Breton Pantheon

The Breton Cult

It is a mistake to speak of the Breton Cult, or the Cult of the Court, singularly.  Rather they are the Cults of the Court, sharing in theology and cosmology yet as fractitious as the principalities.  The Churches and Temples of the rock are highly independent from one another, delineating as bodies as often as the polities, the bishops and cardinals their own network of sovereign duchies and barons.  

Cosmology

Most of their gods are clear cognates to the gods of Cyrodiil, a fact bretons do not deny- No merchant would take offense to the insinuation that Zenne and Zenithar are one in the same.  Despite this, the bretons imagine the Et’ada not as the mothers and fathers of the world, but as its nobles, the ancestor worship of the ancient Aldmer who once reigned over them mutated and bastardized in the mouths of their serfs, evolving from worship of the ancestors of one’s betters to the worship of one’s betters, the lords our gods.  In Breton Theology, Oriel reigns as a King, a Suzerain, the et’ada his Courtiers, his realm an all-encompassing World-Kingdom known as the Mondagne.  These courtiers are not the realm’s creators, but rather its custodians, for it was made by the disastrous and insidious schemes of Sheor in an act known as Catastrophe, sundering it from a greater, eternal, immortal kingdom known as the Triune Royaume.  This can be read about here.  Their vigil over their mortal followers is a selfless sacrifice, denying themselves the comfort of eternity in the Kingdom of Color and Creation, Etheria, what remains of the Triune Royaume.  They endure this intolerable discomfort for our sake: as long as they rule over us, they may impose natural law, holding back the Maelstrom that besot the first damned to this world and instead enveloping us in warmth, in pleasantry, in provision.  It is by their rule that taste is more than ash, that heat and cold can provide succor and not just pain, and that heart-swelling beauty can be found in the world.  These laws echo Etheria, which is eternal, and scintillating, an ample kingdom of plenty and bright light, free of decay, free of failure, limitless and ever-providing.  It is a land where all may give another everything to their name and return to greater treasure than before.  

In the Mundus Bretons see a terror, the Ghost of Sheor haunting the world with the ever present probability of failure, of decay.  Nothing lasts forever and it is by his cackling laugh that it does not, his spirit lurking within every grain and mote and beckoning forth mold, rot, rust, and ache, challenging inertia to slow against the friction of entropy, for all walls to crumble and all endeavors to falter and die.  This is the reality we must live with as long as we live in the world.  And yet, despite this seemingly negative perception of mortality, they are without the Altmer’s existential ennui, and deeply in love with this existence- even if they don’t realize it.  To them, the world’s faults are not of the world- they are of Sheor, and when they imagine pre-existence it is not a deep, slumbering, pre-conscious intimacy within incomprehensible perfections, the dancing aspects of Anu, but rather simply the world, as is, but more.  With plenty.  With peace.  Free of the limiting principle of the probability of failure.  Existence, to Bretons, is a learning experience, by which we may reach a limitless heaven that provides for all, at the foot of a distant king, after a long and arduous sojourn.  The ideal world, in their eyes, despite their wailing and dirges, is not so very different from this one.

History

The shared beliefs of the Cults are a vestige of their heritage, their inception lying thousands of years ago in the sixth and seventh centuries of the 1st Era.  During the time of the hegemony and during the beginning of Manmeri rule, the descendant element of the old Galenic Druids were shamanistic orders, intermediaries between men, manmeri, and the gods.  Their understanding of the gods was formed by the rapid changing of hands between Altmer and Nord rulers, both of whom impressed their own faiths and understanding of existence upon them.  Their beliefs featured half understood mutations of both, combining the gods not in a planned adoption like Alessia’s eight, but in more of a struggled understanding.  The Direnni attempted to expunge the nordic elements, but were unsuccessful.  They came to the conclusion that the manmeri faith and their bizarre assumptions were irrelevant as long as they were subservient, and that it only mattered that they understood the basics.  It was more important to focus their energy on fighting off the remaining nords and reuniting the Altmer under a hegemony, and attempting to destroy the manmeri shamanism would only risk internal revolts.  They placed their focus on teaching them the elven notions of convention, the accomplishments of Altmeri ancestral deities, and the evil of Lorkhan.  The end result was a loose pantheon of Aldmer and Nordic gods, similar to Alessia’s pantheon with the exclusion of a dragon god, the inclusion of Oriel, and the inclusions of odd Altmer deities like Jephre, Phynaster, and minor cults to individuals like Syrabane and Iric.  

The shamanistic faiths of these gods continued in the Direnni’s absence, but would soon come under the designs of the Manmeri lords.  The shamanistic orders had active traditions of maintaining half remembered poetic records of their history, and the histories of the gods, forming collections of poetic cycles.  Fairly early on into their reigns, the opportunistic Manmeri took a vested interest in making sure future opportunists would not be able to dethrone them so easily.  Much of this interest became focused on the orders and their collections.  Through commission, patronage, and other donated support, they nudged the half understood nordo-meri stories of convention, divines, and mythologized Nedic history to a depiction of the hierarchies they had formed matching the hierarchies of divine existence above them.   This was not done through any one movement, or through a conspiracy, but out of the lord’s own independent self interests all coming together at the same time.  And so the most prominent element of Breton faith became apparent within the poetic liturgy of the shamanistic orders:  As Above, So Below.  Our god is a king of a Divine Court, and our lords are their courtiers.  Every lord made the claim of being the vassals of the divine, and so it became understood that by extension, lordship inherently places you under the divine, and that even in sovereignty, we are all subservient to the kingdom of the world, Mondagne, ruled over by Oriel.  Over a century this became more and more recognizable in the Iliac, as cyclical poetic canons devised by shamanistic scribes employed by petty hill kings were passed between orders, each adding their own touch to the dozens of grand cycles in the bay, every cycle read aloud in excerpts to crowds of Nedes and Manmeri, telling them of the kingdoms above and the followers of those kingdoms in their antiquity.  By the end of the century, it would be recognizable as true Divine Courtism, with the majority of bretons believing their lords were vassals to a heavenly king- a lie the lords themselves believed to be true.

