Greymane/BoilGods

Gods and Religion in the Boil

Without a doubt because of the unusual nature of the Boil, the industrial city has spawned several little gods over the course of it’s existence. Various cults and religions having sprung up around each of them, the Boil offers an interesting variety of faiths, ranging from the benign to the mysterious. It is only the lack of unity under one faith which has stopped any little gods or religious leaders from rising to the level of prominence and importance within the city as the Captain, the Sheriff, and Father of Crows have; an arrangement all three and more than happy with, as one less player for power within the city is one less complication to their own plans.

Never the less, the Boil is a surprisingly religious city and you will be hard pressed to find a citizen who does not at least pay lip service to one cult or another. It’s resident gods are seen as being far more ‘down to earth’ than those outside the city walls, less prone to rashness and violence and more interested in keeping the gears of the foundries running smoothly and the brothels ever full. They are seen more often than many spirits who inhabit cities, less inclined towards rivalry and jealousy, and seem more involved and interested in the daily affairs of the industrial city as well.

Iron Tears

Whiteshieldian God of Industry
The patron of god of the Boil itself, Iron Tears (Essence 5) is the eldest of the three divine siblings within the city, who came into existence almost the day the reconstruction began and represents strongly the duality of the city. Both a mighty warrior and a skilled laborer, he craft weapons, armor, and artwork from the raw iron of the mines or the refined steel of the foundries and gift them to his city. He is the most prominent within the city and one of the most active, manifesting almost once a week to meddle in mortal affairs or make a show of being interested in the daily goings-on. A dutiful member of the Celestial Bureaucracy and an outspoken activist towards his cities continued development and prosperity, whenever he is not in the Boil, he can almost certainly be found attempting to gain support and politicking for favors to call upon for his cities benefit.

He is also known to be a tinker and machinist of great skill. The Dons, the great gothic clocktower which stretches out of the center of the city, was built at his behest and in accordance to plans he devised. The city garrison also wields several unusual yet potent weapons of his design, such as repeating crossbows, clockwork golem-soldiers, and javelin hurling ‘scorpion’ siege machines. Iron Tears is a machinist however, not a sorcerer, and few devices he gifts to the city are of a magical nature.

When he manifests, Iron Tears takes on one of two forms. That known to most the city is of a towering figure clad in a suit of super-heavy iron plate which covers him completely. Thick bolts attach the armor at every joint and seal the neck to the shoulders, effectively preventing the armor from ever being removed. His approach is a thunderous tumult of clanking plates and squeaking joints that rattles windows and shakes the very ground. There is no light beyond the visor of his helmet and his voice is that of the forge, the echoing of pounding hammers and hissing steam forming words that are barely comprehendible to the ear, yet register clearly within the mind. He carriers a giant hammer of gold and steel, the Song of the Forge, which has proven capable of crushing a rogue Dragon-Blooded warrior with a single mighty swing. In this form, he actively patrols the city walls with it’s garrison or spends hours within the forges and foundries, smelting steel and pounding it into useful tools with the laborers. During times of war, Iron Tears has been known to take to the field mounted in a great warstrider known as Chains of Duty. A clunky and brutal looking machine that moves with startling grace and speed, Chains of Duty carries a giant-sized copy of Song of the Forge to smite down the enemies of his city and bares a matched pair of gigantic essence cannons upon it’s shoulders.

His second, less well known form, is that of a handsome older man late into his forties. Iron gray hair and eyes, with a neatly maintained beard and well groomed locks, he is broad shouldered and well muscled. He dresses in the clothes of a simple day laborer and his face and skin is often covered with a light coating of coal dust as would be anyone who spent time working in the mines. He often wears a simple pick-axe at his belt. Sometimes going under the name of Olaf Berugun and claiming to be a former ice-walker who moved into the city, he is charming in a simple way and straight forward, enjoying a good drink and a hearty laugh with other workers in the inns and pubs or dallying in the pleasure houses of the red-lantern district.

It is also in this form that he visits the widows and daughters of men who have been killed in the mines many accidents. While he goes under the pretext of comforting and supporting them, in many cases he ends up taking them as lovers, eventually coming to reveal his true nature to them and sweeping them away to join a virtual harem of women who dwell within, maintain, and act as a private guard force for his fortress-manse on the hill to the west of the city. It is because of this that Iron Tears is sometimes considered the patron of widows and orphans, though many are quick to laughingly point out that ‘widows and orphans’ means only attractive wives and unmarried daughters of age.

