The extremist movement known as y Carthu, or the Purge, is associated with violent ideas of blood purity, hostility toward magic, and opposition to the mingling of human and Elder bloodlines.

Although y Carthu has found sympathizers among the most intolerant edges of Cerosian society, it is not an order of the Church of Ceros, and its doctrine is not official Church teaching. Nor should it be confused with the Dark Templars, fallen Guardians associated with or corrupted by Shadow.

Members may use Cerosian rhetoric to justify persecution, but the Church itself does not teach that every magic-user, Elder person, or mixed-blood descendant must be destroyed.

[LINK NOTE: Link this section to the dedicated y Carthu — The Purge document. Keep deeper Shadow connections out of the public Church entry.]

[LINK NOTE: Link references to fallen Guardians to the dedicated Dark Templars document. Keep deeper Shadow connections and corruption mechanics out of the public Church entry.]

Cremation is the customary final disposition of the dead among Cerosian communities. It reflects both religious tradition and the practical value placed upon land in Aereth.

When death comes, the Sisters of Silence care for the deceased and assist families with the formalities of mourning and remembrance. This is the final part of a vocation that also includes healing, nursing, hospice care, and comfort for the dying.

Remembrance

Ashes are commonly placed in urns and retained in family vaults or memorial niches. Noble families may maintain private places of remembrance, while public Necropolis provide dignified memorial spaces for ordinary citizens.

Portraits or other memorial works may accompany an urn, preserving a recognizable image of the deceased for descendants without requiring vast cemeteries devoted to individual graves.

The Guardians of the Temple are the martial defenders of the Church and the Faithful. Knights and Dames Guardian undergo extensive spiritual and martial training and face the Trials and Seven Chalices. Most possess no supernatural gifts. Rarely, a Guardian experiences the Calling, an unusual connection to the Light that carries resistance to Shadow Corruption and may manifest sacred gifts known as Blessings.

The Orders are led in parallel by Garran Veyne, Lord High Commander of the Knights Guardian, and Ellyn Corbray, Lady High Commander of the Dames Guardian. Neither office is subordinate to the other.

[LINK NOTE: Link this section to the dedicated Guardians of the Temple document.]

The Sisters of Silence

The Sisters of Silence are a practical and charitable order devoted to relieving suffering throughout life and preserving dignity at its end. Most are trained healers rather than supernatural practitioners, skilled in wound care, bone-setting, medicines, nursing, common illnesses, care of the dying, preparation of the dead, and counsel for the bereaved. A minority possess genuine healing Gifts associated with Sídhe ancestry.

Their principal Sanctuary is Ynys Wydrin, the Isle of Glass, within Lake Jahassa. Local hospitals and hospices are associated with temples throughout settled lands, but the Sisters retain ancient traditions, independent resources, and considerable authority over their own work. The Church publicly regards their service as an expression of the mercy and grace of Ceros.

[LINK NOTE: Link this section to the dedicated Sisters of Silence document.]

The Cardinal's Hand

The Cardinal's Hand is a small, secretive body answering directly to the Cardinal of D’Hassa. Its agents undertake investigations, surveillance, interrogations, and other sensitive work the Church cannot openly assign to the Guardians of the Temple. Their existence is little understood outside the highest levels of the Church, and their actions are frequently blamed on the Templars—or confused with those of the far more sinister Dark Templars.

• Guardians: protect the Church.
• The Hand: quietly protects the Church's interests.
• Dark Templars: something the Church would very much prefer not be confused with the others.

Cerosian worship commonly includes prayer, teaching, music or recitation, and readings from the traditions surrounding Ceros and the Light. Exact liturgy varies by region and temple, allowing local practice without requiring the Faithful to master a single rigid form of service.

Life Events

The Church marks births, marriages, deaths, seasonal observances, and other important transitions. Many people who are not especially devout still participate because Cerosian rites have shaped family and community life for generations.

Marriage and Family

Marriage is regarded as a sacred covenant witnessed before the Light and the community. The Church emphasizes fidelity, mutual obligation, responsibility toward one's household, and the protection of children.

Degrees of Observance

Some Cerosians attend temple faithfully and organize much of their lives around religious teaching. Others appear mainly for major rites and holy days. Still others identify with the Faith primarily through family and culture. All may reasonably consider themselves Cerosian.

The Church of Ceros maintains a deliberately straightforward hierarchy intended to serve communities rather than reproduce an elaborate secular court.

Priests

Priests conduct ordinary worship, provide spiritual counsel, perform the rites of the Faith, assist those in need, and serve the communities attached to their temples.

High Priests

High Priests hold broader authority over important temples and the surrounding districts, supervising clergy and helping maintain continuity of doctrine and practice.

Cardinals

Cardinals are the highest-ranking mortal clergy of the Church. No Cardinal stands above the others by doctrine or office, for Ceros alone is the supreme authority of the Faith. Cardinals exercise considerable influence within their own spheres and may advise rulers, oversee important Church affairs, and gather with their peers when matters concern the wider Faith.

The Cardinal of D'Hassa

Severin Marrec, a younger son of House Marrec and former Knight Guardian, is the current Cardinal of D'Hassa and one of the more prominent voices within the modern Church of Ceros.

Temples

Cerosian temples range from major religious complexes in cities to modest houses of worship serving villages and isolated communities. Local custom influences architecture and practice, but all serve as centers of worship, counsel, charity, and community rites. Where possible, temples also maintain or support a hospice staffed by the Sisters of Silence, making practical medical care available even in many small communities.

