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serpentface · 4 months ago

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Do you have any information on the root scholars that you can share? They’ve always been a cool cult/organization to me

Ok it’s a facet of the Eterhimhamdli religion, which is The most widespread single belief system east of the inner seaway (which isn't saying much in terms of scale but it's still pretty significant) and also one I've barely introduced so I'll go over it a bit here.

Eterhimhamdli has spread past its initial sphere of old (~500 years BP) southern Lowlands Yuroma kingdoms, has many folk practices, and has schismed a few times, so there's a good deal of cultural variation. But its basic tenants/tendencies are:

-Creator deities are wholly rejected, the universe is an interplay between non-personified dualistic forces of Body(evil)/Mind(good). In one schism, the interplay of these two forces is the Dream, in others dreaming is an aspect of Mind.

-Deities in general are not wholly at odds with Eterhimhamdli, but their importance is de-emphasized and worship is usually discouraged in favor of making them objects of contemplation and/or tutelary figures.

-The Mind of the universe exists as a collective soul from which human souls emanate

-every person has two souls: an egoistic soul that animates the body and an ethereal soul that animates the mind. The latter is conceptualized as a single drop from a greater sea of the collective soul.

-belief that true wisdom is derived through access to this collective soul.

-belief that the trappings of the the ego-soul and the body's demands inhibits access to said collective soul.

-belief in the concept of enlightened beings who gain full experiential knowledge of the collective soul while remaining in a body, thus becoming capable of directly communicating aspects of their wisdom to the masses.

the biggest schism in this religion is over whether enlightenment just means experiencing full knowledge of the collective before you die, or whether it means transcending the limits of the body entirely and functionally becoming an immortal, godlike being.

deities of older/other religions absorbed by Eterhimhamdli are often reframed as enlightened mortals.

-most sects believe that only sophont life (or sometimes Only humans) have a etherial-soul along with the ego-soul, while animals exclusively have the ego-soul. Plants and inanimate objects Usually aren't ascribed souls outsides of heavily syncretic folk practices.

-belief in a fundamental good-evil cosmic dualism, though in a fairly complex way (evil is a necessity for life that is to be tempered and grappled with, rather than outright vanquished from the world entirely). The notion of 'evil' here is most associated with bodily desires (this includes all bodily needs like hunger and thirst, necessary to support life but viewed dangerous in excess, and being the root of conflict and pain).

the evil nature of bodily desire is not About sex, but does translate to non-procreative sex being frowned upon to varying extents.

-belief that life is a state of internal warfare between the evil ego-soul and the good ethereal-soul, with the former being more powerful and influential. To lead a good life is to bring the ego-soul into equilibrium with the ethereal soul. To live a wise and venerable life is to fully tip the balance in the latter's favor (this is not an expectation for lay followers, as it is considered profoundly difficult and requires separation from worldly life).

-lay followers practice forms of temperance to bring these forces into equilibrium, priests practice forms of asceticism to subdue the ego-soul and gain experiential wisdom in the process.

-The way you balance your life has consequences for the afterlife. An evil life causes an eternal death (this is usually posited as an underworld), a life in equilibrium causes one to be reborn into a new human body (a neutral fate), and a good life results in full return to the collective soul (this is a state of complete peace and contentedness and access to infinite wisdom).

-A selection of hallucinogenic plants are central to the monastic/priestly aspects of the religion, being seen as the key method through which the body can be transcended and the ego-soul can be quieted in order to tap into the collective. Lay followers do not participate in this facet on a regular basis.

-Priests also participate in self-flagellation, as the struggle with physical pain is a key microcosm of the broader internal war with the ego-soul, and can be a source of wisdom and contemplation. They are extensively tattooed for partly related purposes. Laymen are not expected to flagellate as a practice but rather to apply teachings to/learn from struggles with everyday pain.

-Very complicated relations with violence as a concept. Some strains of Eterhimhamdli philosophy see violence as an exclusive result of evil to be avoided whenever possible (usually more completely by priesthoods than the wider societies they live in), others see it as a neutral tool in of itself that Can be a force for good when used wisely. (Large scale 'wise usages of violence for the sake of good', shockingly, tend to favor the in-group's position in preexisting ethnic/religious/territorial conflicts).