The Church of the Faceless God is the largest within the Boil, maintaining several great shrines with cast-iron walls and clockwork displays. Iron Tears finds most of his worshipers among the laborers and foundry workers and their families, yet a great deal of the cities garrison also make prayers to him and merchants often seek his blessing as a matter of habit. He is fairly attentive to the needs of his worshipers, though stops short of coddling them or seeming too approachable. Individuals are often ignored until their voice becomes part of a group who all pray for the same thing. In these cases, he prefers to offer plans to his worshipers, yet force them to figure out how the plans could be used and to do the labor themselves. Despite love being closer to his sister’s realm of influence, Iron Tears is known to have soft spot for unrequited love and prayers to the Faceless God by lonely men or women will often find them gifted with prizes to attempt win the affection of their hearts-desire.

A second order exists devoted to Iron Tears. Known as the Tigers of the Relentless Gears, they are a tiny but popular militant order which bases itself directly out of the Faceless God’s fortress-manse. Lead by the handful of god-blooded children Iron Tears has sired over the years, the Tigers are a few in numbers but superbly trained and equipped and it is considered an honor of no small worth to be invited into their ranks. The Tigers form the core of Iron Tear’s body guard when he travels the city, as defense of the manse is left to the mortal wives and daughters who live with him. When Iron Tears takes to the field during war, they are also at his side, ready to sacrifice themselves to ensure the safety and victory of their god.

The Smiling Lover

Whiteshieldian Goddess of Sensual Services
The oldest profession is also one of the largest within the Boil and it falls to the Smiling Lover (Essence 5) to protect and look out for the working girls of the industrial city. The Smiling Lover is arguably the most popular spirit within the Boil, with her brother Iron Tears as her only rival for the affection of the population. Yet, the two siblings do not fight or struggle over worshipers as many spirits might be prone to and often even share the worship of the people. Their realms of influence are far enough removed from one another to allow the House of the Laughing Sin and the Church of the Faceless God to coexist peaceably.

The patron of whores, gigolos, concubines, and any who make a profession out of using their bodies to bring pleasure to others, the Smiling Lover is not lacking for attention. The third largest industry within the Boil is its infamous red-lantern district and the dim glow of its paper lanterns can be seen simmering in the night sky from miles away. The Smiling Lover formed and guided the Council of Madams, the Boils serious-minded political body composed of the owners of the leading houses in the red-lantern district who ensure the district runs without hitch and as little outside interference as possible. She also drafted the Code of the Sanguine Embrace, an unofficial yet direly supported series of laws and taboos for the conduct and treatment of the working men and women of the red-lantern district, and was largely responsible for moving prostitution off the dangerous streets and into the relative safety of the pleasure houses, with some liberal help of the cities militia.

The Smiling Lover is sensual, yet though the majority of her worshippers are lustful, she herself is not. A proud, shrewd business woman with head for finance and an eye for the needs of a customer, one could say the Smiling Lover is more greedy than licentious. She is a consummate professional and loves her trade with a passion. As a madam, she is refined and elegant and thoroughly in control of the world around her. She rules her domain with an iron fist, though it lay well hidden behind a glove of silk. Speaking in the politest tones, demurring with fetching grace to those who rank above her, her mannerisms are so much that of a lady of class that many fail to notice that she runs her businesses like a general does an army.

Within Creation, the Smiling Lover settles herself with few duties. Upon request, she will sit in as advisor or mediator with the Council of Madams and will make rare tours of the red-lantern district, to ensure the quality of the pleasure houses and to make certain none are falling into disrepair or disobeying the Code of the Sanguine Embrace. At times, she also scouts the pleasure houses for the most beautiful and promising of courtesans to enter her service as an escort within Yu-Shan, granting them a benediction and paying the Madam of the house a tidy sum to replace the loss of their best young ladies and boys. Beyond this, however, she only tarries in Creation on personal whim, to enjoy the admiration of her worshipers, or allow visiting artists a chance to work their craft in her image.

Her primary interests lay in Yu-Shan, where she holds rank within the Cerulean Lute of Harmony and runs an extremely successful and lucrative escort service. The Smiling Lover caters to the elite of the Celestial City. She prides herself on training not simple courtesans, but ladies and gentlemen of culture. Those under her must spend years in preparation for their first night they will be shown off at a gala or party. As well as being beautiful, they must be intelligent, clever, and refined. They must know the arts of the bedroom by heart and have a love of such activities; the Smiling Lover does not tolerate those who soullessly sell their bodies for money. They must master the art of massage and know how to seem sympathetic and understanding to the woes of presumptuous spirits. They must speak several languages, have knowledge of politics and finance, and have the courtly manners rulers within Creation would swoon in the face of. Most importantly, they must do and be all of this while yet seeming obedient and unintimidating.

The Smiling Lover is a maker of mistresses and even wives and husbands. While a handful of her employees may go for years acting as purchased lovers, many are snatched up within their first few nights upon the ballroom floor, taken home to become the live-in mistresses of powerful and influential figures. Those with enough savvy may even be able to wriggle their way into wedlock. It is the promise and lure of this, to be attached to greatness, which finds so many willing to sacrifice their effective freedom to fall into her grasp. While the majority of those under her employment are mortals who have been given her blessing, many a disenfranchised spirit or those who have suffered the fall-out of political maneuverings have turned to the Smiling Lover for employment and it is generally viewed as a gracious way to fall from grace. This has given the Smiling Lover a great deal of influence within the various branches of the Bureaucracy. No one who leaves her service on the arm of a powerful spirit does so without knowing they yet owe their former employer more than a few favors.

