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Random mystery cult;
Most common in Taldor, Qadira, Osirion and Thuvia, the fertility cult of the Maiden, Mother and Crone are usually found underground, either in a small natural cave, in the catacombs beneath a city, or a converted storm-shelter or root-cellar, and are frequented by mothers-to-be, or, more rarely, by those making sacrifice on their behalf. There was a time that the faith was persecuted, and there are still those who look askance at its practices, but the situation of their shrines underground is more a symbolic representation of a woman’s womb. Within the cramped confines of the sacred space, sometimes barely large enough to keep the three altars from touching, the petitioner is greeted by the shrine’s attendant, rarely an actual cleric or druid of one of the goddesses represented, or an oracle of life, but more commonly an adept. At each altar, an offering must be made, first to the maiden, Shelyn, then to the mother, Lamashtu, and finally to the crone, Pharasma.
Shelyn’s favor calls for an offering crafted by the petitioner herself, and can range from a fine meal to a knitted or woven garment, generally agreed upon in advance by the shrine attendant and the petitioner. It is well known that the adept requests items that they can personally use, that benefit the shrine, or, at the least, can be sold or traded for items of use to them. In a brief song sung in a mixture of the Celestial and Sylvan tongues (which the adept will assist in the pronunciation of, if the singer is not familiar with the languages), Shelyn is called upon to bless the child with both physical beauty and a joyful heart.
At the shrine of Lamashtu, the petitioner must give a scrap of cloth torn from a serviceable garment or bedsheet (it need not be the best one can afford, or a prized possession, but using a garment that was about to be ripped up for rags anyway is considered an insult to the goddess) stained with one’s own blood. Holding this bloody rag in hand, the petitioner kneels or sits before the altar and drinks from a bowl of mushroom wine provided by the shrine attendant (at a small cost). She will see visions and feel strange sensations over the next hour, and must scream out whatever enters her mind, often nonsense syllables or hateful speech, as her mind travels to dark places. It is believed that this process purges her of dark spirits and angry thoughts, so that they do not fester within her, and so seep into and warp the formation of her unborn child. Through this propitiation, Lamashtu is asked to spare her touch, and allow the child to be born sound of limb and mind.
Finally, shivering and sweaty from her experience at the altar of Lamashtu, the petitioner is bought to the altar of Pharasma, where she offers a brief, almost perfunctory, prayer to the goddess of life, death, birth and rebirth, and purchases a dove (for 2 sp., the price never changes) from the attendant, to make the Gift of Life or Death. This dove (or, in some cases, pigeon), is carried from beneath the earth by the petitioner to the nearest area of wild growth, or even a garden, and she releases the dove to the sky. Pharasma is said to send an omen if the child is not fated to be born alive, in the appearance of a hawk or falcon, taking the dove from the sky before it leaves the petitioners sight. If it flies away true, it is thought that the birth will be without incident, but if the dove refuses to fly, or cannot do so, the petitioner must then take it to a graveyard or burial ground, and give it one more chance to take flight. If the bird takes flight in the graveyard, the child to come may come with difficulty, and perhaps have some special favor in the eyes of the Lady of Graves. If the bird still refuses to take flight, the petitioner must kill the bird, either by her own hand or with a blade, and bury it in the graveyard, in a hole dug with her own hands, or else her child is doomed. After the ill-fated bird is buried, a stone must be placed at the head of this small grave, and a prayer to Pharasma to guide its spirit said, to complete the Gift of Life or Death. Through this rite, Pharasma is appealed to give the unborn child life, and to preserve the health of the mother.
It has become unfashionable in certain circles to undergo the rite to Lamashtu, and to skip that procedure and simply make homage to Shelyn and Pharasma, but Lamashtu takes a dim view of this spurning. Those who shun the Mother of Madness spread rumor that to honor her in even this fashion draws her attention to a child, and makes it more likely to be born with some defect or malformity. Whenever a child is born deformed, these gossip-mongers hold it up as ‘proof’ of their theory, and continue to urge their peers to not risk harm to their child by propitiating Lamashtu in this fashion.