-Most sects are proselytizing and see conversion as a necessity to create a better world, and have broadly unfavorable views of other religious practices.

This does not extend to seeing all societies that practice Eterhimhamdli or even The Same Schism Of Eterhimhamdli in a positive light (the birthplace of this religion is currently about 60 semi independent city-states organized into leagues that are frequently at war with each other)

-Highly favors education, literacy, rhetoric, debate, and the acquisition of material knowledge along with deeper spiritual wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are venerable traits and societies should be led by the learned, or at least by people under their guidance.

---

The Scholarly Order of the Root is one order of Lowlands Eterhimhamdli monastics, functioning as a closed cult/mystery religion. They’re based out of Suurota (one of the biggest Yuroma city-states and dominant member of its league). They're at the top of the league's hierarchy of monastics, very wealthy, and have some involvement in governance (being an advisory body to the magistrate).

The Scholars primarily interact with the general public by hosting many of the league's institutions of scholarship and philosophy, and some of the biggest libraries in this part of the world. Their institutions are used by laymen Suurota citizens and members of government for study, and they host monks and priests (uninitiated to the inner cult) in their halls.

Actual membership to the Scholars cult is limited, they neither expect nor want associates to participate in their rituals. Rather, they position themselves as teachers- revealing small aspects of their secret knowledge to laymen and the lesser monastics as a form of guidance, while keeping dangerous knowledge for only the trusted inner circle.

Their baseline belief system aligns with the general schema of Lowlands Eterhimhamdli (one of three major schisms of this belief system), but their closed cult practices revolve around fairly unique interpretations, understood to be the ultimate underlying truths of this worldview.

The Scholars focus on an extention the Mind-Body model of the universe where their synthesis is the Dream (this itself is not unique to this cult, but the depths of their focus is). Under this model, the world is the dream of the collective consciousness, and achieving enlightenment or even temporary lucidity can allow the dream to be shaped to one's will.

One of their most secretive practices is god-building, in which they utilize altered mental states to shape the fabric of the dream into entities they can use as personal teachers of secret knowledge (also as a type of magic in general, they use it to 'build' guardians and curses and the like).

The process involves using mild doses of Ur-Root brew (mostly derived from roots of the clonal Ur-Wood colony, whose bark has notable concentrations of dimethyltryptamine and also hosts milder fungal hallucinogens) while maintaining an object and concept as a focal point of concentration. The altered state provided by the Root allows the user some access to the wisdom of the collective soul, and they will experience secret knowledge and revelations about this object, how it can best be used (this will be supplemented by material knowledge about the subject). This process is repeated until the user experiences a sense of Presence in the object, which must be interacted with, given a name and a face. Through more repetition, the object is believed to be shaped into a sort of thoughtform god which has come into material existence via manipulation of the dream.

This is considered to take immense time and effort to come to completion, god-building projects can last for years and be the combined effort of multiple Scholars. In the end, you have shaped an entity to your will that can operate independently of you.

The Ur-Wood itself is the center of Scholar cult practice, as it is both the purveyor of their most important hallucinogen and believed to have been the first god ever shaped by this form of lucid dreaming (it's a pilgrimage site for Eterhimhamdli where thousands of followers have undergone Ur-Root trips over the past four centuries, using the woods as an object of contemplation). To them the Ur-Tree is the ultimate teacher of their cult, an extremely powerful built-god that has been involved in almost every journey to enlightenment and contains all these journeys within its substance.

They believe that communing with the tree via Ur-Root can grant access to all enlightened mortals- full trips (with a DMT breakthrough type experience) will often involve sensations of encountering entities, which they interpret to be these historical figures. Within their religious framework, they're kind of speedrunning enlightenment. Under most conventional frameworks, the teachings of wise and/or enlightened people are conveyed in writing or speech as things to Contemplate on one's own journey- you might be able to understand them Conceptually but true understanding is Experiential, a process that can take a lifetime. In their framework, they're both receiving these teachings directly AND embodying states in which they can experientially comprehend them.

That summarizes most of their secret practices, and the rest of their practice is pretty standard for devout Lowlands Eterhimhamdlist priests. They live a partly ascetic lifestyle, they bear extensive tattoos as a contemplation of pain and marker of their journeys, they flagellate, they use tutelary hallucinogens, they refine their non-experiential body of knowledge through debate and rhetoric, they work to accumulate both worldly and spiritual knowledge, they work as scribes, etc.

