Yahhada

Yahhada is a goddess of death worshipped on the world of Jhembaz. While she originated among the Xbonti people of the Mazewood, the resistance that she and her faithful put up against the Ivory Empire brought her to worldwide notability, and today she has worshippers all over the rew. Epithets by which she is sometimes called include the "Screaming God" and the "Lady of Skulls".

Description

Yahhada is usually depicted as a tall, thin woman with medium brown skin and long, tangled black hair. She is never shown wearing any clothing, but her body is painted with bold geometric shapes mostly in shades of white and light blue. The details of the shapes are not consistent, though there are some common themes; lines of squares are frequent motifs, as are zigzag and, unsurprisingly given her field, stylized skulls. She is almost always depicted with her mouth wide open in a scream.

In her rare manifestations, Yahhada appears much as she does in her depictions. She never speaks intelligible words, but frequently screams, the sound and force of her screams often having significant effects themselves. Most typically her screams bring about motion or destruction, either pushing people and objects away from her or knocking objects and structures apart, although this is not always the case. Despite her inability or more likely unwillingness to speak, she is not of course unintelligent, and if she wishes to communicate she can do so by planting thoughts in the minds of others who can speak for her.

Yahhada dwells in a place called the Final Land in the plane of Orheppi, populated by the souls of her faithful—and of those who did not honor her in life but fell into her clutches by other means.

History

First worshipped among the Xbonti, Yahhada was one of a pantheon of thirty-some gods with varying fields. She was not made out to be particularly close to any of the rest of the pantheon, and there are relatively few stories of her interacting directly with any of the other gods—she is said to be the sister of Ihoba, the Xbonti god of plant growth, but even with him she seems to have had a distant relationship. Still, she was an important member of the pantheon; she had a small number of full-time priests, who among other things had the roles of officiating at funerals, but even those Xbonti who spared little thought for her otherwise prayed to and propitiated her when death seemed nigh, or when someone they knew passed away. Despite her somewhat eerie demeanor, she was not considered malevolent, and was not generally an object of fear; death was a part of life, and it was her duty to smoothe its process.

What brought Yahhada to national prominence was her opposition to the Ivory Empire. An expansionist kingdom ruled by undead, the Ivory Empire first arose in the great whitewood of Ar Thurippa, but had aspirations of greater extent and power, and embarked on a program of conquest. Yahhada was not entirely opposed to undeath in principle, and had undead servitors, but in Yahhada's doctrine the undead had their place—and that place was not as imperialist autocrats. Thus Yahhada saw it as her duty to fight against the Empire and its ambitions, and urged her worshippers to do so, empowering them with potent new abilities to aid them in their battles. Her powers over death made her and her faithful very effective in combating the spread of the Empire, and while Yahhada and her church were by no means single-handedly responsible for reversing its fortunes, they certainly played a notable part.

Even after the Ivory Empire's expansion was stymied and it was forced to retreat back to its current borders, Yahhada's röle in its defeat was not forgotten, nor were those who had converted to her worship during the war inclined to immediately leave it again afterward. Today Yahhada is worshipped all over Jhembaz even by many who are not otherwise familiar with the Xbonti pantheon and could not name any of its other gods. This has sometimes put her in conflict with other local gods of death who resent the usurpation of their places, but at least as often the church of Yahhada and those of other regional death gods find ways to coexist in a mutually beneficial way.

Tenets

The church of Yahhada preaches that Her clergy preach that death is an important part of existence and one to be respected but not feared. Nor is it to be accelerated indiscriminately; the faithful of Yahhada shun unnecessary violence, though they are not pacifists and may fight in self-defense or for good causes. Poison, in particular, is anathema to the church, and not used by its adherents in any capacity; to the church of Yahhada it represents a blasphemous arrogation by mortals of the powers of death. (This is, at any rate, true of poisons that are potentially deadly; there may be more allowance for poisons that sicken but do not kill, but few Yahhadans would be fully comfortable with those either.) Yahhada makes few demands of her worshippers, and most of those that she does make are more in the nature of proscriptions than prescriptions. In addition to the prohibition of poison, Yahhada forbids the desecration of the dead or of their memorials or places of interment, and especially the creation of undead for martial or frivolous purposes.

Symbology

The most famous symbol of Yahhada is a stylized skull like the ones usually painted on her body, but it is not the only one. Other symbols of Yahhada include zigzags, square spirals, and Y-shaped trilineations. Animals and plants associated with Yahhada—not all for particularly obvious reasons—include maggots, hummingbirds, and mongooses, and moonflowers.

Holy Places

While her worship was still confined to the Xbonti, Yahhada had no temples or other permanent large structures. Graveyards were considered holy places to her, but aside from those her only holy places were occasional shrines marked by roughly meter-long square stakes planted vertically in the ground, either painted black or fashioned from dark wood or stone, with symbols of Yahhada added in white or pale blue. These shrines are always erected where someone or something of significance had died, and often became used as burial sites if they hadn't been already.