In the late 7th Century of the 1st Era, Daggerfall, already the pre-eminent power of the Bay under King Thagore, direct Manmeri descendant of Raven Direnni, came to feel the pressing need for alliances to address the rising threats of the Eastern Witch-Kings, and the disruptive raids of the remaining Nord reavers in the mountains.  They found the cost of union with their petty neighbors too exhausting; all demanded some great boon or gift unworthy of their stature.  Seeing an opportunity in the young but disorganized faith of the proto-bayard people, the king plotted- As it was already accepted and reasoned within the Iliac that even in sovereignty, one’s liege was Oriel, it was concluded that if there was an established worldly representative of Oriel’s court, they would exist independently of any particular kingdom, and be an entity outside them.  So Daggerfall sponsored and called for a conference of the various shamanistic orders to meet on the isle of Cybiades.  The shamanistic orders had grown wealthy and powerful from the gifts and commissions of the nobility, and agreed to the appeal of consolidation of their authority within the bay.  At Cybiades they ironed out and solidified their disagreements regarding the structure of Divine Court.  Through these conferences, they would come to mostly agree about the positions of each courtier within the kingdom, as well as expunge regional deities like Syrabane and Iric (known locally as Sirabane and Yric) from the court, regarding them instead to be among the ranks of serving knights like Sir Rombar and Sir Tristaine and Sir Grisgolais (half remembered cultural heroes of the pre-hegemony age).  Thus the foundational churches of the Divine Court were formed, and marked the true beginning of organized Breton religion.  Daggerfall became the shadowy puppeteer of this Cult of the Court, and would use it as an instrument of their will, leading crusades against the Witch Kings of the East, and the remnant strongholds of the Transwrothgarian Nords.

This strong central faith lasted for two hundred years, and saw the conquest of the Wrothgars, the collapse of the Witch Kings within the Bjoulsae, and the collapse of the Reachman Kingdom of Baolach, all of which opened up long beleaguered eastern high rock to a Bayard Colonization.  It would be broken, however, by the arrival of the Warrior Wave, which swept across the early kingdoms of the South Iliac rapidly and unimpeded, no matter what forces were braced against them.  The act shattered the hierarchy of the Church of the Court and broke the unified spirit of the early bayards, as the Church’s own principality of Cybiades and palace of Cauchy, known to the Ra’gada as Kosh, was located there, where it was razed to the ground and its treasures looted by the wave.  In the immediate aftermath the faith splintered, its status as a column of Breton society evaporating.  

• The drift of the transwrothgarian crusader princes and their reintegration of nordic perceptions of Shor leading to the montagnard myth of the sympathetic sheor
• The arrival of Hestra and Imperial influence- the Introduction of Akatosh, loose adoption of cyrodiilic mythohistory into the poetic cycles, knights and lords and ladies like Belhardt, Ales, Morris, Pelinaud

It has never recovered since- in the thousands of years to come, it’s continued evolution and the influence of the Imperials upon the shape of its gods, it has remained a secondary facet of breton society, supported not by the upkeep of the nobility but by services and goods provided, the relationship between bretons and their gods highly mercantile and owing to the patronage of one’s craft.  They are as factional and fractitious as the Breton fiefdom, and while in agreement in broad strokes, their individual practices, traditions, and holidays are entirely localized, every kingdom host to its own array of storied Knights, Lords, and Ladies.  They compete and feud and struggle against one another for the attention of the people, and the clergy exert as much energy bickering and politicking as they do addressing spiritual needs.

Liturgy

Breton Liturgy and Folk Spirituality takes the shape of poetic cycles, revolving around tales of the gallantry and exploits of both the Courtiers themselves and dedicated mortal followers and heroes.  Much of these stories are mutations and warpings of old Nedic myth as well as Elven influences, rendered down to themes and symbols that have been forgotten and reimagined and retold so many times that the thing being written of the gods and ancient heroes is not a written retelling of the story, but a written retelling of the retelling someone else told. The result is vast collections of stories surrounding a more or less fluid canon that has been written often hundreds and hundreds of years apart, with recycled and embellished and dissected themes all dating back to a now untraceable root, littered with repeated themes, sub-cycles, ideas broken across many segments, entries that seem to lack consistent flow with the other parts of the story chronologically, characters who just sort of show up because when it was written they were a fully known idea, characters who sort of disappear because they weren't relevant to the authors of the time anymore, and symbolism built out of dead imagery from an ancient and no longer practiced form of the culture. Entities, items, places, heroes, events, all rewritten out of an ancient and old mythology, revised to be relevant to the new order and faith, tribal champions renamed and dressed in the armor of a knight and sat at an arthurian table, made virtuous towards gods that were never theirs.  These Lords and Ladies and Holy Knights are always presented in a strangely contemporary light- When Bretons imagine the early first era, they can’t help but see men in Full Plate.  And oddly enough, this too applies to the Dawn- in clear and ever-present contradiction, leal knights ride in the name of the lords, their concerns oddly mortal.  These stories serve multiple purposes, both pure and cynical; they serve to teach by example, displaying the strength of character and righteousness and loyalty to the Court and its principles required to make the Sojourn across the Wasteland to Etheria.  But they also serve to reinforce the entrenched social mores of High Rock, depicting the hierarchies and nobility as sacred, decrying infidelity to one’s prince as the greatest depth of sin.  And yet many more seem to serve no purpose at all, aimless tales of adventure and questing, as knights in gleaming, painted mail gallivant in pursuit of treasures and the slaying of beasts.

