Wednesday 30 December 2015

The Temple of Sea and Sky


Also known as the Konung’s [King’s] Chapel, as it is patronised by royalty and other notables and is the seat of the Chief Godi of the cults of the brother-gods Hydana, Pangara, and Sukh. The temple is cut into a niche at the foot of the plateau upon which Vynheim is built. At high tide, the sea flows into the temple, covering the floor to between ankle and waist deep. This fills tidal pools into which worshippers make offerings to Hydana – anything from simple prayers, to treasures and up to blood sacrifice – which are carried to the deep on the next tide. The main area of worship is open to the sky, and the many tunnels and boreholes cut into the sides of the nice channel the wind. This produces a reassuring sussuration on a day of modest winds, Pangara whispering confidence to sailors, but on stormy days the temple howls with the rage of Sukh. Raiders going a-viking will often spend a night singing the battle song of Sukh before setting to sea.

There other temples, and innumerable shrines, to the Brothers of Sea and Sky, whether as a triumvirate or as individual gods, but the Konung’s Chapel is the seat of religious activity for the Northmen of Vynheim.

[Now I am settling in to my move back to my home village, my brother keeps asking me to run a game. So I will, beginning this weekend, the first of 2016. I will be setting it in Frostholm, the north-east corner of Allansia, a continent on Titan, the Fighting Fantasy world. Trouble is there is little canon to draw on for this part of Titan. Opportunity is that this allows me to cherry pick bits from Mythic Iceland for BRP, Vikings for MRQII, stuff from the TV series Vikings and The Last Kingdom, probably a bit of the Northern Reaches for D&D and the Savage North for OpenQuest, all while adding in the high-but-grotty adventuresome fantasy of Titan. So this is the Frostholm Project, which will cover the area from Sardath in the east to Bjorngrim's Sea in the west, from the Freezeblood Mountains in the north to the Sea of Pearls in the south. And anywhere else the PCs' longships take them.]