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Warden of the Afterlife, Shepard of Spirits, Keeper of the Gates to Paradise, Farris of the Kiln of the Underworld, and Forger of Souls; the Goddess Beltine holds all these titles and distinctions with pride. The Shrouded Goddess’ realm is that of the Underworld, a place where the spirits of the dead travel to await their final judgment.

While this Goddess is generally viewed as one of the more gentle and benevolent of the Pantheon due to Her domains of caring for the souls in the Afterlife and the healing of the wounded and infirm, She also has certain aspects that are neither wholesome nor kind. Some of these darker aspects depict Beltine as the Gray Crone, who stalks the night to rip out the souls of the unworthy to be reforged in her everhungry kiln. A bizarre cult known as the Grey Crones were once a sect of Beltinian priestesses corrupted by unholy texts detailing the worship of this aspect and transformed them into these horrific harbingers of death.

Holy Symbol: A shepherd's crook, warn as a symbol among the clerics of the Mother Church but often quite literally a crook among the rural priest and healers.

Position within the Pantheon: Guardian of souls. Sister to Saluwe’, Wife to Neroth, Mother of Sarish.

Favored Weapon: Crook, “Guide of Souls”

Animal: Raven

Color: Yellow

Appearance: Beltine appears as a matronly woman of indeterminate years. She is normally surrounded in a haze as if in a fog. Or as an aged crone dealing out karma to those she encounters. Both carry her iconic crook.



Sphere of Influence

Beltine is venerated throughout all of the Known Lands, but the bastion of Her religion remains the Coryani province of Valentia and its capital Enpebyn, the City of Weeping Souls. Other temples and shrines can be seen elsewhere even in Canceri, where Beltine is given obeisance as Neroth’s wife. Funerary rites there are attended to solely by the Nerothian clergy as worship of that aspect of Beltine is proscribed.



Temple

Temples to Beltine are multi-structured complexes, usually surrounded by a meticulously tended garden. These gardens are used by the clergy to console the bereaved family and friends of the deceased, allowing them a peaceful place to meditate upon their loss and to accept it as the natural order of things.

The central building is a many tiered tower topped by a large belfry with four to six large bronze bells. One bell is rung when a soul departs this world and moves on to the next, while up to two or three others are rung when a person of great importance passes on. Only upon the death of the Patriarch of the Mother Church are all the bells sounded for an entire hour.

While the upper levels of the temple of open to the public, the higher rituals are performed in underground chambers carved deep below the surface. This labyrinthine maze sometimes extends down for hundreds of feet with multiple rooms carved out of the living rock. Few people, other than higher ranking members of the clergy, are allowed to travel to these sacred areas where some of the most sacred ceremonies to the Shrouded Goddess take place.



Role of the Priest

The Beltinian clergy’s duty is to attend to funerary rites so that the spirit may pass on to the Afterlife. With the exception of Canceri, Beltinian priests are first given the body for a period of two days, during which time it is washed with holy oils, and prayed over while cloying yellow incense is burned in a bowl placed upon the deceased’s chest. The clerics says that the prayers are to ensure that the soul of the dead finds its way down to the Underworld and stands before the Judgment of Nier.

When souls do go astray and remain upon the Mortal Realm as shades, ghosts, specters, wraiths, and other non-corporeal entities, it is the Beltinian priests that are called to lay the unquiet spirits to rest. Given the amount of war, disease, and dangers that exist upon Arcanis, many bodies are not given final rites and a proper burial. This causes many ethereal undead to haunt the land and making Beltinian exorcists a common sight.

Beltinian priests are also tasked with easing the suffering of the injured as Beltine does not desire a being to visit Her realm before their time. Beltinian priests are some of the most skillful and effective healers upon Arcanis, equaled only by Her husband’s clergy, who share this duty, and surpassed only by the Ardakene elorii.

Though they share the ministrations of the body, Beltine abhors Her husband’s penchant for granting His favored the gift of ‘Life Beyond Life’. Intelligent undead are created by using the soul of the person as the catalyst that powers the transformation. This obliteration of the spirit is blasphemous to Beltine and thus Her clergy delight in the destruction of undead and those foul necromancers who would animate the husks of the deceased as their playthings.


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