Beliefs and Practices

Bretons, for the most part (with the exception of the Ostern, with their Cult of Stars), are highly irreligious, their relationship to their faith and their gods approximating something closer to a body of folklore and chivalrous poetry with a temple attached, than to devotion to any holy truths.  They are almost completely unconcerned with the mysteries of their gods or to the worship and honoring of the whole set, preferring to engage with the court only as it pertains to their own needs and per their Lord’s patronage.  They are aware of Oriel as their World-King, and yet he is entirely irrelevant to the traditions and practices of the average peasant.  The Breton prays only when in need and only as to their needs, coming to their patron Lords as petitioners.  They use their gods as characters within their stories, and their stories and literature often fall under the purview of religious text only because they share and explore that broad canon.  See King Edward, an otherwise loathsome text that still serves as an example of breton misunderstanding, and observe how the et’ada participate within the text as though it was entirely natural for them to step into mortality.  Sometimes a story begins within their court and within their entourages, sometimes mortal knights and kings entreat with them personally, and sometimes they debate from the sidelines, observing the happenings of the tale as though they were the chorus.  

The Bretons assign patronages to each god, each tied to their role within the court and to the natural law they impose upon the world’s chaos.  For example, Zenne, who serves Oriel as Steward, bears the patronages of Steward, Merchant, and Condottiere, and imposes the natural law of Compensation, that effort and labor may yield fruit.  In these regards he is the god of mercenaries, of merchants and tradesmen, of bankers, of craftsmen, of landowning farmers, of majordomos, of stewards, and of bureaucrats, and he is singularly important to them and their needs.

Breton temples and chapels justify their existence by the services they provide, and it is helpful to imagine them as they actually are: as publishing and printing houses, as schools, and the as employment of enchanters, conjurers, healers, and alchemists.  The Resolutions of Zenne are banks and investment houses, The Temples of Estenne courthouses and schools of law.  Etc. etc. etc.  

Breton’s believe that the ultimate purpose of the divine custody of the world is to facilitate the incremental exodus of mortals from the Mondagne to Etheria through the Wastelands, a perilous journey performed upon death called the Sojourn.  Failure to complete it results in souls tumbling back to mortality.  Success requires absolute Fidelity to the court and its lessons, to hold to the virtue of thy Lords, and even then it is not guaranteed.  Thus the souls of mortals are endlessly reincarnated, only the rarest and most virtuous few every generation (usually whichever kings and knights and merchant princes are currently in vogue to celebrate the legacy of) escaping to the kingdom of color and creation, in a cycle of medieval-illuminated-manuscript samsara.

Temples, Monasteries, Chapels, and Hermitages

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The Court

The Court is as follows:

Oriel, The King.

The King of Kings, Liege of all Sovereigns, who is oft depicted as an elven-blooded prince with skin softly golden, garbed in mail of shimmering blue steel and pearly elven moonstone, with a crown studded wealthily with tourmaline, or quartz, or tiger-eye. The god of nobility, kings, courts, order, hierarchies, and regal might, he is the King of 'Mondagne' (The Mundus) and one of the three Old Kings, alongside Magnon and Bad Sheor. It is Oriel who rescued the world from Sheor after Sheor deceivingly sundered it from eternity, and it is Oriel who has ruled over the world since. Among commoners his worship is fairly passive, his rituals few outside of select holidays. The 'cult' of Oriel is the cult of the royal folk- lords and knights and kings, and those of powerful hierarchies. The pantheon of the bretons is a court, and the world is a high kingdom; mortal kings are vassals to the High King Oriel. Even the emperor is seen as below him, at best seen as an honored embodiment, but otherwise seen as just another servant of the Gleaming King. Regardless of favored divine, ceremonies honoring their great liege are a common aspect of noble worship, and he is frequently in their prayers on matters of good ruling. For the common folk, service to one's lord is quite enough to honor him, and it is under Oriel that the social traditions of the High Rock are in fact sacred. His connection to dragons is a late first era addition, a product of the impressing of Imperial Akatosh on his peer, an aspect that varies from dragons being his servants, to himself being dragonblood of a sort, to being the rider of a great feathered golden drake, which he rides in lieu of a horse, soaring through the heavens far above his kingdom.

Aquetoche the Dragon

The invincible time-dragon of the Imperials, unstoppable and insurmountable as the march of time. He entered into Breton veneration in the old days of Hestra, and over time would grow and cement into their worship with every passing empire. The dragon's worship is not universal however, and varies by principality.  Among the Boullards he is the favorite, the common man’s champion.  While Oriel is god of nobles, he has no place in the Boullard peasant’s heart, for they prefer the dragon’s wings. In most places where he is known, he is seen as either a second part of Oriel, or as a companion and ally to Oriel. In either instance, where Oriel is a deity of the rulers, Aquetoche holds significant popularity among the Breton middle class as a protecting deity, the southern dragon's fires lending him a reputation as warden against the outer wastes and their temptations, and against the tempestuousness of misrule.

