Lore Post: The Tel Bator

Hey, everyone! I promised a short lore post for the month, so here it is! 

People who have read my stuff from the beginning can probably find threads in older work where I have developed and expanded on ideas. The early concept of a big, imperious religious organization really started in Elf Slave. 

Anyway, the Tel Bator is an organization akin to the Catholic Church - it is the religious force  in Darenthi (and elsewhere) with an enormous amount of cultural and political power. The religion is structured around worship of the Triumvirate, the only three gods widely believed to have survived the Godswar with the Avetharri in ancient times. Each god has its own "branch" which is led by a Voice, ostensibly the "high priest" of a given deity. 

• The Keepers: Based within the Galespire, the Keepers serve the Lord Vigilant and worship Dathiel the Watcher. This is where the Inquisitrix from TaP/TaV clearly got her idea for the Senosi. The Keepers have vatari dust tattooed into their flesh, just like Valuri,  and as a result they can "absorb" magic. 
• The Sanctori: The Sanctori are the inquisitors of the Tel Bator who police the flock and root our corruption within the faithful. They will have much more development in the next book, but they are led by the Lady Seeker and worship the Shalassa the Moonmaiden (who is worshiped as a goddess of nature and fertility but also of secrets). Sanctori Inquisitors have broad authority to do almost anything they want, and they wield items that allow them to discern the truth - and force victims to confess their sins. 
• The Templar: The "knights" of the Realm, the Templar serve the Lord Protector and worship Escar the Guardian. They have a Night's Watch/Grey Wardens thing going on where they take in anyone who seeks redemption, and they are trained to battle supernatural threads like Chol and demons. Unlike the Knights of the Silver Fist from Highwind, they don't actually channel magic - their "powers" come from their wraithblades and their shields. In Queen of the Pale, we learn that the Order was decimated in the last Culling and has never truly recovered. 

Some of this was a bit different in my initial draft (where Rohen was a Keeper), but I like where it ended up! There's a strong theme of "threes" in Darenthi religion and I liked the idea of each deity having its own organization that often doesn't work well with the others. 

In the last post, there was also a question about the war between the Whitefeathers and the Roskarim. A little more about this will come out over time so I can't reveal too much, but the "barbarians" saw Delaryn's mother as a messiah (for reasons that will come clear later) and sought peace for the first time. Her father's choice to marry a Roskarim princess was a huge scandal that made Torisval even more scorned by the other duchies, and it started a chain of events that led to the civil war and now to the current crisis. 

There is a lot of important stuff in this history that is important to the overall story so I don't want to spoil it yet. :P