Lands of Tyranny
Day 1 of The Philosopher, Year 414
Astaroth
(Ashtatoth, Ashtar’th, Hastazzar (Dwarves), Durion (Elves) )
God of knowledge, the unknown, passage to the afterlife, time, the cycle of life.
Symbols: Lanterns, pine trees, an empty book, the forest at night, fog.
Thought by some to be one of the most ancient deities known to humankind, Astaroth, also known as Ashtatoth or Ashtar’th by its most intimate followers and in Hym, the region where his cult was most prominent, he was known as the patron of knowledge, inheritance, time, the afterlife, and the cycle of life. In some more rural communities he was also known as the ‘wanderer of the dark woods’, or ‘the patron of night’.
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Him being the master of time and the passage of time directly explains why he is also the god of knowledge, being indeed able to travel in time from the very beginning of all things, to the very end, making him omniscient. Life and death have similarly little meaning for Astaroth, as everything is but a continuum, all part of the same: he is therefore the deity that in most societies is associated with the passage to the afterlife and the guardian of the dead.
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Yet, such a characteristic so alien such as omniscience and timelessness, makes it so that none can really describe the true nature, or intent of Ashtar’th. While some may think him cruel for allowing death to happen, others proclaim them to be a fair and just deity who guides the souls to what lies beyond the mortal plane. The now long gone sages and priests of the lands of Hym had concluded in some of their ancient teachings, that Ashtar’th is not bound by such simple alignments, and that they are simply part of the (if not the) natural order that binds existence itself.
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As the worship of The Three grew, and so did their influence among the masses, and before his cult was fully forbidden with the coming of the Empire, the interpretation of Astaroth’s domain and philosophy gradually changed, focusing on its darkest aspects, and of course twisting some of them. That of the god of forbidden knowledge, bringer of fear and herald of death.
Astaroth is commonly represented as a faceless hooded figure in wide robes. At times shrines dedicated to him also show him holding a lantern.
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His shrines can commonly be found at the border of pine forests, or lacking these, other particularly dense forests. Once upon a time small altars were certainly also present in most libraries -public or not-, as well as places where ancient alchemists, experimenters, sages, or even healers would operate.
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Astaroth is a deity that seems deceptively close to those that follow them, especially if they remain at the superficial level of ‘god of knowledge’. Ancient texts, now lost or destroyed by the inquisition, describe old recounts of people seeing their visage among the pine trees of dark forests whenever death loomed near, witnesses describing the smell of pine just before they laid eyes on what they believed to be a creature of, or a representation of Ashtar’th. Some even claimed to have seen them within the very moment of the passing of a loved one, though one can rarely accept such sightings as truth given the solemn and emotional nature of such an event.
Burial Sites and Rites
Astarothian burial rites were one of the most ancient and common traditions in the day of old, and are said to have inspired the more modern and diffused imperial cemeteries: small plots of land in a woodland area near a settlement, dotted by stones with on top of them, a lantern, or at least, a candle. While in ancient times they were a peaceful and reassuring sight, as the religion of The Three advanced, they came to be seen as eerie, cursed places where monsters and specters would lurk. However, even with the Empire, sporadic reports of such places are still heard of in remote places, hinting at the presence of some followers of the ancient god.
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The Astarothian burial rite itself, which was most commonly known as the last journey, together with the burial site, is a fundamental part of the worship.
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The Astarothian burial rite itself, which was most commonly known as the last journey, together with the burial site, is a fundamental part of the worship. It is said that during the new moon, the time where darkness is at its greatest, the souls of those who had passed would wander towards the nearest forest, merging with the fog, into the shadows, where Ashtaroth would await them and guide them beyond the realm of the living, across what his last few followers call ‘the boundary’.
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Until this day would come, the bodies of newly deceased people would be kept at home where their family would tend to them, preserve the corpse and stay with it. Grieving, talking to them, thanking them and ultimately offering their final words they wished to convey before granting their loved one their departure from the journey that was life itself, thus this period of mourning commonly dubbed ‘the last journey’. As the night of the new moon would begin, the grave-tender, or a relative of the deceased, would head to dig the grave, in a site in the nearby woods. They would then head back to take the corpse, guiding any other person present in a small procession, only that person allowed to hold a single lantern. Once the grave would be covered, a stone would be laid on top, to both mark the site, and as a simple protection from animals, and a large, long lasting candle would be lit on the stone, possibly inside some kind of protection, such as a simple lantern.