Being the business woman that she is, the Smiling Lover has no hesitation to offer herself as a companion or escort to those who seek after her, yet her price is always high. While there are a few mortals or Exalted within Creation who can afford the services of her escorts, there has only ever been one instance of anyone outside of Yu-Shan being able to buy a night with the goddess herself. Even within Yu-Shan, a night with the Smiling Lover is a delight that will not break the wallets of only the wealthiest of gods or Sidereal. For herself, the Smiling Lover takes few as lovers. She enjoys the occasional dalliance with a mortal, but the Smiling Lover only takes serious lovers from among the ranks of the gods. Her favorite companion in bed has always been her brother, Iron Tears, who has been as close to a husband to her as the Smiling Lover will likely ever allow herself and their incestuous relation a favored gossip point among local deities. Her young mortal-cum-goddess niece, Simma Siray, has also made the occasional visit her and the Smiling Lover speaks with great praise of the youthful enthusiasm and creativity of her young relation. She has also taken her other brother, the bitter mining god Kodak, to her bed, yet she considered this no different than selling herself as a companion to any other needful spirit.

The Smiling Lover spends less time manifested within the Boil as her brother, but still visits the city often enough to remain a presence. When the Shameless Goddess walks the streets, her approach is heralded by bowed heads, tips hats, and proclamations of love. She appears most often as a tall, slender northern woman with generous curves and full lips. Her hair is spun gold that has been twisted into tight curls. Her pale skin flushed radiantly, she wears only light make-up and only the most obstinate of critics would say she needed to adorn herself any more. Dressed in an elegant gown of white that clings to her every curve, artfully reveling a enticing amount of cleavage and fashioned to flash her perfect, pale legs through cleverly hidden slits in the skirt, she displays her beauty with pride and holds her head high, smiling in the face of cat-calls and love ballads alike. A warm, perfumed breeze follows the Smiling Lover everywhere she goes and tiny purple flowers often grow from the cracks in the paving stones of the street where her feet touch the ground. The Smiling Lover carries no weapons, yet does carry a small silk bag at her side at all times. When opened, the bag seems empty and filled with a hollow blackness. At her merest whim however, a violent wind will pick up and draw in whatever she desires, even living begins, pulling them impossibly into the little purse where she can later disgorge them at her leisure. Obnoxious mortals who earn her displeasure often vanish into her bag, never to return.

The House of the Laughing Sin, as she calls her cult of worshipers, is second only to the Church of the Faceless God for size and numbers. Most of her “shrines” are indistinguishable from the other pleasure houses of the red-lantern district. Warm wooden structures filled with laughter and pleasured sighs, the walls are adorned with red-silk and tasteful erotica. As most pleasure houses bare at least one statue of the Shameless Goddess, even the ivory and gold shrines within the House of the Laughing Sin would go unnoticed, were it not for the occasional presence of a red and white robed priestess attending to it at all times. In an odd decree, the Smiling Lover has stated that no shrine priestess shall be anything less than pure, which makes shrine-maidens of the House of the Laughing Sin rare things indeed.

Kodak

Whiteshieldian God of Mining
Though Iron Tears occasionally works within the mines under mortal guise, he is not the actual patron of miners and those who work underground and the Faceless God must beg the favor of entering the darkened tunnels beneath the city from his brother, Kodak (Essence 3). The true patron of miners, Kodak is the third eldest god of the Boil, but less powerful than either of his two siblings and even slowing being surpassed in strength by his once mortal niece-in-law. Awareness of this has made Kodak a bitter and irritable spirit. Hungry for power, he spends his time within Yu-Shan, quietly seeking to undo his brothers political maneuvering and undermine the strength of the other spirits within the Boil.

It was not always so, once. In the beginning, the trio of sibling spirits who came to represent the three key industries of the Boil worked in harmony to ensure the city prospered against its harsh surroundings. Much of the Boils early success could even be attributed to their unity of purpose. Iron Tears dealt with the protection of the city and the establishment of the foundries. The Smiling Lover built the red-lantern district, established the Counsel of Madams, pulled in or chased away the street-walkers, and ensured the fair practice and treatment of the working girls. And Kodak helped dig out the mines, build the infrastructure and bureaucracy of the foremen, and taught mortals to read and understand the warnings and guidance of the knocker-spirits whom he released to guide them riches or warn them of dangers within the earth.

