The Sanctioned Processes of Aureth

The Sanctioned Processes are the nine living ideals that keep Aureth running. They are not gods or churches, but the shared expectations by which bridges stand, fields yield, oaths hold, doors stay safe, and the dead are named. Temples, orders, and so-called deities are only cultural masks of these Processes—interpretations of function, not rulers above it. Every settlement on Aureth builds its labor, laws, rites, and courtesies upon them. When the Processes are honored, the world behaves. When they are neglected, things come apart—crops sour, contracts rot, doors seal, tempers burn, ledgers fade, and graves forget their dead.

The Processes are not worshiped but maintained. They are the terms of existence, the standing accord between chaos and order that allows civilization to continue. They whisper in contracts, hum in forge-fires, ripple in trade currents, and linger in burial songs. Each is a living ideal—self-correcting, impartial, and patient. They do not demand prayer, only observance. When disregarded, they fail quietly at first: a bridge buckles, a crop blights, a spirit loses its name. When tended, they tighten the weave of the world until life feels whole again.

Together, the Nine form a closed circuit of being and scholars often depict them as a wheel of nine interlocking sigils, each turning the next, each necessary to motion and to maintain.

Temples and orders serve not as sanctuaries but as maintenance halls—places where the great machinery of meaning is inspected and kept running. A “temple” of the River might be a customs house or a bridge-keeper’s guild. A “temple” of the Craft may simply be a forge that blesses every tool before first use. Across Aureth, festivals mark the ongoing balance: The Closing of Doors for Threshold, Naming of the First Grain for Harvest, Reckoning of Ledgers for Witness. These rites are less celebration than calibration, keeping the metaphysical bureaucracy in order.

Philosophers hold that the Processes are not moral, only essential. They favor no virtue, only function. Civilization itself is the art of keeping all nine turning without anyone consuming the rest.

“The fire gives the first breath, and the word binds it. The current carries, and the hand shapes. The field yields, the gate guards, the eye remembers. The wild stirs, the world sleeps - and so the wheel turns.”

Player Information

Clerics and Paladins are enforcers and interpreters of Process. A Paladin of the Charter might serve as a magistrate or contract-keeper; one of the Threshold might guard against demonic breach. Their powers are sanctioned by collective belief—the Process manifests through consensus, not command.

When Process magic is invoked, it’s not a plea to a higher power—it’s a recalibration. A cleric mending a wound through the Harvest is nudging the body back into rhythm; a paladin striking down a liar through the Charter is enforcing a failed clause of truth.

When Processes fall into disrepair, their domains twist; Each imbalance breeds its own monsters and omens.:

• The Hearth becomes possessive and suffocating.
• The Charter turns tyrannical, strangling freedom.
• The Wildkeep erupts unchecked, devouring order.

Class Interactions and Permutations

• Clerics & Paladins: Your magic comes through a Process (not a deity). Keep your 5e subclass; flavor it through a Process that fits your vows.
• Warlocks: Pacts lean on impersonal facets that echo a Process (edge-whispers for Threshold/River, city-consensus for Hearth/Charter, deep echoes for Witness/Craft, etc.).
• Druids & Rangers: You are the public face of Wildkeeping and Harvest in the field—reading seasons, enforcing limits, guiding regrowth.
• Mages: Craft and Witness frame scholarly magic—naming, recording, testing, making