D&D Next Scriptures
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Generally speaking, scriptures are a holy text of some kind. Some faiths have only a singular text, upheld as most important. Others have many of them. There are many kinds of scriptures:
- Canons: Canons are regulatory and organizational, usually bodies of law or other codes of behavior that generally indicate how one is to behave and how a church is to be run.
- Hierographs: Thorougly esoteric in their expression, hierographs are books that express central mysteries of a faith. They are often steeped in deep metaphor and often incomprehensible to those who are not initiates of that faith.
- Histories: These books detail the historical events around the founding of the church and what has happened to it since. Often filled with tales of the great works of important church figures.
- Hymnals: Songbooks dedicated to the glory of the church's deity, hymnals usually contain music sung as worship.
- Liturgicals: Prayer books and sutras, litanicals contain a variety of prayers, methods of meditation and other active rituals, usually intended for performance by the individual.
- Letters: Collections of letters written to and by important figures of the church.
- Prophecies: The recorded words of seers and prophets aligned with the church.
- Sacred Poetry/Tales: Often presented in the form of epic poetry, these texts not only tell the important tales of the faith, but also use them as teaching opportunities for the faithful.
- Sermons: The teachings of important figures - not just their thoughts on matters (those would be Testaments), but literally the lessons they taught their followers.
- Testaments: Testaments are the writings of important church figures over the year. In some testaments, they are simply priests expounding on their understandings; in others, they are believed to be relating the very words or desires of their deity.
Many scriptures are combinations of these. The Analects of the Harp are technically letters, as they are the correspondence between an ancient patriarch of Milil's faith, but they are also sacred poetry/tales, for most of the content of those letters were discussions of the deeds of Milil's heroes. It is also used as a hymnal, for many of those pieces of verse were set to music that is retained by the Mililan church.
Aurilian Scriptures
- The Codicil of White: Liturgical. A white-bound tome detailing the holy rites of Auril's priesthood, the Codicil contains the prayers taught to Auril's clerics. Additionally, because there are a handful of wizards among Auril's clergy, the Codicil is also known to contain mage spells, all detailing a variety of cold- and ice-based arcane magics within the second half of the book as well.
Deneirrath Scriptures
Tome of Universal Harmony
Hierograph. The holiest book of the Deneirrath faith, the Tome of Universal Harmony is a prime example of a divinely-powered hierograph. To an outsider reading the book, it seems merely a book filled with analects, fragmented histories and advice, portions of songs and is altogether bewildering. To the clergy of Deneir, however, reading the Tome allows them to hear the Song of Universal Harmony, the holy nuances behind the simple words on the pages before the reader, a melody sung by ancient voices.
The song is sweet and melancholy, a song of living and dying, of salvation and damnation, of power infinite and of limited matter, of sunrise and sunsets, beginnings and endings. It is sung with voices harmonizing the music of the spheres, and is a song without ending.
Readers must be careful, however, not permitting themselves to be lost in the song - many have died by becoming so, found dead lying across the open book. Those who become lost often do so seeking the Song of Deneir, the harmony that is the true essence of Deneir, hidden beneath and within the Song of Universal Harmony.
A newly initiated priest of Deneir is permitted to read the preamble of the Tome, to see if he can hear the Song itself. It is a test of the new priest's faith and rightness for the priesthood. The memory of this limited snatch of the song - called the Acolyte's Melody - is what grants young clerics access to their spells, and as they gain access to new ones, it seems to grow in their memory, unfolding like a blossom eternally. Priests are expected to occasionally return to the temples where the Tome is kept, to read it again in light of new experiences.
There are other experiences to be had in the Song of course, and there are stories of the tome granting the ability for readers to view the "auroras" of those around them (luminous displays that grant understanding of a person's emotions and personality), "prevision" (a form of prophecy) and even "affinity," the ability for the reader to shapechange into an animal that is representative of who the priest is.
There are copies of the Tome in the Master's Library (an unknown location accessed by the Reading Room in the southern Earthfast Mountains), in the shrine to Deneir in Candlekeep, the Vault of the Sages in Silverymoon, the Edificant Library in the Snowflake Mountains, the artifact museums of Calimshan and Twilight Hall in Berdusk. These are all sites of pilgrimage for the faithful of Deneir, particularly for those newly-initiated clergy.
Ilmatari Scriptures
- Tome of Torment: Hierograph. The holiest book of the Ilmatari Church. It is a singular artifact, the possession of which is a mark of great favor for the temple of Ilmatar that possesses it.
- The Dialectics of Suffering: Canon, History, Liturgical. A large collection of thirteen holy books, the Dialectics are in the possession of every known temple and monastery of Ilmater. Study of the Dialectics are essential to every priest of the Crying God, and many chant its passages while in the grips of exalted suffering (ascetic practices meant to unlock a holy ecstasy). It is from the Dialectics that Ilmatari clerics learn their essential spells.
- Book of the Holy Scourge: Sacred Poetry. A rare tome filled with poetry exalting suffering and the endurance of pain, its scriptures are said to contain a spell that summons ghostly scourges to lash at a cleric's foes.
Malarite Scriptures
- The Gospel of Saernclaws: Canon. The holy decrees of Garmos Saernclaws, a respected holy servant of Malar, detailing the proper behaviors of priests of the Great Hunter. Its best-known decree reads:
- The Hunt must be clean. If disease or affliction is visited on hunters by a beast, clergy of Malar must do all they can to root out and exterminate the taint, that bloodlines and beasts in the wild remain always strong.
Mystran Scriptures
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