Yet as time passed, Kodak found himself for want of worshipers. Nearly every miner and foremen who risked life and limb to pull out the treasures of the earth offered prayers to him, but they composed only a fraction of the cities population. Above ground, Kodak’s name was nearly unknown compared to the admiration and awe Iron Tears or the lustful worship of the Smiling Lover. He had few shrines within the city, often poorly maintained and little visited. People knew the importance of the mines to the city, yet had come to see its true wealth in the foundries which refined the raw stock, not in the dirty and dangerous tunnels twisting through the hills. Then came the greatest insult to his pride, when his brother petitioned to have a mortal girl promoted to godhood and the little bitch quickly came to almost match him in power.

The last straw for the already bitter god, he stamped his foot, causing the worst series of cave-ins to ever strike the mines, and he pulled back the knockers and ordered them to abandoned their posts. While chaos and confusion reigned in the city and hundreds died as tons of dirt and stone collapsed without warning upon their heads, Kodak gathered up his most promising mortal servants and fled to Yu-Shan to begin the process of undoing all his brother had achieved within the Celestial Bureaucracy. It was only at the humbling begging of his siblings, who shamelessly prostrated themselves before his manse for a week, and the promise of his sister’s bed for a night that finally swayed Kodak to at least return the knockers to their stations, though without his direct guidance many left their posts abandoned just the same.

While he will never admit it, Kodak’s bitter lashing out before leaving did more to destroy his foundation of faith than anything his siblings had ever done. Most of the miners who had so fervently prayed and given thanks for their patron’s aid became disillusioned and even resentful at the horrible losses in life and profit that came when he caused the cave-ins and ordered the knockers away. Many were so angry that a riot began at the mines, starting when a foreman attempted to stop enraged workers from smashing a statue of the mining god. The foreman was killed at the temple looted, kicking off a several day rampage of destruction and desecration that left none of Kodak’s shrines unharmed and ended only when the garrison marched on the workers and put a number to the sword. The further loss of life and time wasted was a blow to the Boil’s mining industry and it would be years before the city fully recovered.

Kodak has not manifested within the city for generations, not since he caused the cave-ins, and it’s doubtful he would be welcome back with open arms, as the Boil has a long memory. When he did appear years ago, he manifested as a heavy-set man with soil-brown skin and granite-gray hair. Dressed in clothes of pristine white than never soiled no matter what muck and filth he waded through, Kodak was never a handsome god, but he had at least once been kindly and brave when it came to rescuing those trapped by cave-ins. He wielded a pick-axe in one hand and a shovel in the other, capable of digging out miles of tunnel within a day, and his broad shoulders could bare the weight of tons of stone and dirt for hours while proper supports were put in place. He always had an angry face, though most of his statues depicted him as being fat and jovial in spite of this.

The Cult of the Deep Earth Digger is one of the smallest in the city. It’s members still consist of nothing but miners and foremen, but their ranks have shrunken considerably as many turn to Iron Tears for patronage or even heretically worship the knockers who still perform their duties. It is likely that in another few generations worship of Kodak will have faded from the city entirely and that Iron Tears may come to replace his brother as patron of the mines as well as the city proper. Only the Granite God’s direct intervention and a display of benign attention towards those he betrayed would stem this inevitable fate, yet Kodak has become too bitter and petty to see this and the chances are that when realizes what he needs to do, it will already be too late.

Simma Siray

Whiteshieldian Goddess of Gangs
The Wild-Child, mistress of the streets and the patron deity of the gangs of the Boil. Simma Siray (Essence 4) was once the adopted mortal daughter of Iron Tears, taken in at a very young age after a natural gas leak in one of the mines killed her mother and several other workers. Yet while done in good faith, the child proved to be a hellion born of sadness and confusion, so badly marring and bringing ruin to the spirit’s fortress-manse that it even ceased to function for a time. It was a testimony to his patience that he did not simply slay the violent child, but instead released her back into the streets with a bag of coins and a slim iron dagger and his best wishes that she survived. Survive she did, but not easily. She had to learned patience and came to understand kindness, as strangers of the neighborhood she haunted came to help her without hesitation after a brutal attack and rape by a group of rivals, taking her in and tending her wounds.

After this, she formed the first “official” gang out of a group of other scraggly street girls, claiming a block of the city as her turf and declaring them the “Silver Queens of West Tanners Corner.” Simma Siray was responsible for many of the unusual habits of the gangs, such as their flamboyant names and unusual styles of dress, as well as their tendency to legitimately protect and care for the people of their neighborhood rather than simply brutalizing and preying upon them.