Knights, lords, ladies, etc. - Belhardt, Benfry, Boledoc, Boson, Eleidon, Fernand, Greland, Grisgolais, Mauderic, Merovee, Morris, Morain, Nacrice, Odemar, Pelinaud, Ridon, Rombar, Sarrence, Savin, Sirabane, Tesselac, Tristaine, Yric

Ales, Bonne, Ered, Geabald, Granne, Gwendomar, Jesenne, Lynaswinthe, Menefred, Nessey, Ouenne, Pevellion, Ravenne, Tysera, Valtrude

The Breton Creation Myth

Auld King Ald/Old King Ald/Ald King Ald and the Duchy Amberique

In the beginning there is Old King Ald, who is and is undisputed, who has no beginning to mark his entry into existence.  As early as there was a kingdom, there was Old King Ald, and there was such a time that the kingdom may have been Old King Ald.  Sometimes Ald conquers a churning maelstrom of all-this-and-more-at-once to form Amberique.  Other times, it is irrelevant, as Ald always was.  Old King Ald ruled a principality of dim amber light and murky glass called The Duchy Amberique, and it was a state (in both the nature as a polity and a state of being) of perpetuity and stasis.  Old King Ald is hard to describe and rarely actually appears; he is mostly alluded to in the background of events that led to the primary conflict of Breton mythos, ruling an antiquated aspect of existence where nothing happened, but there was potential for something to happen.  He ruled this state of being until, very simply, he decided to leave, and passed the Duchy Amberique onto his three children, Oriel, Sheor, and Magnon.  Old King Ald is vaguely anuic, but comparing him fully to Anu is just about useless; his mythos and history is mired in nonsensical inventions of poets and scribes, placing his name and legacy upon various mystic swords and mountains and declaring him to be the great grand uncle of so many heroes who even discounting timelessness would have had vast gulfs of millenia between themselves and Ald.  Padomay, it should be noted, is nearly absent, outside of occasional references to a queen from whom Sheor’s cruelty was inherited in a few stories.  Padomay exists in a non religious context in the work of scholars and mages, but among common folk stories and theocracy, they do not have a presence.  

The Triune Royaume

Upon leaving, The Duchy Amberique passed to the three sons of Old King Ald.  They ruled it together, convening in council in between sequestering to their individual corners.  There is a distinct transformation from a land of ineffable almost dreamlike stasis to a land of vast potential and inexhaustible energies, but the transformation is never described- it just is.  Before passing the kingdom on, it is the land of dull light and murky glass.  After, it is a land of scintillating color and endless creation.  There is peace under the good rule of the three kings, for countless ages, and this period is the setting of more than a few myths and legends and cycles that inexplicably feature a world bound by very modern and human conceptions of paradise, despite many of those factors (ample food for instance) only becoming relevant after the sundering.  This prosperity is violated by Sheor.  The exact reason varies per interpretation.  The Ostern and the Bayards portray him as foul and corrupt from the beginning, working under the noses of his peers and in betrayal of Ald’s legacy out of self serving greed and a suicidal kind of spite, always evil and always mad, a traitor and a liar to boot.  The Norman depict him as afflicted with a tragic madness, and depict him as being once noble, and once pure, and that his actions were brought about by a plan gone awry, and the suffering upon himself and others, as well as the clear failure within the plan, brought him to ruin and hate, unable to cope with the crimes he committed in pursuit of good.  Regardless of the reason, Sheor one day stabs his peers in the back by sundering and splitting the Triune Royaume, and collapsing an unquantifiable portion (though often described as either being a third or two thirds by poets) of eternity from it’s greater body.  This tumbling tumultuous collapse is Catastrophe, and the Bretons quite literally depict an entire portion of heaven breaking off and tumbling inwards towards a center that expands existence outward away from it, away from infinity, the edges clawing and scarring at existence, leaving the Wastelands in the wake of its wounds, until it slams into the center with a great and terrible crash, shattering all laws.  How did Sheor do this?  It is most commonly depicted as deception.  In some way or another he convinced his peers and courtiers to allow him access to something vital, and he shattered infinity with their assistance.  In the Norman depiction his accomplices were not tricked, but very rapidly realized the mistakes that were made, even as Sheor held the course, unable to bear the reality of the harm he had caused.

Sundered Infinity

Upon the law-shattering collision with the center, all laws that held existence to be immutable, eternal, and full of potential broke, and being became unsustainable and unbearable.  That which had a form no longer had one.  That which danced found itself to tire, collapse, and die.  Most trapped within the broken piece did not survive the collision and immediately disbanded into tesselating shapes, animal forms, and notes of music.  Those that survived found that they lived for mere seconds before encountering a wretched thing called death, and their honey and fruits became sand the moment it passed their lips.  A thing they called bones ached, and they all would have become still and exhausted had one of them not taught the others how to be born (Archei), a wretched and horrible process that brought pain on another for the paltry chance to exist refreshed, a sacrifice that was accepted to keep each other from becoming dreadfully, dreadfully still.  In most accounts, Sheor revels in this- for these, decay, death, and failure, were his secret natures.  He cannot stand the greater unity, the overwhelming law, and must break it and create his own, mired in limitations and failure.  Ignore the obvious irony of factional and splintering bretons demonizing the behavior of going off from the existing kingdom to make your own kingdom.  In the Norman account, he stared out across the pain and panic, all his fault, and was broken by it, and convinced himself that this was simply a necessary step to achieve perfection, a beautiful burden to be weathered to become more.  