#When I say 'cult' I'm using the 'specific form of veneration within a broader religion' definition. These people are very well known #and established in the religious framework of the Suurota league and not like a weird fringe thing.#The practice of upper priesthoods retaining secret knowledge is pretty standard for this religious sphere. The general public knows #they are Hiding Knowledge and this isn't an issue.#A lot of their secret practices would be questioned or viewed as potentially heretical by other Eterhimhamdlists though #Particularly their speedrunning brute-force approach to acquiring wisdom and perception that they are directly communicating #with enlightened mortals. A lot of the philosophy of this religion focuses on the journey to arrive to these truths across the span #of a lifetime. Most historical figures though to have achieved enlightenment did so on their deathbeds after a lifetime of work #and communicated the most important parts of their knowledge with the little time they had left. That's kind of the point.#Also it would have to be rewritten from the fucking ground up but the story that Whitecalf was originally a prequel to involved #the Scholarly Order of the Root attempting to godbuild a person into a weapon against a 30+ years down the line beefed up #Imperial Wardin in an expansionist period and at war with the Suurotan league #The original story still had all the magic stuff so they actually kind of did turn a kid into a magic weapon of mass destruction #These places aren't right next to each other btw and they've had pretty minimal direct interaction until recent history due to #having a Massive Fucking Mountain Range between them #(and also a good deal of space between themselves and said mountain range)#The Yuroma-Wardi population does originally descend from the general area of Eterhimhamdli's birth but the group that #Established this population arrived after a couple generations of moving place to place (some settling) in exodus after being driven #from their homelands in an ethnic/religious conflict with one of the earliest Eterhimhamdli states #Yuroma-Wardi is also a kind of placeholder name that I need to change. They derive from speakers of the Yuroma language family #but would not consider themselves related to the contemporary ethnic groups that are called Yuroma

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happyk44 · 1 year ago

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The thing was Percy didn't like being a bad kid. Every time he got kicked out of a school or wound up in the counselor's office over some incident he wasn't completely blameless for, his mom's brows would pinch. The line on her lip dipped. He knew what she was thinking each time: lost wages, job risk, who was going to watch him if he got suspended, where would she send him if he got kicked out, and so on.

He hated that he did that to her. Being a bad kid meant being a bad son. He refused to be a bad son - not on purpose anyway.

Well, he used to. She wasn't here anymore. Her brows weren't going to furrow. Her lips wouldn't thin. Her shoulders wouldn't draw up and tense before the principal even opened their mouth. It was over.

He didn't have anyone anymore. Nobody at cabin eleven would look at him. Other cabins steered around him like he was carrying the plague. Grover was off doing whatever satyrs did - probably getting ready to infiltrate some new school, befriend some new kid, save their lives. He didn't need Percy. It’d only been a few days but they'd barely interacted. Older satyrs would yank him along into the wood before Percy could get close or even open his mouth. Even Annabeth just eyed Percy with scrutinizing eyes - like she was assessing him for something. But every time he tried to approach her outside of their lessons, she brushed him off.

No one wanted Percy around.

What was the point of being a good kid anymore? There wasn't anything or anyone forcing him to keep his head above water. He was tired of the murmurs. He was tired of the avoidance. Tired of the glares from the Ares cabin. Tired of trying to keep the quake in his stomach tamped down.

He was just tired.

He thumbed along the flat edge of his sword. His new best friend was the pervasive feeling of loneliness. With a miserable sigh, he tucked the sword into the holster on his hip. People barely wanted to spar with him now so he was stuck to sweating it out on the dummies by himself. At least only when Luke wasn't pushing him as hard as possible.

But even with Luke there seemed to be pause. The first time Percy felt his gut yank after being claimed had been in training with Luke, and as soon as the feeling caught him, Luke begged off. Like he'd seen something in Percy that unnerved him. Sometimes when Percy looked in the mirror, he saw something in his eyes that unnerved him. A foreign thing - like a contact lens put in the wrong way.

No amount of poking or prodding at his eyes was going to get it out though. It was inside him - in his blood. He was sure of it.