It was perhaps because of the great influence she came to hold over the gangs of the Boil that her father petitioned for her god-hood and patronage. Though she had never known it, Iron Tears had always been watching her since the day he released her – the Faceless God never truly abandoned his children when they may yet be of use to him. The wide-eyed girl was summoned back to the spirits fortress-manse, then in turn taken up to Yu-Shan, where her god-hood was achieved and a small home and salary granted to her within the Celestial City. Simma Siray never returned to Yu-Shan however and most of the Celestial Bureaucracy has since forgotten her very existence, outside of official records buried somewhere which continue to have her modest salary sent to her abandoned home. Now a goddess, she returned to the Boil to reassume leadership of the Silver Queens and the intention to destroy or bring under control those gangs who were still nothing more than petty thugs preying upon the city. It was a goal she may never truly achieve, but her influence upon the vast majority of the gangs is obvious.

Simma Siray has never left the Boil after her one visit to Yu-Shan. She is manifested constantly and always active among the gangs of the city. While she has a biased towards the Silver Queens, Simma Siray does not hesitate to turn her attentions to any of the others. She strives to ensure that everyone follows the examples she laid down and that the ‘protection’ of the population does not degrade into tyranny. She is also seen as the protector of rape-victims, or at least those taken out of turn (as with most the gangs of the Boil, she considers those who actively seek out trouble to be getting what they deserve if something happens afterwards). Many a young girl and even a few young men who had been violated and prayed in earnest to the Wild-Child for revenge have awakened to find the badly mutilated body of their attacker hanging on a stake outside their home. The Sheriff and the Captain both disapprove of Simma Siray’s vigilante justice on these matters, yet only as it impedes upon both their duties and neither has ever made any attempt to curb the goddess from her wrath.

When not perusing this, she behaves little different than any other gang-leader in the city; hanging out with the Silver Queens within their hide-out on West Tanners Corner or out causing trouble for their nearest rivals. She loves to brawl, drink, and most of all to have sex. Simma Siray has taken more mortal lovers and given birth to more god-blooded children within the city than any other spirit. ‘Bastards of Siray’ are almost common, though few inherit much power from their mother and she casts most out at the same age Iron Tears abandoned her, forcing them to grow up on the streets away from her protection. She favors ‘exotic’ lovers, those who were born from forbidden unions between demons, Rhaksha, or even ghost and mortal-kind or those who simply bare features that speak of a foreign ancestry. Her favorite lover at the moment is Bright Stream, a painfully shy, sweet, and lovely girl from the West who fled to the Boil from Skullstone to escape the attentions of a violently obsessive Deathknight. The loud, angry, lustful goddess and the meek, innocent Bright Stream are a laughably mismatched pair, yet Simma Siray dots on her constantly and has sworn to kill the Deathknight should he pursue the young mortal further.

Simma Siray looks little different as a goddess than she did as a mortal. She is a small, feral looking woman, seemingly little older than seventeen, with narrow but hard limbs and close-cropped blond hair and a long, angry scar across her brow. She is not beautiful and could only roughly be described as pretty, yet has an air of violent sexuality and dangerous allure about her, leaving one uncertain if she is about to make love to you or sink her teeth into your throat and eat you alive. The only change god-hood has brought upon her physically is to her eyes, which swirl silver and gold. She still carries only the slim dagger Iron Tears gave her all those years ago. ‘Prick,’ as she calls it with a dirty grin, has taken on magical properties almost by osmosis to her presence, and she is known to be able to hurl it with deadly accuracy then return it to her hand with a mere gesture.

There is no formal cult devoted to Simma Siray, but she does not want for worshipers. The Silver Queens are all devoted deeply to their spirit-leader, and several other gangs have formed under the pretence of worshiping her. One in particular, the Bloody Roses of Highlane, are so devoted to her aspect of a punisher of rapine and protector of victims of such crimes that they have evolved nearly to the point of an organized religion unto themselves. Few are so strongly devoted as the Bloody Roses though and most make a more casual habit of praying to the Wild-Child. Many women among the gangs and the general population offer prayers to the Wild-Child, in hopes of earning her protection. Many a young man also offers the goddess prayers, but usually only in hope of earning her attention and a place as her lover for a time.

Jungen of the Thirty Ways

Whiteshieldian God of Thaumaturgy
The least known and thus least powerful spirit of the Boil is also the youngest of the local Gods. Jungen of the Thirty Ways (Essence 3) is the sorcerous spirit of the Boil and patron to it’s unusual brand of magic. While only a handful of minor mystical societies exist within the Boil and the number of sorcerers capable of practicing even Terrestrial Circle Sorcery can be counted on one hand, there has come to be a unique blend of metallurgy, alchemy, and blacksmithing within the industrial city which gave birth to it’s own patron spirit. Through their own research, experimentation, and cunning, the alchemists of the Boil have begun to learn how to lend near-permanent mystical properties to the refined steel that comes out of the foundries. Freezing snow-iron, burning fire-steel, glowing light-metals, metals which emulate and even rival the quality the feather-steels of the League; all of these are seeing a slow realization at the hands of the alchemist societies. Steel-magery has been slow to develop and only just blossoming as an art, but already interested parties have begun to pour investments into further development.