Cerosian teaching presents existence as a moral struggle between Light and Shadow. The Light is associated with life, mercy, courage, duty, truth, and the preservation of the Realm; Shadow with corruption, destruction, domination, and the undoing of that which belongs to the Light.

The Faith's language reflects a genuine ancient struggle within Aereth, but Cerosian theology is a human religious interpretation of that struggle rather than a complete explanation of the world's cosmology.

Faith, Conduct, and Conscience

The Church calls upon the Faithful to act with compassion, courage, honor, restraint, and responsibility. It recognizes wrongdoing, repentance, forgiveness, and restitution without requiring every moral question to be governed by an elaborate catalogue of religious law.

Sin and Heresy

The Church distinguishes ordinary wrongdoing from offenses that directly threaten the Faith or its people. Sin is principally a matter of conduct and conscience and may be answered through repentance, restitution, forgiveness, and changed behavior. More serious offenses may bring formal discipline when they harm others, abuse sacred authority, or endanger the community. Heresy is narrower still: the deliberate rejection or corruption of teachings considered fundamental to the Faith. Interpretation and response vary among clergy and regions, and accusation alone is not proof of guilt.

Magic and the Elder Races

The Church teaches caution toward magic. The Faithful are discouraged from treating arcane power as an easy answer to ordinary problems, and some branches of the Church regard its use with considerably greater suspicion than others.

Official doctrine does not declare the Elder Races inherently evil or servants of Shadow. In practice, attitudes range from respectful coexistence to fear and prejudice, particularly where contact with the Elder peoples is uncommon.

A farmer facing ruin may seek the aid of a Sídhe healer or Tree Singer despite Church disapproval. A compassionate Priest may understand the choice; an extremist may condemn it. Such tensions are part of life within the Faith rather than evidence of a single universal response.

Ceros lived in the distant past, and little reliable history of his life survives. What remains is a mixture of fragmentary record, oral tradition, devotional teaching, and legend. He is remembered as a healer and teacher whose extraordinary works were understood by those around him as miracles of the Light.

As generations passed, the historical man receded behind the figure remembered by the Faith: Ceros, the Giver of the Light. The Church does not require the Faithful to reconstruct every detail of his mortal life; it preserves the teachings and traditions believed to have descended from him.

Jahassa and Receiving the Light

Lake Jahassa became one of the great sacred places associated with the early Faith. The tradition of Receiving the Light grew from the oldest accounts surrounding Ceros and remains among the defining rites of Cerosian belief.

The oldest traditions tell that Ceros came at last to Lake Jahassa after a long journey, drawn to the remote waters that would become sacred to the Faith. There, amid the cold clarity of the lake and the volcanic warmth beneath the land, the rite now known as Receiving the Light took form. Those who undertake it first enter the geothermally warmed Baths of Purification, then plunge into the icy waters of Jahassa before emerging to don simple clothing and receive the Light of Ceros. The Church regards that Light as a sacred Blessing of the Giver rather than arcane magic. The rite may be undertaken by Cerosians and by converts entering the Faith.

The Faith supplies traditions, institutions, language, and beliefs through which characters may understand the world. It does not decide their choices for them.

What a Player Needs to Know

Cerosianism is a broad living faith rather than a single personality template. Characters may be devout, casual, doubtful, reform-minded, traditional, compassionate, ambitious, fearful, tolerant, or prejudiced while still existing recognizably within the same religious culture.

A character's relationship with the Church may also differ from their personal relationship with Ceros or the Light. They may trust a local Priest while distrusting senior clergy, respect the Guardians while disliking Church politics, or participate in familiar rites without thinking deeply about doctrine.

The Faith in Play

Being Cerosian describes a character's faith and cultural traditions. It does not determine their personality, morality, politics, or attitude toward others.

A devout follower of Ceros may be generous or judgmental, courageous or fearful, tolerant of the Elder Races or deeply suspicious of them. Another may rarely enter a temple yet still consider themselves Cerosian because the Faith has shaped their family and community for generations.

The Church provides the framework. What an individual chooses to believe—and what they do with those beliefs—is their own.

The Faith teaches that the Light stands against the corrupting influence of Shadow and calls upon its followers to live with courage, compassion, honor, and responsibility toward others. Although its doctrine cautions against the reckless use of magic and places great importance upon resisting the temptations of Shadow, the Church does not teach that every practitioner of magic—or every member of the Elder Races—is inherently evil.

For most of the Faithful, Cerosianism is less a matter of theology than a familiar part of everyday life. Its temples mark births, marriages, deaths, holy days, and other important passages. Its priests counsel their communities, tend to those in need, and provide spiritual guidance during times of hardship.

The Church is led by a relatively simple hierarchy of Priests, High Priests, and Cardinals, supported by several specialized religious orders. Among the best known are the Guardians of the Temple, the martial Knights and Dames sworn to defend the Faith and its people, and the widely respected Sisters of Silence, whose hospitals and hospices provide healcraft, nursing, care for the dying and dead, and comfort for those left behind.

Like any institution shaped by mortals, the Church is neither wholly virtuous nor inherently corrupt. Its clergy include the compassionate and the ambitious, the tolerant and the intolerant, the humble and the powerful. Regional customs and individual interpretations of doctrine vary considerably.