The truth is that those who deliberately spurn the rite of Lamashtu are more likely to bear malformed children, but those who self-righteously believe otherwise are prone to overlook such matters (or even to eliminate troublesome ‘evidence’ that contradicts their beliefs…). Lamashtu is not merely the Mother of Monsters, but also of Madness, and is less prone to afflicting a child with an obvious deformity, but instead to simply twist its spirit to have qualities more akin to a goblin or a gnoll, so that an otherwise healthy-seeming child whose mother offended her would grow up to have a love of setting fires and difficulty learning his letters, or a cruel and lazy streak, prone to bullying others and to thuggish and violent behavior. (The tendency of the upper classes to be the most prone to shy away from the respectful propitiation of Lamashtu could be said to explain much about the latest generation of upper-class Taldan youth.)
Pharasma is less likely to punish a child for the disrespect of its mother, but instead wait patiently for the offending parent to stand before her for judgement. Pharasma is no creature of law, nor one bound by moral concerns of mercy or forgiveness, and may wait many decades to send someone who displeased her in life to the back of the line, or to wander the Boneyard, ever waiting a judgement that may never come…
Shelyn is of softer stuff, and few would dream of offending her in this manner, but is more likely to afflict a parent with an unsightly skin condition or malodorous rash, one that not only mars the appearance of the offender, but also magically spreads to any artistic representation of that person, in the form of creeping verdigris on a copper bust, or a fungal growth on a fine portrait. Such afflictions will recur, no matter how many times cleaned away or magically cured, until the offender has made right with Shelyn. In one notable case, a Taldan duke was so afflicted after he ordered an ancient shrine to Shelyn removed from his property, only to suffer not only a visible blight upon his face (that caused half of his beard to fall away), but to find that the blight appeared on the hundreds of coins he had stamped with his visage as part of a celebration, and now spread all about his territory. He made amends, rebuilding the decrepit shrine from new stone, surrounded by gardens and more lovely than even in its heyday, and now spends his days attempting to recover and polish every one of these errant coins, to eliminate all embarrassing reminders of his misfortune.
Do you listen to The Sword by chance?
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NICE.
I love the line-blurring pantheistic approach, and this is an awesome way to bring that particular theme into Golarion. Oracles of those three just work when you look at 'em from this angle.
Do you listen to The Sword by chance?Had not heard of them, but having Googled and noticed that they've opened for Metallica, I'll have to Youtube some of their music and see if I like it. This living in the future thing doesn't entirely suck...
The relevant songs'll be "Maiden, Mother, and Crone" and "Tres Brujas". ;)
The relevant songs'll be "Maiden, Mother, and Crone" and "Tres Brujas". ;)
Definitely among their best =)
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NICE.
I love the line-blurring pantheistic approach, and this is an awesome way to bring that particular theme into Golarion. Oracles of those three just work when you look at 'em from this angle.
Thanks!
I had considered an Oracle Mystery of Fertility or Birth/Death/Rebirth (cue Mufasa, 'The Circle of Liiiife!'). But there was already an Oracle of Life, and it didn't seem terribly adventurer-relevant, more the sort of thing that would be fine in the hands of NPC adepts.
I definitely like the idea of Golarion having good, evil and neutral goddesses of fertility/motherhood/birth. The Scarred Lands did something similar with opposed sister-goddesses of the sun and healing and the moon and death being part of a trinity of goddesses worshipped in a maiden/mother/crone sort of deal in their icy northern barbarian lands. (Albadia? Don't recall, been too long...)
If Pharasma was LN, the three goddesses between them would cover law, chaos, good and evil, but ya can't have everything, and a non-lawful, non-good Pharasma has the potential for her being all vindictive and petty and grudge-holding, and kicking people out of line (or tossing them straight to Groetus!) for disrespecting her in life, which is kinda delicious.