He was starting to worry that it was the very thing he'd been keeping back, the very thing his mom was trying to keep him safe from.

The clang of metal against metal was loud as he walked past other trainees. There were a couple people leaning against the wall near the water fountain. As expected, they shifted away as he neared. Mistrust was bright in their eyes.

He did his best to ignore it. Not the first time people had stared at him like they thought he was dangerous. Or beneath them.

The water sprayed for a moment before he lowered his head. It was clarifying. He'd noticed it before, a burst of energy with every sip whenever he was tired, but ever since being claimed, he'd noticed the alertness more and more.

As he let go of the button, he caught the tail end of the muttering nearby. His stomach dropped.

“... should've ditched him sooner,” one boy grumbled. His friend snorted. “Maybe then she wouldn't have died.”

“What did you say?” The two startled. Percy understood why. He barely recognized his own voice, the eerie coldness to it frosty on his own tongue. Still, he repeated as he twisted on his heels to face them. “What. Did you just say?”

Panic besot them. For a second, the barest of a second, he could feel it kick in - be a good boy for me, Percy, be a good kid for Mom.

But she wasn't here.

She wasn't here.

So what was the point?

He took a step forward. “What,” he snarled, saliva coating his tongue like froth, “did you say?”

The others shifted away but he just crept forward. “Nothing, man,” one of them finally bit out, but they were lying. He could see it in their eyes, hear in their voice, feel it in their veins.

“You're lying,” he said. A bitten off laugh echoed from his lips. “You were talking about my mom.” Another choked laugh. “You think it's my fault?”

One of them raised his hands - a mock surrender. “Hey, dude-”

“You think I wanted her to die?” A sharp sensation coiled through Percy's chest. It thrummed hot and heavy, piling, piling, piling on his lungs. “You think I asked for ANY OF THIS?”

Someone's hand came to rest on his shoulder and it was like the crashing of the waves against his bare feet. Cold, clarifying, clear.

Freeing.

His fist drove straight into the jaw of whoever was behind him. He could barely tell who he was seeing - it might've been Luke, or any other tall blonde guy. But as soon as whoever it was stumbled back, he whirled around and punched whichever kid was closest in the stomach. They went down and he clambered on top to wail. Fist and fist upon whatever body part he could reach. He wasn't the most elegant hand-to-hand fighter but there was something to be said for the voracious and vicious energy boiling through him.

Distantly he was aware of yelling around him, aware of people pulling at him, aware of the person beneath him crying, arms over their face, arms Percy was tired of hitting. He needed to get their face, get their tongue, rip his mom from their mouth. How dare they speak about her.

How dare anyone talk about her.

A dozen hands finally yanked him back. He screamed. Bodies toppled. He grabbed the closest one by their hair, driving his knee upwards over and over again until hands ripped him away again. Swung blindly and caught someone. The two of them fell. His stomach pulled back. They choked. They weakened. He swung himself over until he was on top.

I want you all to drown, he thought, grabbing at their jaw. Don't ever speak of her again.

Saliva smeared across his fingers. His stomach pulled back even more. What was that - blood, water? On his hands, on his knees, on their skin, on their faces, in their veins.

His free hand drew out. He wanted it. It was his. Didn't they get that? She was his, and she was gone, so he would take and take all else that belonged to him until the hole in his chest was gone. Until the water they had coursing inside them filled him up.

“Percy,” someone whispered.

Their voice was familiar, breath hot against Percy's ear. He twitched. The feeling of nearby water, nearby fluid, was clenched tight in his fist. He just had to pull back. Yank it. Make it his.

The voice turned pleading. “Percy.”

He froze as two hot hands came to clasp his cheeks, dark brown eyes and curly hair blurring into view. Grover's face.

“Grover,” he breathed. For the first time since he'd ended up at camp, he relaxed.

Grover's thumbs stroked his skin. “Yeah, it's me.” He leaned in closer. “Percy, you need to stop.”

“Stop?”

“You're hurting people," he said. “You have to stop.”

Why? Percy thought. He didn't care. He didn't care if they hurt, didn't care if they drowned where they laid choking, didn't care if they suffered. It didn't mean anything to him. They didn't mean anything to him.

But this was Grover.

And with his mom gone, Grover meant the world.

“You want me to stop?”