At some point Oriel can bear his brother's crimes no longer and rides out with a loyal host.  It is unclear when exactly this occurs- the legends and stories that take place within it are indistinct and uncertain whether he rode out before, after, or whether his domain was part of what was sundered, or even whether he was part of those enraptured by the deception- this is both a result of the dawns timelessness, and the lack of scholarly cooperation by the many poets and theologists who documented and penned the cycles and chansons that account for creation in Breton terms.  Magnon, the eldest brother, sees wisdom in waiting, and reinforcing what remains of infinity.  He closes his gates to Oriel and the Sundered, and forbids his starry host and the courts of constellations from taking part in the war below, reducing the Triune Royaume to Etheria, Magnon’s kingdom of color and creation.  Many disobey him, craven spectra seeking greedy opportunities in the lawless Wasteland created by the scar in infinity, following Sheor’s example to create a multitude of their own fractional kingdoms regardless of the inhospitality of the wastes, cutting off their own noses just to spite being ruled by another.  They are the Wild-Kings.  The rest of Magnon’s knights, ladies, and dukes abide by his command, and Etheria becomes shut against the world for the duration of the war.  A note: Among the Norman and the Bayards, Meredie is just another Wild King, disobeying Magnon for selfish reasons.  Among the Ostern and the cult of stars, Meredie is a tragic hero, who committed the evil of pride, disobeying Magnon not out of self interest but out of confidence in their capacity to bring resolution to the decays that plagued Sheor’s victims.  She failed, losing her horse and the knights that came with her, and as law necessitates and as Magnon promised would happen, she was exiled.  So she created a bulwark in the Wastelands out of burning prismatic light, woven into a castle of many colors, from which she watches over the Wild King’s indiscretions, and quests.  Another note: Note Magnon’s lack of injury and early sit out.  Sometimes Magnon gains this injury in the process of the deception.  But a lot of the time this aspect is entirely ignored.  

Oriel rides down from heaven into the chaos that is the new being and fights a most long and terrible war against Sheor.  In this state of nothing-so-true and dust to dust the battles carve the very world, the marching footsteps of armies make valleys, mass graves dug make caves, the blood spilled forms oceans.  It isn’t very often mentioned, but it should be noted that by breton beliefs, men are descended from those who were either loyal to Sheor, or conscripted by him- while elves are descended from those who either raised Oriel’s banner in revolt to Sheor’s misrule, or the retinues who followed Oriel in.  The details of the war are arduous, and a story we’ve all heard before.  Blades clash against blades, there is much death and chaos.  It is a hard won fight.  But the minions/slaves of Sheor are beaten back, and Sheor is shackled and marched to Oriel’s chateau, where after a brief and decisive trial, he is rightfully executed- specifically by Trinimaque, Oriel’s general, who would later betray Oriel himself.  

Unfortunately, his ghost remains: this new and terrible land was always his aspect, as mentioned before.  Sheor, lawfully put to death for his infidelity and irredeemable evils, remains in this world as an inexorable spirit, a thing that is terribly and horrendously vital to this existence, a greedy shade of entropy, failure, and decay.  He is the creak in the knee, the failure of crops, the rusting of tools, the pungence of the body, the fault in all plans, and the putrescence of food.  He is the very concept that an endeavor can fail.  That such a thing cannot be purged no matter the law both mortal or divine within this world is his most lasting taint, and the presence of his ghost.  

With Sheor executed the remaining nobility who followed him (often depicted at this point as being either held hostage or simply righteously maintaining fidelity to their liege, even as it brought them great woe) are given the opportunity to submit to Oriel and, upon unanimously doing so, are forgiven, and they are united with Oriel’s court.  Who exactly changed hands with this is not universal and differs with the ever factional divisions of kingdoms.  There are some common trends: for example, the Norman see Kynaree as Sheor’s wife, who inherits Sheor’s claim on the broken world and then marries Oriel.  Archei is nearly universally depicted as part of Sheor’s court, if only because Sheor appointed him and raised him from the rabble, but he serves Oriel or Kynaree without dispute.  Ultimately, who was with who is irrelevant: You’ll never be able to get Bretons to agree on it, and the court was reunited anyways.  Plus, dawn nonsense.

The Mondagne

Though Sheor’s death was a key step towards existential peace, it resolved nothing, especially with the perverse presence of his ghost, which denies the possibility of simply reuniting this matter with heaven.  The inhabitants could not be evacuated, and if abandoned would suffer as they did before the war, dying rapidly and dropping anything they attempted to hold.  It was decided, in a meeting between Oriel and his courtiers, that they would take it upon themselves the burden of staying behind, for the benefit of the lesser multitude trapped in Sheor’s abomination.  This is thought of as a tremendous sacrifice on their part, as, even elevated as they were, this meant subjecting themselves to limitations, and denying themselves the splendor of eternity.  They brought Oriel’s kingdom to the center (or perhaps, it was already there, having been fooled by Sheor; it all depends on interpretation and local flavor) and set it into the sky, between earth and heaven, between the broken piece and the Wastelands between here and Etheria, arranging his realm into a series of estates known as the Palais Planaires (hue hue Palais Plan(et)aires, or alternatively, Plan(et)ar(y) Palaces), from which he and his court would arbitrate and take custody of the earth below.  They began writing laws to replace what was lost from heaven, and those laws brought structure to being.  Lifespans elongated, decay was withheld, rules were set upon rot.  The metamorphic ground cooled and became stable.  Under laws penned by Dibella and Kyne the tempestuous rage of the chaotic indecipherable environs became nature, tamed with effort, and subject to fury, but endurable and in fact beautiful.  And after negotiations with Magnon, who had resisted all contact and turned his nose up on involvement with the conflict at the center, holes were opened in Etheria’s walls, the border forts of the Knightly Constellationary orders, a window to Magnon’s very own realm, and from it flowed Magnon’s raiment, samite and blue, carrying Etheria’s dew, the essence of that land’s potentia, and with it, Magnon’s boon to trapped mortals: magic.  This also brought his second great boon, the day, illuminating the cold shadows that had dominated the world.  

