Lord of the Springs

The Lord of the Springs is the deity worshiped by the Holy Order and Davites throughout the realm. The Lord, believed to be the Creator of the world, appeared to King Dav at the springs of the River Bren, and this holy vision inspired both his Consolidation and the Inquisition. The Lord himself is mysterious in nature, and there is no great effort on the part of the Church to explain His origin or His power. His commandments are stressed above all, handed down to the population in Dav's Declarations.

The Scripture of St Remiel
What follows is the first part of a didactic poem emerging from the oral culture of the Order prior to the Consolidation. Put to paper by St. Remiel in 109SC and approved as a part of the Charter to seal the Order's place in Dav's push for unification, it stands as the core dogmatic source for the Order's doctrine. Subject to many changes from its original penning, the following text preserves a great amount of the Order's pacifism and desire for unity through the word and words of the Lord of the Springs.


 * For Lo, let us hear from you the praises of your father, the Lord of the Springs,
 * Through whose divine Will men may be exalted in the speech of others
 * or through the same Will may remain nameless and without fame.
 * With ease He grants power, with ease He crushes the mighty,
 * And with ease He lowers the noble and raises the lowly.


 * Yes, our Lord of the Springs, who dwells in the Mountain with thundering water
 * or the high places man-wrought from stone and glass to mountain’s majesty compare,
 * With ease He straightens the crooked and He shrivels the insolent.
 * With booming report He lights the flame within our hearts,
 * With thunderous cry He slakes the thirst of body and soul.


 * In the recitation of these words, by mortal lips, sprung from immortal thought,
 * We gather and celebrate all that has been, all that is and all that shall ever be.
 * For the Lord of the Springs stirs the waters of the firmament as the waters of the Urth,
 * And by His command, bade both stars and men to move into being and out of being.
 * So has it been since the world was young and the age of men was still a dream.


 * In the beginning, all things were within the ancient Waters, unknown save for Him,
 * The firmness of the earth, the heat of the flame, the toil of man were but dreams.
 * A Will moved within the Waters; a sovereign voice that swept over the face of the Deep.
 * What was once All desired change; but to create, that which filled the emptiness,
 * Had to diminish His infinite being to make room for all the would be.


 * Out of the merest portion, the Lord carved the seed of matter from His vastness.
 * The ancient Waters shook with sorrow as the Lord diminished Himself but an iota.
 * In this first motion, the Lord planted the seed within the ancient Waters and begat all.
 * With a stirring from the depths, the Deep began to distill into parts yet unknown.
 * Layers formed and gained name as what was yielded took shape from the Maker’s Hand.


 * Water, a mundane mirror of Tides long passed, settled down into the Deep Places
 * Earth, heavy as sorrow and filled with promise, sank down to form the foundation
 * Fire, brother to moon and sun, reached up from the Urth to try and touch the Heavens
 * Wind, buoyant as joy and cold as scorn, speeds upwards until it distills into the Night
 * Ether, or pure darkened Void, congeals in the Heavens to form Starlight and Sun.


 * The Lord clenched upon Himself to yield to the budding creation and the new Urth,
 * Burgeoning with new forms and music, shook with the effort and suffering of His Will.
 * His infinite being, as it pressed inward, yielded shards and sparks of the Divine.
 * The Lord of the Springs and Father of All, witnessed as these sparks entangled in Matter.
 * From this selfless act, Life was born out of both triumph and sorrow, glory and pain.


 * When the first tribes of man walked the new solid ground, drank of sweet water,
 * They could not know of what He had hidden or what battles fought for them.
 * With Matter and Soul upon the face of the Urth, new shapes came from their mix
 * Some beautiful, some dire; all original and wild in the eyes of the Lord of Water.
 * And from the darkest of these things, those of sharp eye and cunning, came Foes.