Jungen of the Thirty Ways came into being in response to this unusual development. His appearance surprised the other spirits of the city. Iron Tears hesitantly welcomed him into their fold, while the Smiling Lover politely opened the doors of her home for him to stay in for a time and began a slow seduction of the young spirit. Simma Siray was the only one to great him with an untrusting eye, a mortal’s distaste and fear of sorcery leaving her terse and dismissive of the new-comer. It is likely quite lucky for Jungen that Kodak had long since fled to Yu-Shan and has yet to learn of the manifestation of new god within the city, for in all likelihood the Granite God would seek to ruthlessly crush this new threat to his decaying strength before Jungen could ever grow strong enough to challenge him.

The young spirit himself was uncertain what he is meant to do or how to go about it. While he began to work with the thaumaturges and occasional sorcerer to help refine their new art, Jungen of the Thirty Ways found the mortal magicians embarrassingly hard to teach and guide. Their grasps of the very sorcerous concepts which they stood upon the verge of working with were vague and childish and the tools of their trade crude and ill-suited for what they are attempting. His distain for them has already been made clear and has quickly lead to tensions between the alchemists and the godling. Finding him wise, yet arrogant and full of bluster for a spirit whose aid was not asked for and presence few feel they require, only a spattering of the thaumaturges indirectly responsible for Jungen’s creation actually worship the spirit and his base of power remains weak.

By far, Jungen of the Thirty Ways prefers to spend his time among the intellectual community of Yu-Shan than in attempting to educate the ignorant mortals of the Boil. He would likely not leave Yu-Shan at all, were it not for some sense of egotistical need within him, a desire to prove himself to his peers within the Celestial Bureaucracy by accomplishing the indomitable task of making near sorcerers out of half-wit mortal amateurs. Thus, every month for the past several years as Jungen of the Thirty Ways manifested within Creation to hold open lectures and classrooms for the thaumaturges of the city. Most attend, though many prefer to spend their time debating facts with the young god or trumpeting progress made without his aid than listening to his instructions. More often than not, the lectures end with Jungen of the Thirty Ways throwing his arms up in disgust and vanishing back to Yu-Shan for another month.

In spite of all this however, more has been taken away from these lectures than has been let on and since Jungen’s appearance remarkable progress has been made. Work which would have taken several life times could even be achieved within a single mortal life span. More than this, Jungen of the Thirty Ways has offered an unintended hope to the mystical societies. They created a god, however indirectly, and it has done more to bolster their confidence than the work they had achieved prior. The loose knit collections of mortal thaumaturge and the odd god-blooded sorcerer have begun to grow more tightly knit and even sending out feelers to their fellow societies to join together and share their knowledge and resources as a single united organization rather than a scattering of independents. Though most have yet to realize it, within their hearts the alchemists are coming to understand the possibilities Jungen of the Thirty Ways represents and how much he could aid them in what they wish to accomplish. Without a single prayer uttered, they are coming to worship him.

A young spirit, Jungen of the Thirty Ways manifests in a manner which reflects his youthful nature. He appears as a dashingly handsome man with the pale skin of a scholar and fine, midnight-black hair. His face is often somber and serious, blue-glass spectacles perched upon his nose. The air of over-education and rank scent of youthful cockiness heavy about him and he forever seems to be looking down his nose at the rest of the world. Jungen of the Thirty Ways floats, rather than walks, his every motion leaving blurring-blue after images that fade into the air. An odd touch of whim, he dresses much more like a Scavenger Lord than a scholar, with sturdy, serviceable clothes of dark color and fine quality. He bares a sword on one hip, a blade of rough black basalt and copper wire which can burst into green flame at a moments notice. At his other hip is chained a book which he simply calls the Secret Way. No one, not even his fellow gods, knows what lay within the pages of the book. Many suspect it to be simple diary as mortal thaumaturges are prone to keep or a book of sorcerous incantations. Only Jungen has ever peered within and he has sworn to never allow any save his most trusted of allies know what is written there. The brash young god has yet to find any he deems worthy of the knowledge, though he did once clobber a particularly loud alchemist over the head with it. The thaumaturge claimed the blow imparted great wisdom to him, but this is a highly debatable statement coming from one who would scream obscenities at a god.

Jungen has no cult, formal or otherwise. His realm of influence is narrowly defined and it would be some time before he ever achieves any manner of popularity even among those he patrons. Only a tiny handful of thaumaturges worship him purposefully, making prayers and offerings to him in hopes that spirit will continue to bless them with his wisdom. Many others worship him unknowingly, through the longing in their hearts for what he could teach them and grudging respect they feel towards the egotistical spirit. With more effort and a gentler disposition, it would be possible for Jungen of the Thirty Ways to convert all of the mystics and socerers within the Boil into open worshipers. Already, the once divided mystical societies are beginning to ban together because of his influence and could well achieve a lasting presence within the city, but Jungen’s ego is vast and it will take an event of great importance to ever shake that arrogance down enough for him to see it.

