Luinen of the Silver Bow
Luinen is known for his ability to take many forms. He is most commonly shown as a young Elf, wearing Dream-Weaver's robes or a silver cloak. He usually carries a bow or an intricately curved and carved silver staff. However, stories of his activities in the World relate his assumption of many guises: Elves of all ages, a voice carried by the night wind and as various types of animal. He is especially associated with cats, foxes, nightingales, owls and magpies. A silver Dragon is another favourite form of his. The gold and silver Dragons have been friends of the Elven people for millenia and all uncorrupted Dragons are likely to be well disposed toward followers of Luinen. His symbols are the silver bow, the crescent moon and the owl.
Luinen is one of the oldest gods worshipped in the World. He is the god of magic and moonlight, who guided the Elves before the coming of Darkness. He taught them how to use Dream magic and some of his priests are also Dream-weavers. The Elves say that the World was a Dream of Luinen's made real by his magic and that the Elves were a part of that Dream, while all other races and their gods were created afterwards. Luinen's power can be felt in the winds which carry his voice around the world as well as in the world of dreams. Luinen is a master of dreams, prophesy, enchantment and illusions, as well as a skilled bard and craftsman. In addition to dream magic, he taught the first Elves speech, poetry and song and the working of gems and precious metals.
Elves typically live for 450-600 years. However, they do not die purely of old age. Rather, they become weary of the World and choose to pass back into the Dream. It is believed amongst Elves that excessive contact with the 'younger races' such as Men hastens this world-weariness. They believe that their departed souls later reincarnate into new Elven bodies (or sometimes into other sentient woodland dwellers or even Dragons). Many Elves claim to be able to remember parts of their previous lives. The priests of Luinen say that each time an Elf dies and is reborn, Luinen teaches their soul another part of his Dream. When the Dream is fully revealed to the Elves, they will be able to Dream the World anew and wipe away the stains of the Endless Night.
Dream-Weaving
Elves
Divination
Dreams
Crafts
Songs, tales, poems
Winds and birds
Luinen is worshipped by most Elves of the Vale and of the Elven Isles. Some human mystics also follow Luinen. Many bards revere Luinen as the father of song and poetry.
Around 30% of priests of Luinen are also Dream-weavers. Priests of Luinen often form Colleges along the lines of Dream-Weaver Schools. The main Colleges are Mind, Prophesy, the Real and the Otherworld. Priests gain no special benefit from membership of these Colleges, other than the support and friendship of other College members:
Priests of the College of Mind believe that more of the Dream of Luinen has already been revealed than is generally thought and lies waiting to be found within the minds of all Elves. Priestly Dream-Weavers of this College usually follow the School of Thought.
Priests of the College of Prophesy try to divine hidden knowledge and understand the future. They hope to uncover portions of the Dream of Luinen not yet revealed. Priestly Dream-Weavers of this College usually follow the School of Time.
Priests of the College of the Real seek to comprehend the Dream of Luinen in order to understand the true nature of the World. Priestly Dream-Weavers of this College usually follow the School of Dream or Illusion.
Priests of the College of Otherworld travel the world seeking ancient magical Elven relics and returning them to the protection of the church of Luinen. 'Otherworld' is a translation of the Elvish term meaning 'the world outside Luinen's heart' - ie. the non-Elven world. Priestly Dream-Weavers of this College usually follow the Schools of Seeking or Senses.
Ceremonies to Luinen take place under the moon, particularly the crescent and full moon. The phases of the moon are associated with different kinds of magic:
- Crescent Moon - Divination and Dream magic
- Half Moon - Mind magic and Illusion
- Full Moon - Seeking and Sense magic
During the dark of the moon, Elves are reluctant to practise non-clerical magic. They consider it a time when it is easy for the lure of magical power to open the heart of the magician to the Endless Night, without the protection of Luinen's light.
Most ceremonies take place out doors, preferably in places open to the wind or at Gateways to the plane of Air, although Elven cities often have crescent or circular temples as well. These temples have a great number of windows and are decorated with clear and opaque white gems (opals are especially favoured) and silver.
The ceremonies often take the form of storytelling or theatre, where tales of the Luinen or his followers are recounted. Favoured stories often describe the defeat of lies and deception to reveal a new part of the Dream. These are often accompanied by illusion shows, interpretations of recent dreams and riddle games. Particularly difficult Dream-Weavings may be carried out at a ceremony, in order to invoke Luinen's aid.
Preist Heirarchy
| Level | Powers
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| Sense Air | Includes the ability to predict weather and winds and to locate birds and other air creatures. The priest is also sensitive to the use of magic, particularly Dream magic.
| | Shape Air | Control of air and winds (more control at higher levels). This includes the ability to transform harmful gases. Large wind patterns may also be temporarily altered at great cost. A very high level priest might be able to create a permentant shift in currents, but there would be a substantial sacrifice in permenant Essence Pool.
