Lands of Tyranny
Day 5 of The Philosopher, Year 414
Calipha
The Blue Lady, the Sea-Shrouded One
Symbol: the Kraken, a net folded and knotted in the center, a simplistic woman-shape made from a fish-shape
Goddess of the deep sea, water and storms, new beginnings, stillness, numbness and of lost things.
Calipha is said to have come from the deepest part of the sea just after creation, as if such great a mass couldn’t help but develop a will of its own. Disinterested in the other deities, she focused herself on filling the sea with life most beautiful and most terrible.
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From this life, she chose her favorite children, and they became more than they had been before: the mighty squid to the enormous Kraken, the sleek eel to the incredible Leviathan, and then a single mermaid with two forms called the Seeker, whose task is to wander the dry land and the ocean in her own seasons, always reporting back to the Sea-Shrouded One.
Sailors, fishermen and pirates of all kinds and races were all openly reverent of Calipha in the time before the Empire. Though with its coming her faith would have almost completely disappeared, and her to become a subject of cursing and swearing for mariners when bad weather would catch them, or for pirates, who could not see a way to believe Jehvoss would take pity on their criminal lives.
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Now, Calipha is thought to be only a marine monster, and the reason for sinkings, as well as drowning, harsh wave, or even bad fishing seasons, and it certainly would not help that vessels that are up to piracy would show a flag with the symbol of a kraken, to intimate their victims to a quick surrender. One strange habit though, and not really explainable by any, is that of crewmates often singing soft songs to a woman named Calipha in the last moments before retiring to sleep below decks, unaware that this was the name of an ancient deity.
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Only a handful of people in the world include the worship of the deity among their own, or even know anything about her: the Eeypai natives from the Barinian islands, and more notably, the Underdark-Dwelling Quathili, people almost completely unknown to the inhabitants of the surface: though even within them the cult of the deity is mostly a personal one, lacking of any truly organized religion or temple. For them, Calipha would also be a deity of dreams, of lost things and memories long gone. She would represent and have ties with anything related to water, especially both with the strength of its waves and ties, and even more so representing that soft, lullying feeling of peace and muffled sounds, as well as loss of senses which happens to those who let themselves remain still underwater with eyes closed, and are able to let their thoughts roam freely.
Followers of Calipha among the Quathili would be welcoming towards those that are lost, considering hospitality towards them as well as towards those that are suffering and clearly in need, sacred: refusing assistance to the injured or suffering is considered a capital sin, which would bring the ire of the Goddess herself.
Similarly, those who never leave their homes and never travel as people swimming against the currents that flow in time and in all things. Change in Calipha’s teaching is important, but it never reaches the idea of change for its own sake, as currents do flow in specific directions, and while waving constantly, their general flow is often as permanent as are rivers or mountains.
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The worship of the deity is often practiced at night or at least in the darkness, along a shore or in front of a lake, possibly with still waters.It is thought that what is reflected on its surface would be part of another world, the ‘upside down’, which could be accessed only in these conditions, and in absence of any noise, as even those might risk disturbing the stillness of the waters.
Ideas and legends about this ‘upside down’ are however inconsistent and vary greatly between people, though many Quathili would claim this world to be some kind of opposite to the scary world of pure chaos that lies behind the Veil kept by Arachea.
Dropping the dead in deep waters, stripped, with heavy rocks tied to them by seaweed woven into rope is the method through which Calipha worshippers honor lives lost. ‘Returning them to the bosom of the Lady’. Fishermen and sailors often say that those ‘buried’ in such a manner return reformed as one of Calipha’s own creatures, or that the echo of their voices can still be heard in the sound of the waves, or…if they were evil in their lives, accompany the roaring of thunders during storms.
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Similarly, it is said that Calipha’s followers used to offer the sick to her in sacrifice, ending their lives with drowning them, often willingly as a way to spare them of their last sufferings, though the most violent of criminals were also offered to the deity, with the belief that their mere existence would be one of the causes of Calipha’s anger, represented by stormy weathers, whether her normal self would be calm and tranquil, despising of great acts of violence, wars, or conflict.
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A notable legend among Human and Elves is also that of the sirens, peaceful creatures said to be captivating those they encounter with either their charm or their melodic singing, to seduce and then kidnap those loners walking on peaceful shores at night or when the fog is thick.
Author: Rashan