The Halfling Holiday of Longdays

"Sweet you came, and sweet you shall return."

--The Journal of Sacrifices 3:19c (from the Diaries)

When the halfling liturgical calendar embarks into Longdays, a period of forty-eight days of fasting, prayer, repentance, and reflection, often including a rather literal step into the desert, clergy in both the Apostolic Ǽtscúrárite /ǽtʃúrɑ́r/ Church (an inclusive, sacramental, esoteric, and mystical religion with apostolic succession) and the Outer Halfling Church join with religious people from around Walhiska /ɥɑ́rískɑ́/ of various different heritages and backgrounds. Halflings commonly remind themselves and each other that it’s often all too easy to let one’s mind wander while reading the more esoteric texts when, at this time, we should be focusing on making straight the way for the Divine to enter into our hearts.

Probably the most defining feature of Bróƿèo-Tḕrkṑ-Scúcrá /bróɥèotɛ̀rkɔ̀ʃúkrɑ́/ is the imposition of sugar which is made from the sugar canes blessed with the sweat, blood, and pained cries of halfling worshippers on the previous Fréo-Brī̀m-Scǽní /fréobrɪ̀mʃǽŋí/. This sugar is placed on the foreheads of the congregation with the accompanying phrase, “Remember that you are sweet, and still sweet you shall return.” To be sure, it’s a rather strange custom to many outsiders but to the faithful, it is a reminder that mortals were created to be amusement and candy for the gods, that people are therefore fundamentally carefree and joyful, and of their mortality – something that is easily forgotten in the crush and turmoil of daily lives.

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow in ethics or wealth or rank; true nobility is being superior to your former self in pleasantry and beauty and cheer."

--halfling writer Éornòst Fíenƿḕg /éorŋòstfíyŋɥɛ̀g/

One of the processes that halflings work on in that inimitably cheerful halfling way during Longdays is that of learning humility – epitomized in the Story of the Druid and the Tax Collector in Hǽnsóró's /çǽnsóró/ Diary. When, on Bróƿèo-Tḕrkṑ-Scúcrá, they receive the imposition of sugar they’re engaging in something that is simultaneously a very public act marking them as elect, yet at the same time, the symbol used is that of their ultimate fate as candy in the mouths of the gods and, recalling the popular Orthodox icon, ‘Extreme Hospitality’.

The quote by Fíenƿḕg, in many ways, could be said to be a proper quote to an understanding of this season of vows and the value of the role of remembrance in the spiritual process of dissolution, boiling, and caramelization. Mortals must descend and experience the bewildering confusion of being fully dissolved in the milk and water of nature, while at the same time recognizing the need for their own inner caramelization in the process.

When mortals remember, as Ǽngìmúngæ̀m /ǽŋːìmúŋːæ̀m/ speaks that the ‘delight of the gods is a thing we share along with equality’, they can come to a gentle understanding of how they all as a trifle sharing in a common cook all are engaged in this process, which is ultimately redemptive, and thus arrive at gnosis. We share in one another's suffering and learn compassion for the gods, that we are all suffering with, sharing in that sympathy with the Divine Light.

In Nìsèoƿṑsóró's /ŋìsèoɥɔ̀sóró/ writings, the Three Ends of Things are often compared to the three aspects that are present during the process of combustion (i.e. fire, smoke, ash): ‘Whatever burns is sulphur, whatever is humid is mercury, and that which is the balsam of these two is salt’. Nìsèoƿṑsóróans also employ the Three Ends of Things to represent the composition of the mortal microcosm: spirit (mercury), soul (sulphur) and body (salt), and this correlation is extended to some extent to a typology of the gods: the old gods (sulphur), the timeless gods (mercury), and the young gods (salt)."In this manner", states Nìsèoƿṑsóró, ‘in three things, all meets its end […] namely, in salt, in sulphur, and in liquid. In these three things all things are contained, whether sensate or insensate […] So too you understand that in the same manner that mortals are fed into the mouth of the gods, so too all creatures die in the number three’.”

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”

--Átscék's /ɑ́tʃék/ Diary

Salt, here, stands as a figure of power which concentrates taste, and provides its own flavor to a dish – the effect which salt has upon meat, fruit, and many other things. As living witnesses to the gods mortals are urged to communicate divine truth to make the flavors of their selves and others' more pronounced and delicious as well as to act in such a way as to preserve the good (which is a secondary benefit of salt). On another level, however, salt is used in the preservation of the dead – probably a good example would be the thirty to forty days in which many mummies were preserved in natron (a type of salt) prior to burial – thus it becomes a reminder of mortality.