Archei, who had first taught his fellows among the maelstrom how to be born, was also the first to observe not just how to die, but how to die well: he watched, as instead of turning back into the chaos to claw for new life, the freshly shed spirit turned with trepidation towards the Wastelands… and marched, ears shut to the whispers and cackles of Wild Kings and the evils it had learned from Sheor’s ghost.. All the way to Magnon’s door.  And so the purpose of their custody was established: this realm was a pit, deep and low, of suffering and loss.  It’s people could be born again into it to avoid the cold darkness it forced upon them, but everytime they would lose themselves, and every time they would only subject themselves to more hardship and pain and hunger.  But there was a way out.  A dangerous way out, a terrible journey.  But it could be done, and one could be prepared with the tools to overcome it.  Their kingdom would provide the trapped souls with the lessons, taught by the court to their selected vassals and taught by those vassals to the common man, needed to make the exodus across the wastes, to rejoin Etheria, and Infinity, and Creation, at the foot of Magnon, where they would hunger no longer.  With purpose in mind and nobility of their rule solidified, Oriel named this kingdom of the aching earth and the Palais Planaires: Mondagne, or in other dialects, Mundany.

Ostern Unorthodoxy, Or: The Cult of Stars

The Ostern Unorthodoxy, viewed by Bayards generously as a peculiar backwater cult and not so generously as complete nonsense, tells a version of creation where Magnon’s reasons for refusing involvement are better elaborated.  In the faiths of the Bayards and the Norman, Magnon is marked as one unworthy of being the king of the beleaguered folk due to his refusal to help at his own expense.  His realm is the destination- but this is not because Magnon rules it, but because it remains perfect and infinite.  One day, when the last soul departs Mondagne, the long evacuation of its damnation complete, Oriel’s court will leave for heaven and Magnon and Oriel will rule as a diarchy, and Magnon will have made up for his misrule in abandoning Sheor’s victims.  

However, in the Ostern unorthodoxy, Magnon has the reason of abstaining not because he refuses the exertion, but because Oriel is untrustworthy and his reasons ingenuine- The Ostern Oriel does not seek to free those trapped in Sheor’s prison, but to lord over the weak and the suffering with laws of his own creation, just like Sheor sought to, with the exception of his debilitating madness and questionable goals.  Magnon saw the war over Sundered Infinity not as a righteous conflict, but as a base and corrupt power struggle.  And so rather than risk either parties ire, and draw out the suffering of mortals, he shut his kingdom off, and forbade his courtiers involvement.  (The story of Meredie’s exile, seen as tragic by the Ostern, has already been mentioned.)

Upon the ending of the war, Magnon reached out to Oriel’s court and began the work of easing their subjects pain- first he gifted them magic.  Then he gifted them the day.  And last, he gifted them amnesty.  Magnon would exist in a state of uneasy peace with Oriel, watching constantly, and observing as the very same madness of Sheor set within him.  As the dementia grew, Oriel one day fell ill, and the palace of god became empty.  The laws disintegrated, and mortals became lost and terrified.  We became unable to tell our children from our parents.  Despite this, with the removal of Oriel’s law, the law of seconds, the light of heaven became closer in a way unmeasurable with time or distance, the soul of the world becoming something more akin to the soul of united heaven.  But we could not enjoy this, as the haunting of Sheor’s ghost had marked us all, and as mortals we knew not how to swim through potential unrestrained, and we became lost in death without direction.  Magnon realized Oriel could not fulfill his proclaimed duties, and never could.  He concluded that the premise was flawed- Oriel could not be trusted to shepherd Mondagne’s people back to Etheria, but in the absence of Oriel’s law Mondagne could be made something like heaven, if only mortals knew how to breathe its air.  So he invited a mortal man to speak with his court, sending his daughter to sing upon the mountains.  This man strode forth from that seafoam world, and sat at the table of heaven.  He returned Knighted and Anointed, and was crowned by Magnon Mondagne’s rightful king.  Across thousands of years he erected a kingdom of the whole of High Rock in days, and shut its gates against the tempestuous Rock to teach its inhabitants how to survive the lawlessness of Oriel's decay under the law of Magnon, and he did so from his capital of Evermore, Forevermore, until the Starry Age closed with Oriel's waking, and he made the promise on his deathbed that he will be there, when Oriel falls ill once more, waiting for them in the once and future kingdom.  The Ostern mythos of the starry kingdom revolves around this knowledge that Oriel, unreliable and deceitful, will fail to madness eventually once again, and that when he does, they will return to Magnon's starry age, guided by The King of Stars, their once and future king.  In the meantime they praise his name, they watch the stars and their portents, and bow to Magnon as their rightful and watchful king of kings.  A king of Stars awaits us, perpendicular to the now.

The Bayards and Normans view this interpretation to be utter nonsense, a strange delusion of the barren backwaters.  A number of holes exist within it: for one their ‘starry age’ is none other than the period of poorly recorded history in the mid first era that itself is a result of the compounding damages of the War of Righteousness and the Interregnum.  Another is the complete lack of archaeological record that there was ever a King of all High Rock, an extremely fanciful concept on its own.  The one and only unaccounted for piece of information is Evermore’s transformation going into this period of history as an arrangement of farmsteads and huts, to being a major city and eastern hub.  But even that can be explained so much more adequately by conventional means.  The Cult of Stars is a mystery cult, the nature of The King of Stars and his revelations elucidated only to its arcanocrat nobles, who seek to follow his footsteps.  They are currently in disarray; The Warp in the West was of great interest to them, and was both an opportunity to perform many experiments that had once dwelled only in theory.  They have since divided into two blocs: a faction which believes it is not our place to accelerate the end’s coming… and a faction which believes mortal man may have a role in building the Kingdom to Come.

