Cult of the Nine Winds
By Dr. Brynmor Selwyn
History:
The Cult of the Nine Winds was founded in the Sidgardian year 3579 by Remus Seravio, a former student of Durmaruk, a minotaur working with the Circle of Mages in Sidgard. Durmaruk was a mage himself, a highly knowledgable and powerful druid (that is, one who works with daemon), who labored to answer the age-old question that had baffled the most learned of mages for millennia and entranced many of his peers: the basic nature of magic itself.
However, like many other mages before him, the quest to answer the "ultimate question" eventually sidetracked Durmaruk with other questions regarding the nature of Andlosheim itself. One such question that particularly grabbed his attention was the difference between deva and daemon. Popular belief held that the gods were the ultimate immortal beings of limitless power that reigned everything else in existence, with the daemon relegated to lesser spirits that manifested themselves within natural processes. The minotaur, however, couldn't rectify certain inconsistencies: If gods were limitless, why did they apparently need to follow the Conservation of Reality? If the gods are immortal, how were there records of and cults dedicated to supposedly "dead" gods? Why did gods rule over social constructs like "justice" and "good" when the daemons and all of the rest of nature held no such concepts?
After further study on the subject, Durmaruk could only come up with one answer that satisfied all his questions: the gods were not divine beings from beyond the world of mortals, but rather mortals from ages long past who had grown so powerful that they transcended beyond most laws of nature into a higher order of beings. Daemon were the true immortals, constant and unchanging manifestations of the nature of Andlosheim itself that have existed since the days when the supposed "gods" walked among mortals, and perhaps even before then.
Needless to say, when Durmaruk showed his writings to his peers, he caused quite a scandal. While most acknowledged the validity of his concerns, and some even the logic of his answers, nearly everyone rejected his writings for what they were: baseless conjecture, proofless heretical rhetoric that constituted no scholarly purpose. He was urged to recant his position, to state that his research had been a rhetorical exercise and nothing more. To Durmaruk and the few of his students that assisted him, they could not simply refute what amounted to more than a decade of labor; instead of following the advice of the circle, they fled Sidgard. The Circle had little choice but to present the writings to the Order of Saint Augustine, who predictably denounced Durmaruk, his research, and his followers as thoroughly heretical.
However, before a manhunt could begin, it had already ended; the minotaur and his students had long since vanished, and attempts to scry their fates or locations proved impossible, no doubt impeded by Durmaruk himself. The trail went cold for a time, during which his students dispersed and gained students of their own, spreading the "knowledge" of their teacher. It is said that each student formed their own cult based upon the teachings of their former master, with Remus Seravio founding the Cult of the Nine Winds. While most of Durmaruk's different cultist offshoots were dismantled either by time, unfortunate events, or the actions of the Order, a few have survived to the present day, the Nine Winds itself slowly spreading and gaining a decent following, especially on the western and southern fringes of human civilization.
As to the fate of Durmaruk himself...reports of a powerful minotaur mage once again surfaced within the southern reaches of Sidgard. The Order tracked the rumors to a small hamlet near the border, and found a cave in which were found signs of habitation and several magical items that certainly belonged to some manner of mage, but no signs of the druid. After several days of searching for further signs before declaring the lead dead; as a precaution, they slaughtered a farmer's "suspicious-looking bovine" before returning home. Durmaruk disappears from history from that moment on.
Beliefs:
First and foremost, the Cult of the Nine Winds rejects the divinity of the gods. Their teachings profess that what others call "gods" are simply mortals that have grown so powerful that they have moved beyond most laws of nature, becoming a more perfect, higher order of being. The gods are thus not truly divine beings to be revered, but simply the greatest of all mortals, who are worthy of emulation at best.
Second, the cult considers the daemon as the true divine beings of Andlosheim, the purest expressions of the state of the world. Central to their worship of daemon is the concept of duality. Natural forces and the daemon associated with them are both creative and destructive: Fires can both warm or burn, rains can both nourish the land and flood it, the earth can both harbor life or snuff it out, and so on. Daemon and the natural forces are thus divine, not because they have seemingly boundless power like the gods of the pantheons, but because their intentions and reasoning are ultimately beyond the realms of mortal moral and social concepts.
Thus, a third concept of the cult's belief can be considered the rejection of concepts of good or evil, focusing instead on maintaining a balance between "creation" and "destruction." Life itself is seen as sacred given that the natural processes all seem to balance out and create conditions that, on the whole, cradle life as a whole and promote its existence. Thus, the promotion of life itself is often seen as a worthy directive.
What separates the Nine Winds from other cults of Durmaruk is their emphasis on daemon associated with air, winds, storms, etc. While all daemon are considered divine, those of the winds et al are given a special focus, seemingly elevated above others probably because they can be considered more "heavenly" than the others. While it's unclear exactly why this bent towards Daemon of the air exist, it is speculated that Remus Seravio had a personal love and bias towards creatures and forces associated with that domain, and such a bias slipped into his teachings.
]Status:
Due to their complete rejection of the divinity of all the established gods, the Cult of the Nine Winds is almost universally considered unquestionably heretical across the entirety of Andlosheim's various civilizations and their respective pantheons and the open practice of the cult's worship is generally outlawed in most realms. However, while discriminated against everywhere, the cult generally enjoys some marginal acceptance in realms on the fringes of the various civilizations: in human lands, for example, the cult has slowly grown and survived in several of the far western and southern realms.
However, due to the Cult's reverence for life itself and the good works they generally do to try and preserve it, many realms that otherwise forbid worship within the cult do allow the cult to operate "in service to the state," where they generally go around improving the lot of the land. Due to their reputation for breaking droughts or deflecting destructive weather, the cult enjoys a dangerous amount of acceptance amongst farmers and other landworkers, making it incredibly difficult for the Order to overtly move to suppress them without causing dissent amongst even the most devout of the lower classes.
While the Cult is widely known for its mages, most followers are simply attached to the cult for its religious teachings. Less than 30% of cultists possess even rudimentary magical education, whether self-taught or otherwise. Those who are mages are almost exclusively druids, cavorting with daemon and other natural spirits.
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