. Passers-by amble past, chatting, bumping, apologising, Harry’s dead to them until the gasp cuts through the crowd, startling— Draco, Draco, Draco? 

Through the press of stopping-starting bodies, flesh yielding, irritated, to hurried elbows— there, ahead— behind?— stock still and arched in captivation, surreptitious glances brushing up against the line of him and cutting away. There: Draco, transfixed, at the foot of the Pieta. 

He jerks when touched, wide-eyed, strangely rumpled, then turns back to Mary’s stone-serene sorrow. Long minutes congeal with the unspoken.

“He looks heavy,” Draco murmurs, eventually. “To carry— like that.” 

“He is heavy,” Harry says. “He's made of marble.” 

Draco slants him a look, caustic, exasperated. It dissolves within seconds into the cliff’s edge of a smile. 

“The effect’s quite undercut when she’s a sobbing, ten-foot, bearded giant, you know. No—" he waves a hand at the scene, “— tranquillity to that production. Even Michelangelo couldn't save that one.” 

“Jesus Christ."

A beat of resigned silence. Mary maintains her calm. Draco says, “I’m not touching that one in a church.”

–

Later, wine-flushed, clawing at each other, palming through denim and corduroy, Harry moves for the bed, but Draco won’t let him. 

“Stay here,” Draco says, and Harry stills, standing. Draco drops, and the thud of his knees on the wooden floor is loud, louder than the clink of unbuckling, unzipping, a bell in Harry’s mind rung in unceasing echo.

He stays kneeling once it’s over, chest heaving, eyes downcast and trained on the toes of Harry’s boots. Harry grasps at the cool metal doorknob with one hand to struggle himself upright, other tilting Draco’s chin up, up, pushing his thumb into the slack, swollen bud of his mouth, resting it on his still-pulsing tongue. Draco’s eyes spasm shut, and his lips move, soundless, around the space Harry takes up inside. 

Harry pulls his thumb out, runs it, spit-slick, down the ruin of Draco’s jaw. “What did you say?” 

Draco stretches locked fingers above his head, brings them to rest between his spread thighs, knuckles sparse and white where they poke through his grip. The awful reverence in his open eyes spills into Harry's body, blood, soul, mangles the mocking drawl and lazy smile into something real: “Grace.” 

[cinnamon-flame]

Statues

Kinda ironic that you would bring someone to life just to take it away

aka When your soul gets so damaged that you turn your only friend into an ice sculpture (when she started her life as a statue to begin with)

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

[luckthebard]

Genuinely confused as to how so much of the fandom watched the first 2 CR campaigns and Calamity and yet still ended up in a “Ludinus is right let’s kill all the gods” position. Like it’s baffling to me how much content/context people have just decided to completely forget? We had 2 full campaigns of very positive interactions with the gods and the moment there’s some hypothetical and interesting musing and speculation about their roles in the world from a more disconnected place we’re just throwing that out the window?*

Tbh the number of people who watched episode 4 of Calamity and still saw Asmodeus as sympathetic or having a legitimate point is unsettling to me, but while that’s a related issue it’s not quite the same conversation.

But like legitimately how did we so quickly make a hard turn from “The Stormlord teaches his barbarians to use the power of friendship, he’s a funny kindergarten teacher” memes to…this.

*(This is not, btw a comment on the characters having philosophical debates in-world because I think those are interesting and on-theme for the campaign and are also nearly always concluding with “our personal relationship to individual gods and feelings about them are irrelevant actually, the people trying to destroy them are doing wider harm and are in the wrong and must be stopped.” I’m actually loving the engagement with this by the characters in-universe but the fandom is exhausting me.)

[planefood]

This is just a thing I see on my internet romps every now and then but it drives me crazy for no reason, bare with me. Why do people draw lines in the sand about different kinds of therians lol? Who cares if someone woke up and decided that they're wolf therian or something when you decided unconsciously you were a wolf therian instead. Why do people fight about whether or not someone can choose to be therian, its the most silly gatekeeping I see. And don't come at me saying "well theres this label for chosen therians because they're not actual therians like me" you guys... made these terms up in the first place it literally doesn't matter. There is absolutely zero difference between a chosen therian and a not chosen therian and you can't convince me otherwise. How would a self proclaimed "real" therian know that they didn't just choose to be therian one day, there's absolutely no way you can know that for sure.

Every time I become curious about a subculture there's always some ridiculous gatekeeping, even objectums seem to fight over silly bullshit.