Holy Eldath, The Sword, The Shield
Holy Eldath, The Sword, The Shield
Invoke a god
Holy Eldath
The Unseen Light
Symbol A small gold sun above a level white line.
Holy day The First Vigil
- Keep the law that protects the vulnerable.
- Do not claim to know the whole of Eldath’s will.
- Let mercy and justice be measured together.
The gods
3Holy Eldath
The Unseen Light
Greater · Lawful Good
Holiness and the ordering of the world · Creation and sacred law, expressed through The Shield’s guardianship and The Sword’s judgment
Just, patient, and immeasurably distant. Holy Eldath is believed to care for creation, but rarely grants signs that mortals can distinguish from chance.
Faith
- Keep the law that protects the vulnerable.
- Do not claim to know the whole of Eldath’s will.
- Let mercy and justice be measured together.
Holy dayThe First Vigil, observed at the year’s turning with a silent watch until dawn.
Holy textThe Measures of Light, a collection of attributed sayings, legal commentaries, and records of disputed interpretation.
RitesBegin formal prayers facing the open sky, even when it is clouded. · Record difficult judgments in a temple ledger for later review. · Keep one candle burning through the First Vigil.
ValuesJustice · Mercy · Steadfastness
Look
SymbolA small gold sun above a level white line.
- White
- Gold
AnimalsWhite hart · Lark
AppearanceA remote brilliance behind veils of cloud, sometimes rendered as a tall figure with a face left blank. The Shield is depicted beneath that light, and The Sword as a narrow gleam at its edge.
Followers
WhoJudges, healers, village elders, and those who seek moral certainty without expecting personal revelation.
BeliefsWorshippers hold Holy Eldath to be the one true God of Askia. They understand The Shield and The Sword as sacred servants through whom divine protection and judgment are made manifest, not as competing objects of ultimate worship.
The faith
How it began
According to temple teaching, Holy Eldath established the world and appointed The Shield and The Sword as servants: one to preserve what is good, the other to confront what would destroy it.
The oldest surviving accounts disagree on when these teachings were first written, and the faith does not claim a mortal witness to creation.
The heavens
The World of Askia is a bounded creation held in being by Holy Eldath.
The Shield is the ordained boundary against ruin; The Sword is the ordained force that corrects what breaches that boundary. They are distinct presences in worship and story, yet neither is believed to possess a will independent of Holy Eldath.
Gods and mortals
The faith is organized around temples, local sanctuaries, and the Order of Light, a paladin order devoted to Holy Eldath.
The Shield’s clergy often maintain refuges and teach civic preparedness; The Sword’s adherents train to defend communities under strict legal and ethical oversight. Temples are influential but not omniscient: they disagree, investigate claims of divine instruction, and may fail to protect those who need them.
After death
The faithful believe the dead pass beyond the world’s far horizon into Eldath’s keeping.
The Shield guards the threshold, while The Sword cuts the final bonds of malice and oath-breaking. No living priest can say what lies beyond that passage; certainty about the afterlife is considered presumption.
What people say, what is true
Players may hear
For the GM
Plot hooks
Conflicts
The wars
The central theological tension is not a struggle among gods, but a question of mortal judgment: when must The Shield preserve life, and when must The Sword confront a threat?
Both answer to Holy Eldath, whose will is held to be just but rarely explained. Their followers debate how to serve faithfully when the divine remains silent.
| Holy Eldath | The Shield | The Sword | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | A | ||
| A | A | ||
| A | A |
Order of heaven
Structure
The faith recognizes Holy Eldath as the sole God and The Shield and The Sword as divine servants.
Temples are led by locally chosen keepers who interpret The Measures of Light; regional assemblies review major disputes. The Order of Light maintains its own vows and training, but its paladins are expected to answer to civil law as well as religious discipline. No single mortal office is accepted as infallible.
Theme
A single, distant God whose protection and just force are represented by two obedient divine servants.
Tone
Distant and solemn.
The gods are present in doctrine, symbols, and ritual, but rarely in unmistakable signs; mortals must act without assurance that their choices will be rewarded.
Alignments
Single-aligned: all three members of the divine assembly are Lawful Good.
The Shield and The Sword are understood as appointed servants of Holy Eldath, not rival gods.
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