The Church of Dalphus
The Church of the Three Fears, followers of the God Dalphus is ancient in origins, as Dalphus was one of the Titans who sided with the younger gods in the Titanwars. The church is neither evil nor good in its activities although its tenants are of a darker nature than many of the churches, the major churches within most nations are headed by more neutral individuals.
In most nations the church acts as an interpreter of dreams and portents, offers both healing and resurrections services, or communicating with the dead. They are also rumored to operate as spies for the right price, not always a gold one.
Mythology & Lore
Dalphus is an ancient entity from before the earliest times, one of the powerful ancient titans who are said to have come from the ferment of the multiverse itself, born from the raw boiling material that formed the very planes themselves. They embody aspects of the fabric of the plans. Dalphus formed from the energies of life and death, acting as a bridge between the two states as a shadowy entity that masters undeath but can manipulate aspects of the living or the dead. From this shadowy place is born his connection to the unconscious dreaming mind, but often as a terrifying aspect, a nightmare creature of shadows and undeath.
It is said that his very nature spawned the plane of shadow and all that dwell within its confines, and they pay homage to his as their creator.
Tenets of Faith
The faithful of Dalphus are taught to master their own fears, those primal fears of the dark shadowy places, death and undeath, and the nightmares these conjour in the minds of mortals. The training they receive includes higher ranking members of the order placing these nightmares in the minds of novices so they can prove they have mastered their own fears and learn the deeper secrets held in these nightmarescapes, for they believe that in the most terrifying of nightmares lay teaching from Dalphus, and through visiting both their own, and the nightmares of other they can learn more of their deities teaching.
They also view the undead as a legitimate form between the states of life and death. The mindless dead they view as failures who where tasked by Dalphus with some goal, had they truly mastered their fears, they would have returned cognoscente of the task set to them. But as mindless creatures they are unable to fulfill their divine task, and as such striking them down is a favour to them.
They believe that the greatest forms of undeath are to allow the faithful of Dalphus to see across the bridge between life and death and carry out the most important of Dalphus's tasks, as such they hold great hatred for those who use these rituals for personal gain and will fund adventures to seek them out and kill them, as the affront to the purpose these forms were granted them by Dalphus for.
The most powerful of Dalphus's followers spend many years in meditations and nightmare states seeking out other more perfect forms of undeath that Dalphus has created for them.
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