“Yes,” Grover said. His breath was warm, his skin hot, his body close. Distantly Percy remembered nights at school like this - Grover tucked up next to him, trying his best to help Percy study when most people would've bailed. “I want you to stop.”

His lips were wobbling. His eyes were thick with wetness. His voice was unsteady - trying to be calm and rapidly failing. Even his hands shook.

Percy grabbed at his wrists. “Okay,” he whispered as he clung. His stomach relaxed slowly, the crash turning into a tickle. “I'm good, I'm good.”

Shakily, Grover exhaled, pressed his forehead to Percy's, and murmured, “I know, I know.”

His hands pulled away from Percy's face, but not away from him, arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him in for a tight hug. Percy's breathing wobbled as he tucked his face into the crook of Grover's neck. He clung tight and desperate. Pleading.

No, he couldn't be a good son anymore. He didn't have to bother keeping in check to avoid the thin line of his mom's lips. But he could be a good friend. To keep the tears out of Grover's eyes, the tremble from his skin.

“I can be good,” he promised quietly, for Grover's ears only. “I promise I can be good.”

“I know,” Grover said. His cheek pressed against Percy's. “I believe you.”

The fountain nearby trickled quietly. The steady flow soothed the unease between Percy's shoulders. Still, he squeezed the pillow in his grip tighter to his chest as he watched Grover flit around the bunk closest to him. He snapped the final end of the sheet around the mattress. Hooves clopped quietly against the tile as he stepped back. His gaze flickered between Percy's bed and his own.

Then he grunted and began pushing it closer.

Percy hopped up. The discarded pillow slipped from his fingers and onto the floor. He nearly tripped over it trying to get to Grover's side. They pushed the other bunk over until it was pressed into Percy's.

While Grover unfurled his blanket, Percy stepped back. Awkwardness choked him. He didn't know what to do, what to say. So he picked the pillow off from the floor and pressed it into his chest. Grover didn't spare him many glances as he worked to make up the bed. Leaning across his bunk, he yanked Percy's blanket from between the seam where the two bed frames connected and began tying the edges of both blankets together. It was shoddy work, no way it wasn't coming apart just from them lying on the sheets, much less sleeping.

But Grover did it anyway.

As he shifted back, hooves scraping the floor, Percy held out the pillow. Grover dusted off the top then laid it against the headboard. With both hands on his hips, he admired his work. Percy stared at it too. It was nice. Joined bed. Grover within direct reach.

His palms itched.

“Are you scared of me?”

Grover twisted around. His brows furrowed, but the edges of his lips were quirked upwards. It was reminiscent of school - Percy stumbling over something he read and Grover, lost but amused, over why Percy thought it was a man-of-war that Theseus fought.

He was partially grateful Grover cut him off before he could finish what he actually thought the sentence was trying to say. It certainly wasn't fight.

“I mean,” Grover started and Percy's stomach drew back. Behind him the trickle of the fountain silenced. Like the water was holding its breath too. “I'm scared for other people, but I'm not scared of you.” He punched Percy's arm with a quiet smile. “I know you're not going to hurt me, Percy. That's why I stopped you.”

The fountain began to trickle again. “And that-” He faltered. The ghost Grover's touched goosed up his bicep and across his shoulder. “-that doesn't worry you?”

That you might have to stop me again went unspoken but Grover was always good at understanding Percy's unspoken words, at knowing his unspoken feelings - even the ones Percy wasn't even aware he felt.

He sighed. “It worries me. But not because it's you.” He shook his head. “And definitely not because I'm scared of you hurting me.”

His eyes scanted away, brows furrowing deeper. Then he relaxed into the bed. After teetering on his heels for a couple seconds, Percy joined him. He gripped the edge of his shorts so tight his palms burned. Grover reached over to stroke along the back of his hand.

He exhaled slowly and let go.

“You remember Pan?” Grover asked.

Percy paused. “The satyr god, right?”

“Yeah.” Grover pulled away to tug at his fingers. “He's been missing for a while. Ever since the industrial age took off. And no one knows where he is. It's the dream of every satyr to find him, so that nature can return to the way it was.”

“That your dream?”

