Church of the Hollow Crown

The Church of the Hollow Crown builds its doctrine upon a fractured myth, one part divine truth, one part cultural memory, and one part deliberate omission. In the earliest age, Vethira is said to have walked among the Prime Deities as a muse of reflection, clarity, and revelation. She illuminated obscured truths and taught mortals how to understand the self without fear or vanity. Her crown, according to legend, was not a symbol of rulership but of perception, crafted of starlight and the quiet between breaths. Yet this crown was shattered the day she foresaw a darkness rising at the edge of creation. She spoke of it often, insisting the gods prepare. What she never understood was that the darkness she sensed was not a threat approaching from beyond, it was the shadow of her own future fracture.   Though the Church softens the tale, Noctharen oral tradition remembers that it was Enkira who condemned her visions, not out of malice but fear. His denial became the spark that broke her. When her warnings grew desperate and erratic, the pantheon marked her unstable, and in a moment of collective misjudgment, they cast her into the Abyss to “preserve cosmic order.” What followed, centuries of isolation, the splitting of her mind, the birth of the Wild Face, is known to her clergy only through prophetic dreams and ancient cavern murals. The Church teaches her exile as a cautionary tale about silencing truth, though they rarely name the gods responsible. Over time, omission hardened into reverence: the Hollow Crown symbolizes the divine right she was stripped of, and the silence she endured became a sacred lesson in endurance.   Some myths speak of the Noctharen’s origins as entwined with hers, claiming their ancestors once followed Vethira before her fall and retreated underground in solidarity, hiding from a world that sought certainty more than truth. Most scholars doubt this, but the story persists because it captures something essential about their identity. What is certain is that many rites of the Church predate recorded history, rituals involving reflective stone, the reading of emotional vibrations, and the careful tending of sacred caverns where the boundary between thought and silence feels thin. These practices likely began in the early centuries after her exile, when the first Noctharen dream-keepers claimed they heard her whispering from the dark.   Yet much remains forgotten or intentionally veiled. The Church does not speak openly of the Wild Face, referring to her fractured nature only in metaphor: “The Crown reflects more than one light.” They hide the oldest hymns that describe her rage plainly, and maintain strict control of relics tied to her collapse. What survives today is a religion built upon absences as much as teachings, a faith shaped by loss, misunderstanding, and the sacred belief that silence is not emptiness, but memory waiting to speak.

Worship in the Church of the Hollow Crown is quiet, introspective, and deeply personal, far removed from the grand rituals practiced by surface religions. Vethira is a goddess who endured centuries without a voice, so her faith is built around gestures, stillness, and intention rather than spectacle. Most prayers are silent, formed not in words but in focused thought, emotional resonance, or the deliberate act of listening. To the faithful, silence is not an absence but an offering: a space where the goddess may speak if she chooses.   Daily devotion revolves around acts of observation. Followers sit in dim alcoves or cavern hollows, letting their thoughts settle until the mind’s darker corners begin to surface. This practice, known as “holding the hollow,” is believed to honor Vethira’s endurance and open oneself to the truths she reveals. Worshippers may place reflective stones around them, fragments of obsidian, polished crystal, or dark-veined marble, to symbolize the pieces of her shattered crown. The faithful often meditate until they feel a subtle shift within themselves, a sign they have confronted some buried fear or uncomfortable truth.   Offerings are understated: a secret written and burned, a stone with a crack resembling the crown’s fracture, a memory willingly surrendered to the dark. For the Lucid Face, offerings emphasize clarity and transformation; for the Wild Face, worship blends into a raw plea for acknowledgment, a confession of intrusive thoughts, or the sharing of emotional turmoil that the goddess might recognize as kinship.   Communal rites take place rarely and always at night. The clergy lead these gatherings through rhythmic vibrations, soft taps on stone, resonant humming, or the controlled shaking of crystal chimes. The goal is not to summon visions but to align the minds of the congregation into shared emotional resonance. Such rites are said to strengthen the bond between worshippers and goddess, mimicking the collective attunement of the Harrowkin.   Individual worshippers often keep small sanctums in their homes: shadowed shelves, dim lanterns, or smooth stones carved with shallow circular patterns that resemble a crown’s hollow center. The faithful do not kneel; instead, they sit or stand still, presenting themselves openly to whatever part of the goddess chooses to look back.   Above all, worship is not about appeasing Vethira, but about acknowledging her, her fracture, her endurance, her pain, and her insight. To honor her is to confront the parts of oneself that hide in shadow and to trust that even broken things still have value. For those who hear her most clearly, worship feels less like prayer and more like a conversation with the echo of a forgotten scream.