Faith of the Torian

[Amara]

Let's talk Religion/Faith/Omen.

What are your thoughts on the whole subject?

What would you like to see happen with it?

What changes would you desire, if any?

This thread is open to all input regarding anything Religious.

[Ellyssa_Flamewing]

Hey Amara, thank you for posting this up! I told you I'd think about this and reply and after too many days, here's my first stab at a reply. For starters, I have to admit that I've played an a-religious torian who was exiled from her people so young that all she has are the vaguest memories of stories from her childhood, and what she's been able to glean since from what OTHER peoples think that torians believe. For that reason, I did only the most cursory examination of the torian religion, since it was peripheral, at best to the character. That said, one suggestion of course would be to collect all the (admittedly sparse) information about torian religion into one tab, since at present it can be found in bits and pieces in a number of locations.

The names of their original gods who they rebelled against can be found listed among the minor deities here... Sazera and Maedel - The Goddesses of the Torians https://www.belariath.com/religion.html

There is a listing of the nature of the torians original gods who they rebelled against, what the gods were like, and why (some) of the torians rebelled and all of them were cast down and punished for their temerity in the Fallen War on the torian history page here... https://belariath.com/races/torian/history.html

Now on the religion tab of the torian page is the acknowledgment that the original gods still influence the language and thinking of at least some of the torians, but it explores the way that the cultures have forsaken their organized religion in favor of a sort of tribal belief in fate, luck, role, destiny and path and how their interplay and interpretation colors the way many traditional torians think, while admitting that there is no longer any such thing as a unified torian culture because of the way they were scattered so widely after the fallen war. https://belariath.com/races/torian/religion.html

An interesting sidenote that I intend to touch on later, the chirot have a possible insight into torian religion in their history page here, referring to their bird-winged dark god Kiroaja https://www.belariath.com/races/chirot/history.html


Well and good. First suggestion make sure its all accessible in a single place. On the other hand, you can find it if you just click the tabs. It might be nice to edit the entry for the two torian gods on the main religion page to flesh them out a bit.

SECOND suggestion, and here we get into the weeds a bit. I've been thinking of how we might update the torians religion to account for some of the changes that might have happened to them as they drifted farther and farther apart into different societal groups. Rising splinter religions based around existing torian lore, if you will.

I was thinking about the original two torian deities and how its written into the torian race's origin that they were not content to take orders from their deities, but felt that they were above all the rest of creation and so rebelled. How about if we were to write up two torians that lived such extraordinary lives that they were raised up to demigod status by the other gods of Belariath as a way to punish Sazera and Maedel for losing control of their flock and allowing the torians to become a plague on the rest of the world? These demi-gods would be charged with in-gathering the torian people into a NEW religion(s) that may or may not be gaining popularity with torians the world over as it tickles their racial prejudices and appeals to their highest aspirations or their darkest fantasies.

As with traditional torian thinking post-fall, two of the guiding forces are Luck and Trouble and they balance each other. My thinking is have a (as yet unnamed whitewing goddess that I'll call Fortuna for the moment) demigoddess who was and is the personification of luck. She lived a charmed life, everything went her way from birth to ascension, even her downfalls turning to good account in the long run. She was a mage and an inveterate gambler who lived her life on the roll of the dice or the flip of the cards, believing always that Luck was with her wherever she went, so she took insane chances until the day when a failed chance should have killed her but the gods intervened and raised her up to be a minor goddess to challenge the original torian gods.

To balance that, the personification of Trouble would be a darkwinged male named Kiroaja by a bereaved mother who had been widowed by the chirot and she spent the remainder of her life raising her son to be a warrior who hunted down and slaughtered and enslaved chirot without mercy, even going so far as to name him for the chirot's dark god whom they live to defeat in the next life. She intended her son to bring despair to the chirot and so he made that his life's work. So effective was this fighter that once when a band of chirot ambushed him, wounding him unto death before he slaughtered every last one of them, that the dark gods of belariath raised him up to be a demigod to challenge the original gods of the torians, and to counterbalance Fortuna and the brightwings.

While Fortuna embodies luck and good fortune and living by magic and, to an extent living at peace with the world, at least as long as it acknowledges torian superiority, Kiroaja gives the darkwings who have been forsaken by luck something to live for. Rather than rage against fate or chance, they lash out at a cruel world by becoming crueler and putting those dastardly chirot in their place. Of course, it should perhaps be expected that followers of Kiroaja will seek to oppress those lucky brightwings that follow Fortuna.


My two cents for now, though I would welcome the chance to discuss further thoughts.

[Kydo]

So any new lore on the Torian religion would be welcome. Admittedly I really do need to talk to some of the people here about some of this lore both in the Fallen war as well as the gods. I would like to see the gods more active again or at least starting to become active.