He nodded solemnly. “You have to be a Protector first, before you can get your Searcher’s license. But I'm not like the others.” His gaze fell down. His hands sat in his lap, cupped around nothing but air. “I don't want him just so we can bring nature back to its peak.” He sighed. “We were a lot different when Pan was still around. More free. More wild. I want satyrs and nymphs - all of us to be us again!”

Percy leaned into him. “What's stopping you?”

Grover snorted. “People forgot. We were more than just Pan's disciples. We fought to protect the wild from mankind. We didn't just sit around waiting for him to tell us what to do. But nobody wants to do anything.” He scowled. “They think when Pan returns he'll fix it all and I-” He bit his lip, then shook his head. “The world has changed. And gods don't get involved like that. Not to the extent they want him to. It's not in their nature. But if he comes back then maybe…”

He faced Percy. His eyes were watery, darkening the already dark brown of his eyes into shots of black. The welled tears glistened ever so slightly. Like the night sky, free of pollution.

His lips wobbled into a gentle smile. “But that's why I'm not afraid. You’re like nature at its purest form - chaotic, wild, unburdened.”

Normally those words wouldn't hit Percy as compliments. Insults, degradation - things that would deflate him and make his mom frown. But Grover sounded so earnest, his heart swelled.

“You can't tell, but I can feel it.” He swung his arm over Percy's shoulders and tugged him in close. “Your demigod essence, this sense of the wild that I've been searching for my whole life.” He gestured loosely. “Even the Demeter kids don't have that. Their mom is all agriculture and farming and that's great and all, but it's not pure nature, it's not the wild.” He squeezed Percy's shoulder as best he could with one hand. “You remind me of home, Percy.”

The frog Percy hadn't noticed in his throat jumped out with a burst sob-laugh. He tried to tile away, but Grover just tugged him close, bringing around his other arm to keep Percy pinned. Nonetheless his hold was fairly loose, like Percy was a stray cat he didn't want scratching him if he felt like running.

Or like he knew that Percy was the ocean through and through, unwilling to be contained, wanting to flow wherever he saw fit.

Percy practically crawled into his lap, sniffling into Grover's shoulder. Warm hands stroked up and down his back. He laughed quietly - a half-distressed noise marrying the sound, but managed a breathy wheeze of, “You remind me of home too.”

Grover kissed the top of his head. For the first time since arriving, he shattered. All his twisted up emotions committed out in a tidal wave of tears and broken gasps. All the while Grover held him. As tight as Percy clung to him, he didn't complain. Just held on even tighter. Wetness from Grover's own tears smeared across Percy's skin.

Ever the empathetic. Like his mom.

Percy squeezed his eyes shut. “Please don't leave without saying goodbye,” he begged in a hollow, hoarse whisper.

“I won't,” Grover promised.

They held onto each other even as tears and cries faded away. Grover kept stroking his back with both hands. Percy continued to cling.

Shoulders shaking, Percy wound the fabric of Grover's shirt over his fingers. After a few minutes of toiling silence, he whispered. “I think I'm changing.” He pressed his forehead to Grover's collarbone. “I'm scared.” He pulled back and stared into Grover's eyes. “What do I do?”

“Be my best friend,” Grover said, like it was the simplest answer in the world. And as soon as the words fell off his tongue, it did. How silly was Percy not to think of it before? “My best friend is a good person, the best kind of wild.”

“I can do that,” Percy promised. “I swear, I can do that.”

“I know,” Grover said, squeezing Percy's cheek. His thumb swiped away at a still wet tear under Percy's eye. The stroke was soft, gentle. Kind. “I believe you.”

#percy jackson #grover underwood #i dont remember percy really having time to mourn his mom in tlt so i figured id give him a moment with grover #happy talks pjo #my writing #my fanfic #pjo fanfic #anyway grover is sleeping witj percy in his cabin to quote unquote keep an eye on him bu really they're just gonna play games #because percy is calm when grover's around #and i haven't read tlt in a while but i dont remember grover doing much with percy post arrival #so im headcanoning that its an unspoken unofficial rule that protectors arent supposed to interact yoo much with their former protectees #in order to allow for a better transition into demigod living and also so the protector in question can go out and find other demigods #🤷‍♂️ whatever whatever but grover 1) knows that percy is possessive and insane and 2) is also Percy's bestie so hes been TRYING #and Percy's attempted murder(s) came in handy for them to chill out with each other

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