After Yahhada's spread to worldwide prominence, some of her urban faithful began erecting larger temples in her honor. A common architecture for these temples quickly developed, of narrow somewhat pagoda-like towers with the floors alternating square and round in shape; the origins of this plan are now obscure, but it became widely adopted. Temples of Yahhada generally have cemeteries on their grounds, and almost always have columbaria and/or requietories within. They also offer services including grief counseling, funeral officiation, and often even coronatorial investigations.

Worshippers

As was the case among the Xbonti, many who worship or honor Yahhada do so only situationally and nonexclusively, entreating her when the occasion calls for it but otherwise devoting themselves as much or more to other gods. There are, however, those who do choose Yahhada as the main object of their worship, either as lay members or as clergy. Cemetery keepers, undertakers, and those who frequently fight undead often name Yahhada as their patron, showing their devotion by painting their bodies—especially usually exposed parts such as their hands and faces—with symbols and patterns similar to those Yahhada bears.

The actual clergy of Yahhada fall into three main categories. The wandering priests, as the name implies, wander the world, doing Yahhada's bidding and providing their services (as funeral officiators, fighters against the undead, or anything else within their purview) to those in need, in return for which they are often given donations they use for their subsistence. Before Yahhadi rose to worldwide prominence, they wandered only the lands of the Xbonti, but now their journeys take them all over Jhembaz. Local priests are each associated with a particular holy place to Yahhada—a shrine, a graveyard—which they tend to and protect, and generally have a home nearby. Finally, temple priests are a new phenomenon arising only after Yahhada's spread beyond the Xbonti. They live in, maintain, and provide services to visitors to the temples to Yahhada in cities; drawing from the wealth of the temples, they are often richer than other kinds of priests, but are less likely to be granted powers by their goddess. In some areas, priests of Yahhada, especially local priests, go otherwise naked in imitation of their goddess (who may grant them subtle powers that let them better bear extreme temperatures to facilitate this). More usually, however, they wear black or brown robes decorated to mimic Yahhada's bodypainting. In either case, they always paint their bodies with their goddess's symbols as well, even if most of those paintings are hidden by the robe.

Another class of mortal servant of Yahhada is the so—called disciples, who devote themselves to serving Yahhada and wander all over the world to do so. While very similar to wandering priests—and often confused with them—disciples hold no formal clerical position but are nonetheless highly respected in the church, their röle more monastic than ministerial. Disciples almost always go naked, though a few dress in traveling clothes typical of their home cultures; like Yahhada's priests, they always paint their bodies like their patroness.

When it suits her to do so, Yahhada may grant special powers to her faithful—especially to priests and disciples, though she has occasionally empowered laymen who have proven their devotion by extraordinary means. The most common powers granted by Yahhada are her screams—like Yahadda herself (though less potently), those so empowered are able to emit loud screams that have magical effects. There are different kinds of scream that Yahhada can grant, and a particular individual may be granted only one scream or any combination. The most common are the driving scream, which simply impels objects away from the screamer; the shattering scream, which can damage people or objects; the banishing scream, which can translocate people or objects to other places and perhaps even to other planes; and the stilling scream, which transfixes subjects in place.

Holy Days

The most important holy day in the church of Yahhada is the Day of All Death, on the fifth Ukalik of Thapha. This commemmoration is less sinister than the name makes it sound; it does not involve people actually dying, but rather going through a simulated death to prepare them for the inevitable actual event. People go in processions on this day representing the progress of the soul to the Final Lands and the trials it must pass there; often this is preceded by mock funerals, but this is not a required part of the ritual. Once the procession is over and the celebrants have sacramentally reached the Final Lands, the holiday culminates in feasting and revelry, foresignifying the joy the righteous and faithful are expected to experience in Yahhada's realm.

Other holy days often observed among Yahhada's faithful—or even by outsiders where her worship is popular—are the Day of Sovenance and the Abjuration Day. The former, held on the second Bodik of Agwetha, is devoted to remembering and honoring one's ancestors and other dilect departed. The latter, on the last Bodik of Ikoti, is rather a day of warding and preparation against evil ghosts that may act in defiance of Yahhada. Offerings of silver and bone meal are also commonly given to Yahhada and her clergy on the first Adthi of each season, but there are no widespread customs on those days beyond that.

Servitors

In addition to her mortal worshippers, Yahhada has several varieties of magical servitors she can send to aid her faithful or otherwise do her bidding. These do include ghosts; Yahhada may send some of the souls from the Final Land temporarily back to Jhembaz in undead form to help when needed. But other Yahhadan creatures are of far more inhuman form. Idowalis are small creatures with cat-sized quadrupedal bodies and skulls for heads, which may be sent as familiars, or in large numbers may be dangerous combatants. Ugubirds resemble wraithlike avians with long, narrow bills; they are often sent merely to scout or observe, but do have powers over spirits and darkness that they can employ when useful.

Some of the most devoted and accomplished of Yahhada's disciples and other mortal agents may choose to defer their deaths and their journeys to Yahhada's realm in order to linger on Jhembaz and aid her cause in an altered form, becoming willingly transformed into inanimate objects that grant great power to Yahhadans that wield them. These telesmata are called soulstocks; there are at least fifteen known, but may be many more, each unique in form and function and each once a living human, or a member of some other folk.