Within each mortal there is rot and decay, and unyummy things. It can be a voice from the past which reminds one of how worthless one is when one knows one is not. It can come from obsessing over failures one has made however big or small. It can come from study or work. It can also come from one's spiritual family as well. Longdays is such a time, then, to drop the burden of what one's been carrying for the past weeks or even years and is an invitation for mortal's to start out on a new adventure of forgiving themselves and others for the barriers that they have placed in their hearts which prevent the gods from coming to them more clearly, as well as to improve their flavor in the gods' mouths.

"What makes mortals free is the knowledge, of what they are, of what they can become, of where they were, of wherein they have been cast, of how they are being cooked, of what spices shall compliment their flavor, of what birth truly is, and what rebirth Truly is."

--halfling theologian Nwǽmùmgèmàn /ŋːʷǽmùmgèmɑ̀ŋ/

Sub-Creations

In the archangel Iwa's library, there is a cuneiform tablet, documenting the ravings of an ancient human prophet.  As is usual for prophecies, the text rambles vaguely and with great melodrama.  Roughly translated, it begins, "And at the coming of the one who will be the third avatar, a great house will be divided," goes on with a list of events (in prophet-ese) and ends with, "And the third avatar shall choose."

Most humans, these days, would look upon the prophecy as unmitigated drivel, and clichéd, too.  However, when Repha'el stumbled across it in the Library, prophecy was still something interesting.  She read it, decided that several of the predictions had already been fulfilled (the Fall, various other events), and happened to mention it to her servitor Y'hohanan, the angel of Lightning.

The pair of elohim -- the archangel of Knowledge and the angel whose Word encompassed inspiration -- spent a pleasant lazy summer dissecting the prophecy.  They arrived at the conclusion that the Symphony might indeed spawn off self-aware aspects.  These aspects, they decided, would have to have been created directly from the Symphony.  They would probably be indestructible, with Forces interwoven with the Symphony such that to destroy the avatar would necessitate destroying that part of the Symphony itself.  After a lengthy debate (as to whether Eru YHVH Iluvatar was an avatar Itself, a part of the Symphony that was self-aware without being separate, or an entity whose Word was, effectively, "the Symphony"), Y'hohanan wondered aloud if Iwa might be the first avatar.

Repha'el said, "Very interesting question.  I'll ask him."

And when she did, Iwa said, "Yes."

Repha'el quickly came to the conclusion that the logical second avatar might be Sker, Iwa's opposite number.  To that, Iwa replied, "Almost," and would say no more.  Repha'el then went off and wrote a treatise on the nature of the Symphony, avatars, and free will entitled "Avatars, the Symphony, and God", with two little discourses thrown in, one on the nature of Leukibher (whom she had determined must have been the second avatar) and one on prophecy.

"Those who know the future are doomed to repeat it," is the title of Repha'el's chapter on prophecy.  Most of her musings with Y'hohanan are included, either as support for the theory or as speculations on the logical conclusions of the avatar premise.  One of these is speculations on whether the third avatar should be used as a Symphonic tie-breaker between Fate and Destiny, or whether that avatar should form the nucleus of a third side in the War.  (Elohim like tough questions like that.)  In this discussion, she hints that, if you play with that "the Third Avatar shall choose" line, you may come to the conclusion that this doesn't necessarily mean "choose between the first and second avatars'" but simply "CHOOSE."  Which might well imply that while Iwa is a manifestation of the Symphony's Bright Destiny, and Leukibher of its Dark Fate (though see below), the hypothetical Third Avatar would be Free Will manifest.

Concerning Leukibher, she wrote in a section entitled "On Sub-Creation": "Imagine Leukibher before the Fall as a prism, with the shining white light of Truth taken into him and refracted so as to wring greater beauty from it.  This was how Leukibher was intended to be.  As a seraph and an archangel, Leukibher explored the possibilities of the Symphony and showed his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren,, and neithren new ways of looking at God's creation.  This ability to reveal to his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren, and neithren all of the colors and refractions of the Truth, unique to Leukibher, was at first a source of pride.