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The small fire of the candle would in this case be the symbol of the life of the trespassed, that would be continuing in the other world.
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New moon nights were also the preferred moments to visit graveyards by those who buried their loved ones, bringing new candles to leave at the graves. However, most large enough communities would always have had either a priest, or at least a specific follower of the god, designated as grave-tender, tasked with heading out in the dark of the night, holding a single lantern to shield himself from restless spirits, to make sure the lights in the cemeteries would remain lit.
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These grave-tenders were in particular tasked also with taking care of the burials of even those who lived more lonely lives, or had nobody that would assist them in their last journey.
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Both the grave-tenders and the burial itself, has always been considered an essential ceremony, due to the widespread belief that an ‘improperly guided soul’, once outside its body, almost like an infection, would linger and fester on the wrong side of the ‘boundary’, causing suffering and nefarious events to happen.
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The Empire however fully outlawed Astarothian burials, as well as the keeping of a corpse in someone’s house. Similarly, burials are to be made in areas nearby a settlement, at least at visual distance from it, and not inside forests, for the safety of the people visiting their deceased.
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For the religion of The Three, indeed, burying a corpse without burning it first, to purify them, is a way to deny a person a place in the afterlife, a grave punishment and act of barbarism. Hence, some heretics are burned in particularly intense fires, to purify them, while on the other hand, those that are not even considered redeemable, are instead buried in the naked ground.
Among the followers of the Old Gods that recognized Astaroth, it was commonly believed that heavy, dense fog, especially the one falling in the night or early morning between the trees in pine forests, marks the places and times where the separation between the living world and the realm of the dead is the thinnest, so these places would be the preferred locations for a burial or a ritual, and by tradition are always to be approached while carrying one single lantern, as a way to entice the benevolence of the god.
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Beyond this, Astaroth was revered as the knower of all things. The people believed that Astaroth himself would learn everything a person knew during their life, as soon as they would take his guidance to be led across ‘the border’. Thus he would know every secret ever known and every truth never told. The connection that Astaroth seemed to keep with the deceased, made him a deity often prayed to for guidance, or at least, with the hope that he would allow the person's ancestors to guide them instead. It is said that in an ancient past, certain followers of Astaroth were indeed able to summon and directly talk with the spirits of the dead.
Together with granting them knowledge, the followers of the Old Gods also revere Astaroth for what they do not know. Darkness and fog often take a dual role of instinctively inducing uncertainty and fear, but also of keeping these dangers, worries and monsters within them. Similarly, prayers would be addressed to Astaroth to ask for protection from what people do not know, can not understand or defend from. This duality between search for knowledge and fear of what could be found under the surface of things, of ‘disturbing things’ in the process of unveiling secrets, disrupting the order of things, certainly is another present theme in the ancient cult of the deity.
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The belief that knowledge comes and goes with experience however heavily defined the nature of Astarothian societies. Those that follow the god believe that certain types of knowledge, the ones that require years to be researched or understood, great danger or effort to acquire, are to be kept and to not be openly discussed. For this reason, for the belief that knowledge should be personal, orally transmitted, and tied to a person’s life, most hardcore Astarothians in the past have not left any written record, having contributed to losing most of the secrets about the god’s cult itself, perhaps to the indirect benefit of the Empire’s campaign of erasing these memories. Although, there were and still are followers with the very opposite view, believing that all knowledge should be dutifully recorded, and kept safe, however also kept hidden and out of reach from the average person. There are indeed rare recounts of small, hidden libraries found in small, hidden spelunks in remote woodland areas that are clearly connected with Astarothian practices.
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This has been in stark contrast towards the empire, and the new gods. And in their faith is the belief that all things need to be proven and recorded, and that they build their entire existence on the holy law, a book written by the gods themselves with immutable rules.
Authors: Rashan, Xiravian, inspired by Maya's original concept