Candescent Creed

Candescent Creed
Basic Information
Type	Religious order
Base	Dol-Makjar
Leaders	The Photarch
Favored deity	The Light
History
Founders	House Halovar
Formed	70 years prior to Campaign Four
Membership
Notable members	Yanessa Halovar Godard Halovar Wicander Halovar Tyranny

The Candescent Creed is a recent and cynically invented religion in Aramán that professes to worship the abstract concept of the Light of the universe, also known as the Whispered Light.

Description

According to the Candescent Creed, the universe is a river of light, called the Candescence, which beings are riding as vessels. Part of the light of the Candescence is called Filament and can be distilled into liquid energy, which, once imbibed, allows people to cast magic; people can also sip this substance from the Radiant Chalice. The device used to transform the Light into Filament is called the Prismatic Retort.

The Light is viewed as the source of salvation, by which even demons can be brought to the world and given purpose and a chance of goodness as Aspirants within the faith.

In the event of death, the Candescent Creed believes that souls rejoin the Candescence and make the cosmos brighter.

The Candescent Creed professes Seven Tenets of the Whispered Light, or Seven Shining Tenets. One of the tenets is forgiveness; another is that the Beam is only seen by the Anointed, and the sacred glyphs shimmer only to the family of flame. Only some are worthy of being anointed, and fairies are not among them.

History

The Candescent Creed was established by House Halovar sometime after the end of the Shapers' War and the death of the gods.

A few years before the beginning of Campaign Four, both House Tachonis and House Halovar started moving in the neighbouring country of Timmony, and while the former started claiming control over some land through political marriage, taking advantage of impoverished nobility, the Creed extended its reach through the land, building temples and chapels, even in humble, rural areas. They also used zealotry to weaken the old traditions regarding the fey, as well as the public image of King Augustus Valian; by the year 71 some were daring enough to call the monarch a tyrant for putting himself above the Light.

Secrets of the order

The light magic wielded by members of House Halovar is owed to the bodily fluid of a captive angel, Wicander Halovar's grandfather. His "blood", once drained, is shipped and labelled as "Filament". Godard Halovar's beaming eyes can open the sarcophagus in which he is contained.

According to the Photarch, seventy years ago after the death of the gods, she realized that people needed something to believe in place of the destroyed deities, and used that knowledge to create the Candescent Creed to help save the fortunes of House Halovar. When Aetheon, the captive celestial and former servant of Tansul the sun god, now gone feral after the death of his god, fell into her hands, she used his blood, the Filament, as a material component in a Wish spell that resulted in the birth of Wick's father, Godard Halovar. Yanessa realized that they could not identify the Light held sacred by her created religion as being Tansul, even though that's what it was. She wrote the sacred texts that became the basis of the religion and believed that the rules contained there were good rules, although they served also as a tool and the family was free to break them for their own advantage.

Organizational structure

The Photarch

• The current Photarch, Yanessa Halovar, also known as the Scion of the Candescent Creed, is the matriarch of House Halovar.

Light Priests of the Candescent Creed

• Wicander Halovar

Aspirants

A position seemingly reserved for demons taking care of members of the Halovar family:

• Tyranny, a demon
  • Enmity, Cruelty, and Agony, Tyranny's demonic siblings

Lux

The priest-like leaders of the church in rural communities. If there aren't enough of them to have one in each chapel a single lux must travel between them.

Acolytes

Believers of the Candescent Creed that join to be of assistance in chapels and temples, helping the lux, in hopes to one day join the church with a more official position:

• Tholomoine, an acolyte in Vallow

Sacred texts

• The Photonic Verses
  • Verse 63: "Any impurity dims the spark."
• Ember Eternalis
  • Chapter 10: "'And ye shall be tested,' the blind priest said, 'through lies and dimness, even your kin will turn against you, but the light will bear the truth.'"
  • Verse 17: "The Light sees all, and in us exists filament and forgiveness."
  • Verse 128: "Let not your light drown another’s. To outshine in pride is dimming in disguise. Glow in harmony."
  • Verse 151: "Cloud not the spark with poison."
• The Seven Shining Tenets
  • 4th Tenet: "The Beam is only seen by the Anointed; the sacred glyphs shimmer only to the family of flame."
  • "Seek out the dim soul, the shadow, the demon, and snuff it out like a dying ember."
• Doctrine, Fifth Book
  • Verse 41: "Bind your body to the beam. Indecency and harm of form distorts frequency. Maintain the vessel that channels the Light."
• Doctrine, Sixth Book
  • Verse 23: "Raise no hand in anger lest the Beam recoil."
• The Spectral Codex
  • Law of Echo: "What you radiate returns. Anger, envy, cruelty, all emit dim waves. But what you beam, you become."
• Unknown: "The honest path is the best. Take nothing unoffered, but a gift is radiant."

Quotations

• Photarch Yanessa Halovar: 70 years ago, a bunch of lunatics and idiots stood up to kill the gods. Now, the gods died, so maybe they weren't gods. If you can kill them, are they gods? Seems unreasonable, but that doesn't mean that the world was ready to stop believing in something. What's more beautiful than believing in something? Nothing. So you've got to give people something to believe in.

Trivia

• The Creed's symbol is a C shape with rays coming out of it. Its formal greeting is "May the Beam reach you".
• The word "Photarch" was created from ancient greek phôs- or phôt-, meaning "light", and arkhós, "master", "ruler", "leader".
• The title of "Scion" currently held by the Photarch is meant to be inherited, with Wicander being the next in line for that position.
• Sam Riegel created and/or expanded the Candescent Creed, writing his own bible.
• Despite gods being historical figures, the fallen god of the sun, Tansul, is considered a false god according to followers of this faith.
• The Candescent Creed forbids to honor false divinity, and this is used by some of its followers to forbid others to feed fey with the traditional offerings of milk and bread.