By spending an Essence pool point the priest may use song and spoken language to enter into basic communication with any sentient creature. This allows the priest to communicate emotions and basic needs, and to understand the same. The priest doesn't gain any actual knowledge of the creature's language; he cannot read words written in a foreign language using this power, nor would an eavesdropper understand the priest's words. Instead, the priest speaks in his own language and the power of the Dream carries the words to the other's mind and vice versa.
| | Talk to Air | Talk to creatures of the air. The cleric may also try to talk to the air itself, although this is harder to understand than animals. Note that this allows the preist to understand the animal or air but does not give it increased intellect. Winds can usually only give information about things they have touched within the past couple of days (eg, the outside of a house, but not inside) and different air conditions provide different information (eg, a gale mught carry sketchy information, but cover a long range while a fog might only be able to speak about the immediate area, but know some details.) Account should also be taken of the direction of winds (eg, a north wind can't give information about events to the south.)
The priest may spend an Essence pool point to be able to communicate easily with any sentient creature through song and spoken words. The effect works as above.
| | Awaken Air | Gifts air animals such as birds or bats with temporary sentience. The awakened creature will be friendly to the priest. A sacrifice of permenant Endurance points by the priest allows the creature to remain Awakened indefinately. Otherwise, the creature remains awake for a limited time. Note that some creatures (such as flocking birds) do not enjoy being Awakened and should be returned to their natural condition as soon as possible. This power is most commonly employed to allow complicated conversations with birds which would be otherwise unable to understand the priest's needs. The power may also be employed on 'pieces' of air, to create an 'air elemental' which will obey and aid the priest (power depends on Essence pool spent.)
| | Travel to Plane of Air | Allows the Priest to travel to the plane of Air without going through a Gate.
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Priests of Luinen may gain the following abilites as they gain greater understanding of and empathy with Luinen. If using the FUDGE character advancement rules these Blessings count as Gifts or supernormal abilities, at the GM's option. Remember that they are sign of the priest's closeness to Luinen and therefore require that their behavior have been exemplary. GMs may decide the character does not merit them, even though they are 'good-enough' to gain the other benefits of advancement. It is unusual for priests to possess more than two or three of these powers, at the most:
- The Priest has a natural facility for new languages. If the priest knows a language related to the unknown one (eg as English is related to French or Spanish) he may roll to understand it. For unrelated languages (eg English to Chinese), the priest may attempt a roll at a much higher difficulty, provided he spends some time listening to the new language. Languages of another species are harder again. This does not allow the priest to be fluent in the new language, but allows basic understanding and communication. Unlike the powers above, this allows the priest to study and attempt to interpret unfamilar written languages as well.
- The priest may shapeshift once per day, into a cat, fox, nightingale, owl or magpie (this means into animal form and back to human once in 24 hours.) This costs nothing in endurance, unlike the priest heirarchy power.
- Luinen is the teacher of song and tales. The priest may use song or stories to change the moods of people and even animals in a magical way beyond the abilities of normal bards.
By interpreting his dreams, the priest may learn solutions to problems troubling him, or even glimpses of the future. The priests must go to bed after having prayed to Luinen or may enter a trance by meditating. The hints gained will be vague and enigmatic.
- The Priest automatically has a roll to see through an illusion, without needing a reason to disbelieve (at Good difficulty), due to their study of the world of dreams and visions. More experienced priests may have a lower difficulty, especially if they are also a Dream-Weaver.
- The priest may use a bonus dice in all attempts to interact with air creatures or elementals. Unless frightened or provoked, normal creatures will never attack the priest and will tend to be friendly. The priest will be able to calm even frightened or aggressive creatures most of the time without a roll. In additon, on an exceptional roll, the priest may even be able to sooth disturbances of the air (winds, blizzards, etc etc) without using his hierarchy powers.
- The will of Luinen works through in the priest, and it becomes impossible for her to act aginst the wishes of her god. Followers of Luinen will repect the priest's vision and perception and lies and deception perpetrated near the priest seem to fail for no obvious reason. For obvious reasons, this gift is most often possessed by older priests of great power and purity. However, it may also be possessed by young but very devout priests.
Alternatively, the cleric may choose to spend extra experience to gain a first level power in one of the Dream-Weaving schools or to advance an existing school to second level. These are likely to be in the Dream-Weaving school associated with the Priest college.
Priests of Luinen who have non-priestly magic may not use it during the dark of the moon. This includes potions and scrolls, but excludes permenantly enchanted items such as swords.
All priests of Luinen must learn how to use a bow. The bow should always be the weapon they are best at and they may only use a bow of Elven manufacture, blessed in a moonlit ceremony.
A priest must always attempt to interpret a dream if requested to do so.
©1995 - 1999 Anna Simpson. All rights reserved.
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