Religion

Gods

God	Is	Shrine colour	Feast
The Goddess	The Disc itself		Harvest Home, the Goddess’s Night
The Sun	Light and the growing year	Gold	Midsummer; the Greening, meeting Ma
Io	The small moon, keeper of the week	Silver
Ma	The large moon, keeper of the seasons	Amber	The Greening
The Rings	Where the souls of the dead go	Dark blue	Harvest Home night

Each crossroads shrine is raised to one of the Goddess’s children, and the first ribbon among its offerings is in that god’s colour.

Two ways

The old way is kept by the village priests, the hermits at the world trees and the wandering preachers. The Temple’s way is the same faith bent to order: keep your place, obey your lord, pay the tithe.

Stone temples

No temple is a building. The Temple’s way is the Sun’s, and its temples are worked stone: a town’s, castle’s or manor’s temple is a ring of dressed uprights with lintels, a cloister temple the same with stone halls beside it, and a high temple a great henge with a ditch and bank, an avenue, two rings, a horseshoe of trilithons and a great altar stone. Every Sun ring’s way in faces the midsummer sunrise. The old way is the Earth’s: a village’s temple is a circle of rough, mossy, leaning stones by the green with a recumbent altar stone, a wayside shrine a lone stone or cairn with offerings, and a cemetery grassy barrows.

Out in the open country stand the old way’s wild holy stones: rough rings, lone tall stones in the woods, stone rows across the moors, dolmens over barrows and holy wells, each with its name. They lean and grow moss, and offerings lie at their feet. They gather most near a world tree’s grove or the Goddess’s bones, and never in a place, on a road or in water.

Every rite is kept in the open before the altar stone, the priest at the altar facing the folk. The Sun’s rings keep the holy morning from dawn, the folk facing out through the way in toward the sunrise; the old circles keep a later hour. Sanctuary is at the altar: folk who run there huddle in the open, and raiders spare them.

The Temple

The Temple’s high priests sit in the temples of the most populous tenth of the towns, at least one: its seats. It holds as its own land half the villages of those towns, and about one village in twelve elsewhere. Its villages send no men when their kingdom calls the banners, and send their dues to its nearest seat.

It takes a tithe of a tenth of every village’s harvest. From its granaries it feeds hungry villages, but only its own and those of the kingdoms it favours, a day’s bread a day each, as far as the grain goes.

Favour

Each kingdom stands in the Temple’s favour from 0 to 1. It starts at a half and drifts back there 0.002 a day.

Raises favour	Lowers favour
Tithes paid from the house’s villages	Villages it burns
A branded heresy put down	Each day a branded heresy of its own stands
A gift at a town temple’s altar: up to 8 gold at a time, 0.025 a gold	Robbing pilgrims or preachers

Burning or raiding the Temple’s own land condemns a kingdom at once for the season. Bandits are not judged.

At each season’s start the Temple blesses the war of the kingdom it favours most, at 0.6 or more, against the strongest kingdom hostile to it, and condemns the wars of every kingdom under 0.3.

	Blessed house	Condemned house
Lords’ loyalty	Grows 0.01 more a day	Falls 0.015 a day
Villages	Come back to the Temple half as fast again	Drift to the old way
Armies	Press the war	Hold at their nearest town

The realm screen’s Temple tab shows each kingdom’s favour.

Risings

Each village leans between the Temple’s way (0) and the old way (1), starting between 0.1 and 0.4. Hunger pulls it to the old way hardest, then a failed harvest, grief from raids, quartering and burnt fields, living under a condemned kingdom, and a heavy lord. A fed village comes back, faster on the Temple’s land and under a blessed kingdom. A preacher’s visit pulls it a little further.

Lean	What happens
Past 0.7	It rises: no tithe, half its dues, no men to the banners
Risen 8 days	The Temple brands it heresy: no new recruits, and its kingdom loses favour daily
Below 0.45	A rising calms of itself

An army of the village’s own realm standing by it can Put down the rising. A twentieth of its grown folk are killed, its goodwill is gone, and it leans back to 0.3. Putting down a branded heresy earns the Temple’s favour.

Holy days

Priests stand at the temple door at the dawn, midday and dusk bells. On Sunday and the feasts the folk go to the temple in the morning. A village’s priest blesses the fields on the first day of the year and the first day of the reaping. Pilgrims walk to shrines, high temples and world trees, most before a feast.