Eclipse-Touched

Favored souls are mortals who are born with a spark of divine power from one of the Nine  in them which usually manifests as they enter puberty.     During a typical Zodiac year, three or four favored souls of Khemra are born, pretty much always to parents who are fervent Khemra worshipers.  Every eighty-one years, there is what is called the Year of Khemra Ascendant in which case ten to twenty favored souls of Khemra born, sometimes in unlikely place but never to families that are openly hostile to Khemra.   Khemra's favored souls are frequently but not always born during or near a solar or lunar eclipse, thus earning Khemra's favored souls the title "Eclipse-Touched."  Even if they are not born near an eclipse, they are considered spiritually eclipsed touched.   Khemra is a very hidebound goddess very protective of laws and tradition but even Khemra acknowledges that changes and revisions are sometimes necessary.  Eclipse-touched Keepers have the rare legal ability to propose and implement changes in ecclesiastical law and tradition.  They can also act relatively free of the restraints of the Keepers' normal chain of command.   Some Keepers work hard to influence Eclipse-Touched to push forth reforms that are favorable to their interests and others try to sideline Eclipse-Touch so they cannot push forth reforms.  Sometimes, Eclipse-Touched are "encouraged" to join adventuring parties to gain experience and spread Khemra's light to the masses but in reality this is often to get a meddling Eclipse-Touched out of a temple's collective hair.  Even Keepers who dislike having Eclipse-Touched around would not normally dream of sending one on a suicide mission.    

Rebel Eclipse-Touched?

  It is common subject of speculation among theologians, minstrels, and lay people at tavern hearths alike about whether or not favored souls have the ability to act against their deity's interests.   There are no accredited stories of an Eclipsed-Touched acting directly against Khemra, but there have been a few who espoused that the current world-wide organizational structure imposed on the Keepers  by the Pentarchs of the Tower of the Sun is flawed and that less organized Khemra-worship is preferable.  These Eclipse-Touched occasionally found their own schismatic Khemra worshipping factions outside the Keepers normal hierarchy.   Because the Keepers cannot directly oppose Eclipse-Touched, they have not labeled these schismatic groups as heretics though they almost never endorse them.  Most of these schismatic groups collapse after their Eclipse-Touched founder dies and as of yet, the few that have survived afterwards have yet to grow very large in numbers or influence.