The Antlered King

The Antlered King is the great and pre-eminent God of Moray. He is a paradoxical being, an ancient and primal god of the wilderness whose divinity predates his sacred marriage to the first Rightful Queen, yet also the embodiment of Moray's rigid social order. Perhaps as a result, he appears across the Queendom in a variety of aspects, although always sporting sixteen-point antlers.   In the cities, and among the great and the good of Moray, he is worshipped as the King in the Antlered Crown, the god of order and authority who is the divine consort of the Rightful Queen, patron of the realm and pillar of the Pact Royal. It is his power that bound the Morayan state together and creates the Bawn of the Queen and the Queen's Peace. This is also the aspect which appears in corporeal form to seal the pact in the god's sacred grove, as a result of which depictions of the King in the Antlered Crown are unusually consistent: A tall, gaunt man in a grand robe of green and gold. An antique crown of dark, polished wood circles his brow, with emeralds set in the band beneath each spike. The King's characteristic antlers are attached to the crown.   In the country, he is more likely to be worshipped as the Horned God, the guardian of the wilds and the fields. The Horned God is worshipped with rites of fertility and the hunt in spring and autumn, and of sacrifice and rebirth in the summer and winter. He is the god of the natural order, primal and uncaring of mortal law. The Horned God is sometimes depicted as a huntsman or vagabond with antlers growing from his head, sometimes as a majestic hart.   Far less often, he will be worshipped as the Wild Huntsman, almost never by the civilised. As such, he is the feared god of the primal dark, and the things that kill and die there; of the predator, and of the prey that fight back. He is also the guardian of the Primeval Wilderness. Similar to the Horned God in depiction, the Huntsman's eyes are always fierce and intense, and he is almost always accompanied by a pack of ferocious dogs or wolves.  

Cult of the Antlered King

The cult of Moray's preeminent god is a paradoxical organisation, an entrenched civil power worshipping a primal, rural deity. They resolve this paradox by not thinking about it at all, and by dividing up the god's aspects among the orders. Clerists of the Antlered King wear green robes in various shades.

• Temple: Order of the Antlered Crown - The temple clerists worship the King as a god of order and authority, sacred consort of the Rightful Queen and funt of the Bawn of the Queen. The highest members of the order are political movers and shakers, taking the good of the cult as their ultimate goal, even at the expense of the lives and comfort of worshippers, although the rank and file are assiduous in protecting the social machinery which attends to the needs of the people, both from religious duty and the understanding that too much misfortune for the poor would strain the order which their god represents.
• Cloistered:
  • Order of the Green - Cloistered communities in the Cult of the Antlered King typically act as caretakers for managed wilderness and game preserves. They view the Primeval Wilderness with a particular venom.
  • Order of the Bright Moon's Forge - A single abbey in Queensgate houses a second cloistered order of the King, whose sole duty is to train smiths and forge the armour and weapons of the Queen's Riders.
• Mendicant: Order of the Horned God - The King's mendicants are zealots, although each to their own particular cause. Some rally local subjects to defy criminals, others to resist corrupted teachings. Only their dedication to the Queen's Peace prevents them being denounced as rabble rousers and disbanded.
• Martial:
  • Order of the Wild Hunt - An errant order of monster-hunters responsible for taming the border with the Northern Wylds. Many of them keep a wolf or hound as a companion.
  • Order of the Glade - A custodial order responsible for defending the royal palace, temples and shrines of the Common Church, and other sacred sites. The elite of the order are charged with the Final Watch, entering the Wylds to protect the Sacred Glade for the rest of their lives.
  • Order of the Ash Spear - A militant order created to aid the lords of Southy in the defence of the southern border with Harbrath.
  • Sworn Lances of the Moonlight Throne - The Queen's Riders are also a custodial order of the Cult of the Antlered King.