Children

With a few major exceptions such as Swynfaredia and Kahdisteria, Greymoria affiliated temples receive few if any voluntary donations from the general populace and have even fewer wealthy donors among the upper classes. Thus, the Children need alternate means of gaining income.     Some Children have mundane day jobs, but not many. Day jobs tend to take a lot of time. Children are generally expected to use most of their free time studying and training to improve their magical skills. Many of the Children’s detractors joke that “the Children are so focused on magical studies that they cannot do simple mundane tasks such as tying their own shoes, children indeed.”   Unsurprisingly most Children in need of coin try to sell their magical skills. Most Children are mercenaries to the core, selling their magical services to anyone with gold or reagents and not asking too many questions.  

    The Dark Elf Nation of Kahdisteria is the only civilized nation on Scarterra that has Greymoria as their divine patron. The government is secular but Greymoria’s priesthood is very influential because Kahdisteria relies on arcane magic to keep their slaves in line and to protect their borders from outside threats.         Greymoria worship is more common among uncivilized folk, but even then Greymoria is not very popular. A great many barbaric people distrust arcane magic in general or they distrust Greymoria specifically. Greymoria has created a lot of races of monsters and humanoids but most of these creatures have rebelled against Greymoria treating them like expendable weapons.

-Love Greymoria above all others for without her nothing would exist. -Punish those who do not love Greymoria. -Encourage the spread of arcane arts for this will glorify Greymoria.     Beyond agreeing ont hese three basic tenets, the Children have a lot of differing interpretations on how best to carry out the will of the Dark Mother.

Many, if most priesthoods in Scarterra give a lot of weight and deference towards spell-casting ability when deciding who to promote to higher ranks, but Greymoria is the only deity in Scarterra that has zero recognized clergy without spell-casting ability.     Since most Greymoria temples are essentially autonomous they can select new recruits however they see fit. Some Children like to induct new members as children, some prefer inducting adults. As one might expect, the Children of the Dark Mother are very harsh task masters and demanding teachers. Sometimes recruits who are deemed failures are simply released back where they came from, sometimes they are killed. The later in a student’s education the student fails, the less likely he is to survive. To their credit, those who survive their training and are inducted as full priests or priestesses are very potent spell-casters, among the most powerful in the world. The Children have very few dabblers in their ranks. Many of Greymoria's dabblers style themselves as holy warriors or assassins. They focus their limited magical studies on things that would help them enhance their mundane skills at killing. Greymoria has sponsored a lot of theurgists and mages who are not priests but are devout worshipers nonetheless.   About one-in-four Greymoria theurgists do not bother joining the priesthood formally. For every mage who takes up the cloth and becomes a full priest or priestess, there are two or three mages moderately sympathetic to Greymoria worship, but with no desire to become full priests or priestesses.   Greymoria has almost as many favored souls as she has anointed, but they don’t interact with each other very often. Most of Greymoria’s anointed are found among humans and demi-humans and most of Greymoria’s favored souls are found among the so-called monstrous races, but there are numerous exceptions for both.   About half of Greymoria’s favored souls pop up among groups that still worship her heavily and the other half pop up in groups that have lost faith. These favored souls try to endorse old-school Greymoria revivals and this often works, at least in the short term.  

Ranks and Titles

  Rank among the Children is pretty simple in theory if not always in practice. Rank is based more or an ability to get useful things done rather than on seniority or networking though both these things play a part, and those with great magical power have an easier time ascending the ranks than those with minor magical power.   Initiate: A perspective priest or priestess who has yet to attain a single dot of magic ability.   Neophyte: A perspective priest or priestess who has just begun to show their first rudiments of magical ability. If a full priest or priestess is called a neophyte, this term is usually intended as an insult to one’s abilities.   Acolyte: A full member of Greymoria’s priesthood.   Adeptus: Honorific term for one of Greymoria’s Children who has attained at least three dots of at least three forms of magic.   Master: Honorific term for one of Greymoria’s Children who has attained five dot magic in at least one form of magic.   Completionist: Polite Honorific for one of Greymoria’s Children studying divine and arcane magic. Master Completionists are rare but they are given great respect.   Double Dabbler: Derogatory term for one of Greymoria’s Children studying divine and arcane magic.   Mystic Blade: Polite honorific for one of Greymoria’s Children who focuses on developing his or her mundane martial skills above his or her magic. Master Mystic Blades are rare but they are given great respect.   Dabbler Warrior: Somewhat derogatory term for one of Greymoria’s Children who focuses on developing his or her mundane martial skills above his or her magic.

The three favored spheres for Greymoria affiliated divine spellcasters are Crafts, Hexing, and Necromancy.   Divination is the most popular sphere among the Children from those three.   About half of the Children's priests, priestesse, and holy warriors are divine casters and about half are arcane casters. Arcane casters affiliated with the Children cast their magic the exact same way secular arcane casters do. Divination, Illusion Necromancy, Transmutation are all very popular among the Children's arcane spell caster but no school of magic is shunned or neglected.   The Children are equally likely to specialize in advancing a specific lore or school of magic to a high level as they are to seeking a jack-of-all-trades approach to magic, and there is no social stigma attached to either strategy.

Independents

  A majority of Greymoria's Children claim to be faction-less. Some do this because they do not want to avoid becoming too specialized. Others want to avoid the factional enemies of the groups. Other independent Children want to play the various factions against each other.   Whether they admit or not, most independent Children are sympathetic with the goals and methods of at least one of the major factions. Other times, informal factions arise temporarily and a cult of personality for a specific charismatic priest or priestess.  

Advocates, aka Monster Lovers

   

Bearers of the Book

   

Bridge Builders

   

Custodians of Kismet Heritage

   

Kahdisterian Children