Hex Crawl 23 #103: Lore Dump 3, The Exotic Cult of Odaus

Six hexes southeast of Alakran.

Known disrespectfully to Urig and Set-Mitraite alike as the Northern Madness, the eastern branch of the great and relatively new religion based on the Mystery of the Holy Amalthea has settled hermits and gained a few believers on the north and east fringes of Urighem. The Mystery concerns the historical figure Amalthea, daughter of a noble family, who preached revelations directly from the Pancreator of the Universe. These preachings offered eternal paradise to all who dedicate their soul to this One High God and repent of sin.

The Eastern Church that dominates the realms to the north of the Salt Sea of Ghem believes that Amalthea, at the height of her vocation, was betrayed to the temporal authorities by her bodyguard Invictus and sentenced to beheading. Her ascension to heaven was witnessed by her faithful old counsellor Odaus and a set of followers who would all become saints. The Church founded thereafter, over the centuries, has built magnificent temples and commands the loyalty of nearly all inhabitants of its faithful kingdoms. But its male priests, vestals, and sibyls may serve only until the age of forty and four, after which they are commanded either to join monastic communities or become hermits (who revere Odaus directly, rather than the Western Church figure St. Sylvain).

The wild lands nearby became crowded with the huts, caves, pillars, and trees of these hermits. A few centuries ago, it became necessary to expand the eremitic zone southward to the deserts near Aponsalam and to the savanna of Emur, bordering Urighem, in order to maintain the recommended distance of a day's walk between them. Followers of St. Aphetyra, skilled hunters and survivalists, guard these recluses and supply them with wild plants and organ meats from the hunt, which they are allowed to "fast" on through a loophole in the prohibition of eating flesh.

Occasionally such a hermit will receive a revelation to march southwards and preach to the heathen. These efforts are met in Urighem with various fates: mockery, limited conversion among the socially marginal, or torture and execution. Convenacles of the few Odausians in the Urig world prudently meet in secret, disguising their activities as Mitraite rites. There is little ceremony, and much preaching, benediction, and confession, at these meetings. The hymns so loudly voiced by choirs elsewhere are whispered here to avoid detection.

Odausian clerics take the Life domain, with hermits often choosing Knowledge. They carry the crossed wooden staff of Odaus, with the crosspiece going behind the upright, rather than before it. Hermits wear simple robes which often are woven from ostentatiously poor or rough material. They are forbidden to accumulate material goods other than instruments for mortification of the flesh. Even books and scrolls are forbidden to these hermits, being expected to memorise such scriptures as they require.