Cold Oven

Northern Goddess of Infertility
You find no more sad and miserable a creature than Cold Oven, one of the Four Sisters of the Barren Field. While her sisters in the East and West live vivaciously in their freedom and her sister in the south makes due by taking in orphans of every stripe, Cold Oven sits sad and forlorn in a tiny gray house tucked into the heart of the Boil. Children at play outside her windows see her from time to time, a flash of powder-white hair and wide gray eyes watching them longingly through a crack in her dusty curtains. Few others have seen more of her to see the tiny doll she clutches everywhere she goes, stroking it’s frayed rope hair idly when she speaks. From time to time, street urchins and others without home in the dirty city will find plates of cookies and fresh milk sitting on the doorstep outside her home, yet so much rumor surrounds the strange woman that no one ever takes these offerings for fear it will leave them as infertile as her. Sometimes at night, weeping can be heard from her home and those who live in it’s shadow often sigh and shake their heads, offering sympathy from a great distance.

Long ago in the Boil’s history, Cold Oven was once a dangerous creature who came after young mothers that abandoned their children, tearing them limb from limb in her fury. The nature of the city made this a bloody few years and finally, unable to endure it any longer, the other spirits of the city came together and punished the barren goddess. What they did to her is unknown, though before hand her hair was vibrantly red and her eyes flashing green. Perhaps more telling, the one and only picture of her before this time, painted in uncharacteristically familial tones by Kadel Kurodona, shows a small red-haired girl standing near by, in her hands a tiny doll with rope-hair and button eyes.

Cold Oven manifests as a young woman whose pretty face is lined with unrelenting sorrow and whose wide gray eyes are haunted and empty. So many tears have traveled her cheeks that they have left permanent trails of salt that sparkle in streaks across her face. Sadness stole the color from her hair, leaching it to powder white, and lay of care leaves it hanging limp across her shoulders. Her body seems well formed under the aged gray house dress and woven shall she wears, but a curious depression around her midsection reveals itself to be a gapping hole that passes clear through the middle of her.

The barren goddesses mere touch can cause drugs to become sterile plants, make alcohol go flat, and turn the pollen in a flower to merely dust. Animals in her presence will not give milk nor can feeding mothers. Food looses all taste and the very air around her is stale, bereft of scent. It is said she can curse any man, woman, or beast with a life of barrenness and misery. That she can even make the very soil unfit to grow plants. She is held to be the patron goddess of Maiden’s Tea and many think asking for her blessing over a cup will ensure it’s effects do not fail.

Other Religions

The Immaculate Order

The Immaculate Order has yet to establish a presence within the Boil. There is something within the city that does not care for their order or their presence beyond the walls. The handful of Immaculates to ever enter the Boil have simply vanished somewhere in the night. There is never any trace of them to be found and all trails run cold when explored by sympathetic agents.

The trend has proven disconcerting for the Mouth of Peace, yet she has always stood undecided on how it is best dealt with and even the Sidereal have found themselves perplexed by the disappearance of the monks. The policy of the Order has thus become to avoid the Boil itself and focus their attentions upon the far more approachable Whiteshield until a more through investigation can be launch.

The Cult of the Black Feather Enlightenment

A fledgling religion which has never truly left the ground, the Cult of the Black Feather Enlightenment is a more organized off-shoot of the worship many gangs in the city offer to Father of Crows. Founded by one of the few gang-members to survive to late age without being drawn into the deeper politics and criminal activities of the Boil, the self-proclaimed High Priest Rowen envisioned bringing the worship of the cities dark-king out of dingy basement shrines and into the open light of day.

To his credit, Rowen did manage much in the way of organizing the hodge-podge of beliefs and muddled teachings credited to Father of Crows among the various gangs into a grim, but suitably understandable philosophy as to the nature of survival, strife, and wisdom, mixed liberally with paraphrased sections of a treatise on the Silver Way, which he calls the Way of the Ebony Dove. The problem lay in that as a public speaker, Rowen was not the most charismatic of men and so far has drawn in few worshipers to his cult. Through sheer perseverance, he managed to raise the funds to buy the land where a shrine to Kodak lay before cave-in riots reduced it to rubble and to rebuild upon the foundations, crafting a fairly impressive, if ominous shrine. Black silk banners and crow-like gargoyles adorn the shrine of Cult of the Black Feather Enlightenment, such eerie decorations causing more people to give the shrine a wide birth than are drawn to seek out it’s wisdoms and mysteries.