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Courtiers:

Oriel the King also known as Orel, Oral, Orhel, Oriell, Oriol, Orielle, Orias, Ory, Oric, Orich, and Orick parallel and cognate to Imperial Akatosh and Altmeri Auri-El

The King of Kings, Liege of all Sovereigns, who is oft depicted as an elven-blooded prince with skin softly golden, garbed in mail of shimmering blue steel and pearly elven moonstone, with a crown studded wealthily with tourmaline, or quartz, or tiger-eye. The god of nobility, kings, courts, order, hierarchies, and regal might, he is the King of 'Mondagne' (The Mundus) and one of the three Old Kings, alongside Magnon and Bad Sheor. It is Oriel who rescued the world from Sheor after Sheor deceivingly sundered it from eternity, and it is Oriel who has ruled over the world since. Among commoners his worship is fairly passive, his rituals few outside of select holidays. The 'cult' of Oriel is the cult of the royal folk- lords and knights and kings, and those of powerful hierarchies. The pantheon of the bretons is a court, and the world is a high kingdom; mortal kings are vassals to the High King Oriel. Even the emperor is seen as below him, at best seen as an honored embodiment, but otherwise seen as just another servant of the Gleaming King. Regardless of favored divine, ceremonies honoring their great liege are a common aspect of noble worship, and he is frequently in their prayers on matters of good ruling. For the common folk, service to one's lord is quite enough to honor him, and it is under Oriel that the social traditions of the High Rock are in fact sacred. His connection to dragons is a late first era addition, a product of the impressing of Imperial Akatosh on his peer, an aspect that varies from dragons being his servants, to himself being dragonblood of a sort, to being the rider of a great feathered golden drake, which he rides in lieu of a horse, soaring through the heavens far above his kingdom. Like most of the breton gods with an imperial counterpart, he is seen as an acceptable derivation of Akatosh by the canon of the greater Imperial Temple, an embodiment taken by the great dragon in his interaction with the Bretons. The Breton who worships him, however, would likely say the opposite to be true.

Akatosh the Dragon also known Aquetoche and Tosh imperial loan-god

The invincible time-dragon of the Imperials, unstoppable and insurmountable as the march of time. He entered into Breton veneration in the old days of Hestra, and over time would grow and cement into their worship with every passing empire. The dragon's worship is not universal however, and varies by principality. In a rare few, most notably within the city of Wayrest, he is above or even wholly replacing Oriel as master of the pantheon and the Mundus. In most places where he is known though, he is seen as either a second part of Oriel, or as a companion and ally to Oriel. In either instance, where Oriel is a deity of the rulers, Akatosh holds significant popularity among the Breton middle class as a protecting deity, the southern dragon's fires lending him a reputation as warden against the outer wastes and their temptations.

Kynaree the Marshall also known as Cynaree, Cyneree, Kyne, Cyne, Cine, Cynareth, Kynareth, and Cynarete parallel and cognate to Nordic Kyne and Imperial Kynareth

The Divine Marshall Kynaree is fairly culturally divisive as to her importance among the Bretons; Throughout the rock, it is commonly established that she is Oriel's Marshall and highest general, his trusted commander in times of war. But war gods are in high saturation in the Rock, and Oriel, Reymond, and Talos all fill the role of a mighty sword very comfortably. In the more elven parts of High Rock, she is often passed over in prayers in this regard, and her other aspects are focused on. On top of her responsibilities in war, she is known to the Bretons as the Falconer, the Gardener, and the Huntress, all stemming from the far more nature oriented Kynareth known to the imperials. By commoners and nobility alike her name is prayed to in preparation of the hunt, and hers is the power and grace of wind, upon which she soars like a falcon, or like an arrow. Additionally there is her aspect of the storm, and it is to her that the rains are attributed, giving her a connotation of both providing, and of fury. It is in this aspect that she receives the prayers and petty rituals of sailors, who urge her fury to calm so a storm does not brew, while simultaneously requesting strong winds from their lady to carry them swiftly to the next port. To the Breto-nordics, the focus of her roles is inverted. Among them, she is often the primary god of war, a dual strategist and swordswoman, who wields any sword with heaving power and flowing grace. A rare few sects of Breto-Nords even venerate Kynaree as being the head of the pantheon, a mighty queen, thundering and clashing with the shriek of a hawk. She is also commonly across the rock depicted as the wife of Oriel, though sometimes Marie or Dibelle supplant her in this role. Also common is the depiction of her first marriage being to Sheor, and his deceiving of her towards his goals is a subject of tragic focus within the cycles of Breton religious texts.

Jeffre the Troubadour also known as Jephre, Jephree, Jephrey, Jeffree, Jeffrey, Jaufre, Jaufree, Jaufrey, Geoffre, Geoffree, and Geoffrey parallel and cognate to Altmer Jephre

Jeffre the Troubadour is a deity simultaneously well loved but little revered in breton society. Few devote to his cult, though the image and stories of him are adored. He is the god of song and of stories and to a certain extent inspiration in nature, the troubadour of Oriel's court, and the patron of performers, be they a troubadour, minstrel, performer of plays, or even a fool. These domains are part of his weakness; it puts his worship in competition with the far more generally popular Dibelle, who is also commonly presented as their patron. He is jovial and warm hearted, and most stories of him describe very simple things- walks through forests, conversations with streams, gallivanting the countryside, all with an air of lyricism, a nonsensical playful wit, and an adoration for what he experiences. One of the most important stories told of him in song is that of the first song he penned for Oriel's court; a song in which he gave everything that exists the first name it ever had. From a logical perspective he is a mutation of the Altmer Jephre with the skaldic traditions of Nords, fit into a niche but beloved position of jovial song in Breton society. It is worth noting that among the druids and distantly rural bretons a far different Jeffre exists. A more primordial figure, akin to Bosmer Y'ffre, a god of the natural world.

