Kalari Priesthood¶
"The faithful must simply walk the path of righteousness. The path is not intended to be easy." — the teaching of the priests of the Kalari (S318)
The Kalari Priesthood is the clergy of the Kalari, the gods of light who made and loved the mortal races and who are now dead. "The Kalari are all dead gods. This means they provide no active guidance or power to their priesthood. However, they are still worshipped to a surprising degree" (S020). In the Fifth Age the priesthood survives in the open only inside Proturas, as the Church of the Light; elsewhere it is a persecuted faith of hidden altars and secret orders, and its worshippers are heretics to the Sancturi and infidels to the Divine.
Also called: the Church of the Light (S026); "Kalari Cultists" in the lands of the Divine (S006).
A faith without a god¶
"Their priesthoods remain convinced of their eventual return and many use outside sources of magic to inspire faith. The primary Kalari still worshipped are: Kalar, Arya, Orandos, Khardas, Quitas" (S020). "The age of benevolent deities passed with the death of the Riven Gods (who saw the races as their children)" (S014). The Dead Gods are counted among the rarer sources of magic of the age, worked by "(Uncommon) Cults (Priests)" and "(Rare) Runecasters (Khardic and Namakan)" (S112); the Divine's clergy regard runecasters as "Relics of old forgotten (and powerless) gods" (S112). In the Rivenlands kingdom of Alghert, where a king turned to demons for power, the court saw "an opportunity to throw off the impotent Kalari priesthood into something more liberal" (S181, S182).
Doctrine of the dead¶
The priesthood's teaching on death is set out in the Doctrines of Death (S318), treated in full under Death and the Afterlife. "The priests of the Kalari and Rakkar will tell you that the Sancturi heathens are transitioning just fine … directly to Hell. The faithful must simply walk the path of righteousness. The path is not intended to be easy. Priests consecrate burial grounds/tombs and it is critical that the faithful dead be buried there in order to ensure their transition to heaven. The priests will say that the pure of heart do not need consecrated ground, they will transition fine on their own. It is only sinful souls which require guidance to heaven in the afterlife. Many priests of the Kalari/Rakkarim sell consecrated symbols for warriors or other nomads which serve as a replacement for consecrated ground, so long as they are buried with it" (S318). Funeral pyres "have gone out of fashion in Kalari lands, and are considered very dangerous and the practice of heathens" (S318). The Sancturi answer is that "the Kalari and Rakkarim are powerless, impotent gods. The faithful of the Kalari/Rakkarim don't have anywhere to go after death and therefore remain behind to terrorize the living", and so "forced conversion is necessary" (S318).
The priests still carry the old things of the faith: ivory statues of Kalar, golden ankhs of Arya (S170), and the Tears of Kalar, "a handful of ordinary looking small white crystals kept in a hidden pouch" that serve "as a prayer focus in the absence of a holy symbol" (S004).
Where the faith lives¶
In Proturas the Kalari are a founding power. The Church of the Light (Kalari) held one of the seven seats of the Conclave that once ruled the Grotto (S026), and its heir the Children of the Light, "a religious group formed around the Kalari pantheon", rules the City of Light and sits on the Proturan Council beside the Nyxian Priesthood (S078). The Divine Alliance and the Children "despise one another" (S078). The secret orders of the Kalari, the Light of Kalar which imprisons demons and the Brotherhood of the Sun, "an organization of Kalari priests, ex-priests, faithful believers" whose "mission is to preserve the Kalari legacy", protecting temple sites and recovering relics (S152), are Factions pages.
In the Divine Nations the faith is a capital crime. In Lorsythe "blasphemy is a cardinal sin punishable by death", and the faithful keep "a hidden altar and library of forbidden tomes about the Gods of the Kalari" and whisper "the frequent Kalari sermons" to their children (S004). Converts join the Moonlight Order, a secret society of the Kalari within the Alliance into which the Lorsythian officer Ephra "was formally initiated" (S004). Outcasts who will not hide flee to the Grotto, "a collection of hunted Uk'Zarai, Kalari Cultists, and other outcasts" (S006).
In the Rivenlands of the Broken Sea the priesthood holds on in the old kingdoms. There is a Kalari church in the docks of Miralt (S170), and in Alghert a High Priest Athaff, ordained priests such as Brother Giliam and the murdered Reder, and acolytes (S182). The Sancturi, who forbid the Riven Gods, hunt the worshippers of other gods in the provinces they take (S187).
The Sun Priests¶
Among the Kalari sects of Proturas are the Sun Priests, who "dress in red robes with a yellow sunburst" (S038, S065). In the Warrens they were seen in the company of the White Hand, the serpent-gang of the Elder God Teneb'Urat; the gang's Lamia mistress Lamystra was "also a priestess of the Sun" (S068). The sources do not say whether the sect as a whole is corrupted or only its priestess.
Before the Fall¶
In the Fourth Age the gods of the Kalari still answer. The Temple of Kalar in Marshford has a High Priest, Orrias, and its priests work the great restorations the Fifth Age has lost; a Kalari priest named Gandry serves the town (S359). The campaign is told under the Marshford Campaign.
Gap
No source gives the priesthood's ranks, vestments or calendar of feasts, says what "outside sources of magic" its priests use, or explains how the Moonlight Order and the Sun Priests relate to the Children of the Light. The Kalari founders' name, Children of the Light or Brotherhood of Light, is a question already open under Factions.