 * These leviathans of Ether, manifest of hunger and desire, grew large upon
 * The myriad other shapes upon the face of the Urth, those peaceful and beautiful.
 * It was for these that the Lord had to craft the blade of Justice from Himself
 * To cast down the hungry beast of matter and soul to the Deep beneath Earth and Wave.
 * Locked beneath the pillars of the Urth, the leviathans waited and Man knew no sorrow.


 * The beasts remained within their prison as Man prospered upon the world,
 * In those days, industry was not hidden from men - day’s work gave a year’s wage.
 * With abundance and no fear, the Lord spared Man from the pain He had born.
 * Man moved across the face of the World and built great dwellings toward the sky.
 * The Lord was silent and watched his Children grow, a Father within the Waves.


 * The lands grew loud with the chatter of Man, stopping their ears to the sound of Water.
 * Questing for the Voice of the Lord, they dug into the Earth but found only treasures.
 * Their picks dug deep, desperate to hear the song of the Waves again but to no avail.
 * Striking down, they found Water in the Stone and praised it for being a gift.
 * Others dug deeper still and uncovered dark creatures that had been locked away.


 * In secret, they contracted with the Leviathans of the Abyss, seeking the Skills
 * That had yielded the World; out of their loneliness for the Voice of the Lord.
 * They stood upon their Towers and knocked upon the Sky, loneliness twisted
 * Into the sin of Rage and its twin Denial, screaming for the Creator to answer.
 * The Lord of the Springs, in sorrow revisited from the first day, replied.


 * Their Towers crumbled to their foundation and became as merest, humble earth
 * Thus touched by the Voice that had sparked all of creation’s glory.
 * The tongue that had dared chide the Lord and presume an absence BROKE
 * And Man became men as a flock becomes naught but sheep when the shepherd flees.
 * The sin of pride became forgotten, broken as the towers that had been erected.


 * The Seas, once sweet and giving of life, filled with the Tears of the Lord;
 * With such sorrow filling the land, man first began to know thirst.
 * The Lands hardened and no longer yielded food readily to the grasp of the hand.
 * Into these hard places, the Leviathans retreated - for their hunger could not be sated
 * On the simple life but only the affront and greed paid to the Lord


 * A few, it is said, carried the curse in their veins across the desolated Urth.
 * The tribes of men, some lost, but those we know remained upon it.
 * Be sorrowful to be of this race, but so Hope SPRINGS from the darkness.
 * Strive to be Righteous and sleep in Honour’s lofty bed or be revisited!
 * Wrath from a Tidal voice, issuing forth in gentle succor unless angered.


 * What doom’d the towers to fall upon the ground struck industry from man’s hand;
 * Where a year’s wage once wrought from a day’s work, now the Lord hid it.
 * Within the fields, the grounds became rough and only opened by the plow,
 * The fish leapt away from the sight of man, and the game became fearful of his step.
 * This was the penance to be paid and the crucible of cleverness and hearty spirit.


 * Within the cradle of the earth, the roaming tribes rediscovered the freshness of Water.
 * A tranquility poured from the hills, soothing the wounds of this new, far simpler life.
 * Those that partook of the Water understood that it was a gift to aid them.
 * A gift given so that life would go on! A chance to drink a draught of the spirit!
 * For in their previous life, they had lived only as corporeal vessel to Greed and Ambition.


 * Of all things in the world, beautiful and cruel, drink of this sacred place and remember.
 * The Voice in the Water that wounded Himself so that you might be.
 * The Voice in the Water that born the distillation of light and matter.
 * The Voice in the Water that wielded Justice against the Foes
 * The Voice in the Water that gave us the chance of a life of the Spirit.


 * Behold, the buoyancy of His spirit lifts us from the woe of Earth!
 * Behold, the departure of its Grandeur is but a return to His greatness!
 * Behold, when His spirit flees us, we are not but descending matter!
 * Behold, the succor given to those that Work and Proclaim upon the land!
 * Of all things in the world, beautiful and cruel, drink of this sacred place and remember.