Julien the Scholar also known as Julian, Jules, Julius, June, Junal, Junel, Jan, Jon, and Jun parallel and cognate to Nordic Jhunal and Imperial Julianos

Julien is the Scholar, the Court Historian, the Tutor, the Polymath and the Apprentice. Often the former apprentice of Magnus before he served Oriel in his new kingdom, he is twofold the teacher and the student, and in this embodies the Breton tradition of the sharing of knowledge being a relationship between a learned master and the learner of his arts. His domains are the natural sciences, mathematics, scholarship, philosophy, histories, practical magic, and the teaching and learning of all these things. It is interesting to note that in contrast to the Nordic Jhunal and the Imperial Julianos, magic is not his most important field. In a land where spells and their arts are common, his other facets become far more notable. His is the cult of academics, his name revered most by architects and engineers, philosophers, historians, scholars, and mathematicians, and his temple is a place of learning- Most of the historical academies and schools of the Rock were consecrated in his name, and his Temples and chapels are also libraries. His priesthood places education as a holy tenant, and where they have the numbers they work to ensure the most basic literacy and arithmetic even among the commoners, providing greater instruction to those who provide generous donations, as well as extensive tutorship to the heirs of nobility and merchant princes. In the days before the common use of printing presses, his monks additionally were known to hand copy books and writings both religious and scholarly, though the practice is now for the most part dead. Many of his academies dissolved or were integrated with the arrival of the more Imperial Mage's Guild, especially those with a magical focus, while those of more general scholarship have persisted into the modern day in one form or another. Among the Breto-Nordics of the Rock his derivation from Jhunal becomes more apparent. Commonly known as June, he is known for quick and clever wit and for deeper understanding of the strange, encompassing practical mages as well as displacing Phynastre as the patron of more mystic orders.

Phynastre the Mage also known as Phinastre, Finastre, Fynastre, Finn, Fynn, Aster, and Astor parallel and cognate to Altmer Phynaster

--derived specifically from the scientist-researcher-adaptist flavor of hegemony phynaster. If Julien is the common every day use of magic, phynaster is the devoted wizard, the hoarder of secret knowledge, the unraveler of reality's truths, the mage in the tall tower- sometimes literally. his character of elitist practices are taken to be responsible oftentimes by those who honor his name; knowledge that takes decades to acquire and learn isn't meant for the common folk. While Julien academies educate the common man, Phynastique conclaves meet secretively, elevating their own pursuits in distrustful collaboration, each oft a genius of their respective study. The wizard in his fortress laboratory and secret schools are imagery commonly associated with those who venerate phynastre, as well as those mages and nobles of partial elven heritage who wish to make a big important deal out of it. The exclusivity and elitism of his worshipers make his cult very often a thing in name only, with few active worshipers. Different from the Direnni Phynaster cult, which is little seen outside of the isle.--

Marie the Maiden also known as Mara, Mare, Marion, Marien, Mary, Marelle, Marille, Mariel, and Marette parallel and cognate to Nordic Mara, Altmer Mara, and Imperial Mara

--extremely popular, extensive cults among both the commonfolk and the nobility (though there's quite a number who praise her name solely for the image of it), with significant shares of the rock holding her as their predominantly honored deity. A god of love and of the heart, the snow white to Dibelle's rose red. Her love is the bonds between individuals, a familial bond or the bond of marriage, and the imperially derived doctrine of the mother makes all family under her. In this she is a deity of peace and good will, of kindness and mercy, of charity and forgiveness, the equivalent to a deity of the golden rule. Where Marie as a deity derails among some worshippers from the golden rule, especially among the breto-nordics, is that those who actively do not respect the rule of good will and peace do not deserve it, and should be brought to ruin. Vindicating Maran Knights and similar orders are common and controversial and yet very frequently the subjects of folk tales (maiden rescuing knights, the knight errant who undoes a foul lord who is often of an enemy nation, etc. etc.) both on the grounds of who exactly it is that various ones might declare undeserving of Maran love (indeed there have been instances of orders accusing each other of such things), as well as those who theologically believe such mannerisms do not belong to her.--

Dibelle the Artisan also known as Dibella, Dibeau, Debelle, Belle, Bellen, and Bella

Sten the Lawman also known as Stenn, Stenne, Stend, Stent, Stendor, Esten, and Estenne

Zenne the Steward also known as Senne, Zenther, Sendor, Senther, Zenniter, Senniter, and Zenither

Archei the Ritualist also known as Arkay, Arcade, Arcady, Arceus, Archen, Arcas, Carses, Carcas, Kark, and Kirk

Reymond the Knighted also known as Ramon, Raimon, Raymon, Reymon, Remon, Ramone, Raimone, Raymone, Reymone, Remone, Ramond, Raimond, Raymond, Remond

Non-Courtiers:

Y'ffre

Meredie the Knight Questing also known as Meredy, Merydwyn, Meredeth, Meredith, Meredia, Mered, and Meryd

Magnon the Ally King also known as Magnus, Magnor, and Magnorius

Talos the Emperor also known as Tiber, Talosien, Talosse, Talus, Hjalt, Halt, Yalt

Enemy Gods:

Sheor also known as Shar, Shor, Shorn, Cheor, Sor, Sorn, Siar, Shal, Shalgor, and Challeger

Malak also known as Malach, Malaque, Malis, Mal, Mall, and Malle