That said, while I like what Ellyssa is saying in most of her post I don't think that having a 'lucky' brightwing and a 'troublemaking' darkwing is a good way to handle the light/dark aspect of Torian culture. Nor do I think outright confirming the Chirot to be right or wrong is the correct path either, that's half the fun of having the Chirot/Torian rivalry is not knowing (as much as I might love to be able to prove things one way or another IC). I've always just been of the opinion the probable reason for the thought of darkwings being bad was that one of them was the person to start the rebellion against the gods. No one remembers that now, but that is why darkwings were originally said to be a sign of bad things to come. And over ages and ages of that being a thing the reason was forgotten but the stigma remained.

[miyuka]

Also keep in mind that when it comes to doing religion/lore stuff for a race it's more of a guideline/mythos kind of thing not necessarily the bonafide truth of things (it can be) and that your character doesn't have to fully follow it (save for Magi which they are more of a hive-mind kind of race with some free-will but that's their whole schtick). That's why sometimes things can be a little vague when it comes to certain write ups.

[Rei-Kai]

May take a while for me to bring any real depth to this conversation, however one thing about Torian beliefs outside of Religion were wing colors and what they may signify.

The vast majority of Torians have white wings stretching perhaps eight to twelve feet in span... however; deviations from white are not uncommon. Black, red, and purple are generally considered colors of ill fortune while gold, blue, and cream are considered prosperous and lucky.

So wing color can mean good or bad things depending and may be further expanded into the belief system itself. I am also going to inquire about either changes to or confirmations as to what colors are permissible for Torian feathers to be. As a rule, Cat Folk can only have fur colors that're naturally occurring after they're rewrite some years back. If the same rule could be made true for any race (wolven, sithian, etc), then Torian wing colors would be among the most diverse in range given the wide variety of avian breeds that exist.

It was recently stated by an Op that the color Pink was off the table, despite there being no official list of available colors for Torian wings. For now people will keep to the Op ruling, though I figure a proper addition or fix to the Torian Race page would better show what players can and can't do.

[Rhezha]

A little ways back I thought about crystal swords and how Torians are the only ones to use them, which lead me to some conclusions about torian religion. (Shameless self-plug: viewtopic.php?f=43&t=23523 )
My current headcanon is that to this day Torians are forsaken by the gods and their souls are completely unclaimed. Obviously this means a rather unpleasant afterlife since almost any deific entity could scoop up their souls. This isn't to say that they can't devote themselves to a particular deity, and doing so would likely bring them closer to that deity after death, but they severed their own ties with the very things that created them, forever separating them from such a connection. If there were to be uplifted demi-gods as Ellyssa states, this could definitely follow the same route, Torians could devote themselves to them, but they will never have the connection as they once did with their creators. One possible consequence to consider is that if the Torians are truly completely separated from Sazera and Maedel, they may have waned over the centuries to be near death and are unable to help or affect their children even if they wanted to. (I feel that faith and religion is an energy exchange where mortals give sustenance to those that created them through their devotion and the reclaiming of souls.) This could mean a great chance for a world event that revitalizes the pair somehow and starts the path to redemption for Torians.
I definitely feel that the 'worship' of the six forces is a placeholder for a proper deity that developed in the wake of their separation from their gods. More of a superstition than a proper religion, though this may be a rather cynical view of it.
As I said, this is all my own thoughts and I am certainly not trying to give an end-all explanation here. I'm looking forward to following the discussion here.

I do like the idea of having each wing color signify a different concept, such as black standing for death while light blue signifies the freedom of the endless blue sky, red being the blood of the innocents killed by Sazera and Maedel's retribution, etc.

[Rhezha]

I would like to add a new idea to this string, though I cannot claim credit for the baseline thought. (Credit to Myra)
I would propose that Torian feathers are considered almost sacred to them. As if they contain a small piece of their soul and as such they are highly protective of them. Obviously they are much larger than normal bird feathers, potentially as long as 2-3 feet for the main flight feathers and would make a fine collector's item. Hardly something a proud race like the Torian would want a reputation for. It would be customary for a Torian to destroy their feathers as they are lost so that the piece of soul can be returned to the owner, going so far as to follow one to the ground mid-flight. This would also make the plucking and theft of a Torian's feathers a deplorable insult and cruelty in their eyes, grounds for a mission of revenge to gain back what was lost.

On another note that's perhaps more physiological, I would love it if the wings of older Torian start to go gray or silver like hair. This could open the door for respected positions of "silverwings" or the like in a clan, indicating the elders of a clan who command more respect and power in the clan. Just a thought to throw out there for consideration...