Pavis

Official Cult

Author: coh@allanhenderson.com

The history of the cult of Pavis is synonymous with the history of Pavis the man himself, and then Pavis the city. Pavis was half-man, half-elf, and a hero who appeared approximately 800 years ago, during the expansion of the Empire of the Wyrm’s Friends. As an adult, he studied under the tutoring dragons then present in the Empire. There he met the dwarf, Flintnail, and gained a mastery of stone. After defeating Waha with the great Faceless Statue of Shadows Dance, he taught Aldryami healing to the people of the Paps and healed Waha, cementing a bond with the nomads. After troll magic closed the city, constant struggles occurred between the trolls and the remnants of humans, elves, and dwarfs. The Pavis cult held to its rituals, and their intimate knowledge of the city aided worshipers in every crisis. The cult kept non-troll dwellers alive in the ruins until the city was re-opened during the time of strange magics and phantoms from the past known as the Dragonewts’ Dream. When the Sartarites came to build New Pavis, the high priest of Pavis and the colonists’ high priest of Orlanth negotiated a settlement yielding ground and buildings to Pavis and the air to Orlanth. An exchange was made, giving the Orlanth locals use of the Pavis facilities and the spirits of Pavis were joined by a sylph. Under the Lunar occupation, the cult of Pavis grew, for the Red Goddess wanted to “marry” Pavis to add him to her ever-growing pantheon. He played hard-to-get. With the support of the invaders, open worship of Pavis increased, especially among those Orlanth worshipers needing somewhere to go once their religion was officially discouraged. Pavis cannot guarantee his worshipers an existence after death, save to those who become cult spirits. Funeral customs for the cult are nonspecific, and the priests will use whatever other religion they believe in when they determine funeral arrangements. For instance, the old Arrowsmith Dynasty cremated their dead atop the city gates, while during the closed period of the city, one of the ruling cult families buried their dead in several plots about the Rubble. The Flintnail cult, which attracts many priests, believes in entombing their dead in stone. Some of this latter cult dead have been entombed in mortuaries cut into the stone slabs of the old city walls. Pavis had ties to both elf and dwarf and was a glorious builder. The Runes most closely associated with him are Earth, Stasis, Harmony, and Man.

Creation Notes

Made mainly with reference to Cults of Prax, Pavis & Big Rubble and River of Cradles