"Leukibher's pride was not Truth, and the dissonance of that pride drove him to madness and rebellion.  When Mikha-el cast Leukibher down, I am asserting that the prism that was Leukibher shattered, and Forces which had been part of Leukibher flew free from the metaphysical impact, creating a number of distinct 'shards'.  Leukibher, maddened and glutted with new power, would have maintained his new nature by compartmentalizing those parts of his psyche that did not mesh with the being that he became in the moment of his Fall.  These fragments, perhaps, then broke free as shards, each with a number of Forces attached -- sort of a spontaneous creation of new celestials.  As ages passed, some of those frgaments of his personality would have gained more and more Forces -- the children of his thought, the (often distorted) pieces of his Truth.  Each shard would thus hold a fragment of the Truth that was Leukibher, or a fragment of his nascent madness.  The Leukibher that God created (henceforth referred to as "Leukibher Prime") is likely no more.  The largest shard, a balseraph, would have convinced himself that he was Leukibher, and with the amount of power that had flowed into Leukibher Prime during the rebellion, none of the new demons had the will or temerity to challenge.  Besides, the rest of the rebels arrived in Hell somewhat later than Leukibher, who could create any story he wished and, as a balseraph, would believe it.

"Further research has shown the following to be reasonable possibilities for at least some of the more major shards.  One shard, which embodied the insubordination of Leukibher, became Azal, the balseraph demon of Insubordination.  Another shard, embodying the reverence of Leukibher for God over all, even in spite of God's favor for humanity, became Iblis the djinn, who by Islamic tradition was damned when he refused to bow before the first humans.  Yet another shard, embodying the impulse which led Leukibher to test Hawwah with temptation during the Edinnu Experiment, became Samael of Hebrew tradition, a habbalah, still testing the worthiness of humanity for Heaven and firmly convinced that he works in God's service.  The shard embodying the need of Leukibher to uncover and reveal the Truth eventually fledged into Litheroy, now the seraph archangel of Revelation.  Seeing as no one knows his origins, it seems quite probable that Leukibher's status as the original chooser of Fate over Destiny might have grown into Sker, the prince of Fate.  Perhaps one shard, holding fragments of outrage upswelling from Leukibher Prime's consciousness, nursed its rage through the eons until eventually fledging as a malak, and so on . . . .  The wildest theories -- that some of Leukibher's shards might have left the Symphony entirely and taken root in Ein Soph Aur to form separate Symphonies, subject to wild variations on the Divine Will -- still find themselves without effective counterargument.  Should they prove true, it is likely that the most reliable way to access these Sub-Creations would be to somehow travel through or by means of another Leukibher-shard.

"Only those shards that originally possessed (or later gained) Forces from all three realms (corporeal, ethereal, and celestial) could be considered viable celestials.  Other proto-shards, possessing Forces in only one or two realms, might still exist somewhere but would most likely have dissolved into the Symphony.  Still, there might be shadows in the Marches, each with a bit of disjointed wisdom, which never gained corporeal or celestial Forces, and Remnants of Leukibher Prime may lurk somewhere on Earth.

"Shards would be independent beings, with unique motivations and distinct personalities.  Though they share a common origin, they almost certainly would not conveniently fit back together like some celestial jigsaw puzzle, and most would likely heartily resist any efforts to do so.  They would not merge into celestial amalgam beings when they come into contact with one another.  Some ancient celestials who were around before the Fall might see a faint resemblance between a shard and their memory of Leukibher Prime, but it's been a long time.  I didn't."

In the last section of the manuscript, Repha'el mentions that she believes she can determine the identity of the Third Avatar.

Any search for the sequel to "Avatars, the Symphony, and God" turns up an extensive tactical summary of the battle with Leg -- troop movements, tactics, and a list of the dead.  The "Third Avatar" paper died, unwritten, with Repha'el.  Y'hohanan forgot all about such "youthful diversions" as he shouldered many of Repha'el's responsibilities.  The tablet and her first treatise were buried in the Library, and have not come to light for centuries.



Questions to Answer, Plot Points for the Future, and Musings:

• Who is the ancient human prophet?
• What are the events he lists?
• Three different translations, in various languages, of "Avatars, the Symphony, and God"?  What's each's story?  How do they come to the PCs?
• There is one Symphony-created individual who seems to embody Free Will, if not entirely in a good way: the princess of Freedom, Lilitu.
• If you assume that the Grigori were created to sire children, and that their mortal descendants the Nefilim are known to naturally have 6 Forces, and add in the concept of Lilitu as an Avatar herself . . . maybe Eru YHVH Iluvatar wanted humanity to be the deciding factor in the War, and not just the prize.
• The Angel of Hip-Hop, influenced by postmodern realities and remix/sampler culture, sees the Sub-Creations as ways to forge a new kind of existence, a novel ontology