While there has never been any obvious sign of approval or displeasure from Father of Crows, recently Rown has begun to receive mysterious and haunting visions during meditations. He has seen what he believes to be visions of the First Age and the city which the Boil was built upon at its glory and of the Anathema who ruled there and brought it to ruin. He has attempted with a rough hand to paint and sketch these images onto canvas to share with his followers. These odd, incomprehensible pictures are somehow made more unnerving by the child-like quality of Rowen’s art. A handful of private collectors for a taste of the unusual have purchased art from the High Priest, yet all have swiftly returned the paintings with muttered explanations about ‘bad dreams.’ Not simply visions, voices have begun quietly whispering in his ear as he meditates or slumbers, giving him new words to say to the masses, new revisions to his philosophy, and dire warnings of some nameless dread to come to the city that will give him the chance he needs to thrust the Cult of the Black Feather Enlightenment to the forefront of the people’s attentions.

Many could pass these off as the delusions of mad man, yet disturbing apparitions have begun to appear in and around the shrine. Worshipers have claimed to see an unnaturally large emerald-eyed raven with human hands for feet, watching them intently from the sacrificial altar at the back of the shrine. As they grow closer, it opens it’s beak and whispers something to them in a language they cannot understand, before spreading it’s wings wide and melting into a pool of bloody feathers within the bowl of the altar. Others claim to have passed the shrine at night and seen a woman in archaic golden robes staring sadly up at the building with tears steaming down her face. When they approach to offer aid or question her, she screams and her mouth stretches open impossibly wide, her eyes rolling back in her head and her heart bursts bloodily from her chest, beating in the air for an instant before both heart and woman explode into golden flame and are reduced to ash on the wind in seconds. Another woman has been seen standing on the roof top ledge above the shrine’s stair way where no one could easily climb. Clad in black jade armor and with the distinctive deep blue skin and hair of a powerful Water Aspect Dragon-Blooded, she stares at the distant horizon for hours, unmoving and unblinking, until the first rays of the sun reach out towards her. Then, great wounds suddenly rend her flesh and spill water-like blood down onto the stairway. Her beautiful skin withers with age, and she raises a battle-horn to her cracked lips and blows a low note as to greet the dawn, before she silently vanishes as if she had never been.

Rowen believes these to be messages from Father of Crows, statements of approval and warnings which must be brought to the people. Most have come to take it as a sign of Kodak’s displeasure at having his shrine built over and see the apparitions as part of a curse lain down by the Granite God. Those who are closest to Rowen question his sanity and wonder if he has not somehow crafted these apparitions himself in the vain hope of drawing in more worshipers. The High Priest has become a prophet of doom, standing on the street corner and proclaiming the downfall of the city will be coming soon and only by accepting the wisdom of the Way of the Ebony Dove can they achieve victory over the shadow that will claim the city.

The Cult of Twisting Silence

A rumor which has yet to prove true, the Cult of Twisting Silence is suspected to be a coven of demon-worshipers somewhere within the Boil. It is known that there are demons somewhere in the wilderness outside of the Boil, lurking in the shadows among the untamed elementals and Fair Folk. None have ever been known to enter the city however and the only possibility of a demon-cult springing up in the city would be someone summoning one of the Yozi’s servants somewhere well hidden within city limits or someone bringing the cult in from outside the city.

The name, the Cult of Twisting Silence, came when the Sheriffs agents interrupted a series of secret letters being smuggled into the city. The peasants who carried the letters could say nothing of the Cult or at least refused to even under strain of torture and all claimed to have been paid a great sum of money to carry the letters and leave them at odd locations in the city – within the specific lamp posts, under loose stones in the street, between the boards of certain buildings. None would say who paid them, all claiming to have only vague memories of a hooded figure in gray handing them a bag of jade and the letter and telling them where to carry. So too could none remember where the payment they received went, as none were ever found to be carrying any measure of wealth.

At a glance, the letters are simply oddly worded and poorly spelt love letters to an unnamed young lady within the city from an unnamed suitor somewhere in Windia. Yet the Sheriffs agents uncovered a pattern within the letters that led to the slow cracking of a coded message within each. Even these messages were often nonsensical and bizarre, using some manner of private slang. Terms such as “Deep Twilight” they came to realized implied the ‘cleaning season’ of the garrison against the cities gangs, while “Old Bronze” was the name given to the Sheriff himself when one message disturbingly detailed travel plans the royal cousin had shared with only a handful of close friends. Only one message ever stated anything clearly, a dire warning to have the “Cult of Twisting Silence” prepared to move and ready to face something known as “Black Heaven” when their master would call forth his minions to aid them. All of the letters were signed from someone identifying themselves only as “H.”

Beyond the letters, there has been no further proof of the cult’s existence. Agents planted deep into the city have uncovered no clues or hints to where it may be or what its plans could entail. Mildly paranoid as it already is, this new potential threat against his city has set the Sheriff on edge and he has already sent runners to speed news to Whiteshield of what may be lurking somewhere within the town.