Vault of All Gods

The Selkies of old were not content with their own limited pantheon. When they saw another people thriving with the blessings of their own Gods, the ancient selkies looked for ways to collect them as well. Some religions, like Pratasam, actively pushed their gods into the selkie's hands. Others, like the old gods of what is now the March Kingdom of Arashoka, were taken through purchase, guile, or force. There was no greater statement and act of power than to take another land's god and carry it home as your own - especially with smaller, more local gods that the enemy won't feel is "all around and everywhere" like Halcyon. Even for those "big gods," taking a religious artifact to house more lavishly in your own home is quite the flex.   And so the ancient selkies built a temple that would contain, imprison, and pamper these stolen gods and artifacts. These stolen gods (sometimes also purchased or adopted) were placed alongside idols and icons associated with the Goddess Padimak, for whom this mountain of Padapali was sacred. Over time, this became the repository for all of the most sacred artifacts native and foreign-made. It became the Vault of Gods.   After many centuries of religious, cultural, and political change, the Vault of Gods has changed. Within Hamekun, the importance of the ancient idols has faded almost entirely even among practitioners, removing the Vault as the primary center of worship for traditionalists. The rise of global organized religions has changed many selkie's relationship to divinity: the idea of collecting Gods no longer is seen as literal for most selkies.    But the Vault remains as a sacred and culturally significant place, a palace of global culture and selkie cultural superiority. There is a sense that the combined holiness of all those artifacts still creates a kind of power here that can be harnessed by virtuous believers into true transcendent connection. This also represents the spiritual and political power of the Khilaia: that the Khilaia is allowed and perhaps even obligated to conquer, dominate, and spiritually rule over other, less powerful realms. Unsurprisingly, the Vault has a lot of symbolic importance to selkie imperialists in particular, though not every person who considers the Vault important is an imperialist. In fact, many supplicants at the Vault simply ignore the amount of historic looting involved in its creation. They focus on the splendor of scrolls written by Lily of Red herself sitting next to gleaming icons of a dozen gods in a dozen artistic styles. It is easy to ignore the stolen skull of Norinar or the looted mummies of the Loanuan Lovers bought from the criminal Kingdom of Karzado - deeply important stolen items to the religions of Zesheko and Weniko respectively.   A grand parade, carrying the symbols of Milen the Conqueror, carries tribute from the assembled temples of the Druidsden District in Halamahi to the Vault of All Gods every May, as part of the Pratahova festival.