Historical Article- The Commoner’s Priest [01] by M. D. LYRIN

Hello, my name is Marcielle D. Lyrin. As per my name, I have been blessed by the bat deity of vision. In my scholarly article, I will be documenting the Tieza kingdom's religious government.

In the case that you have opened this letter for a brief explanation of the Tieza kingdom's 'commoner' priest, to put it in a simple manner:

The priest is often selected anonymously by the temple. The current ruler would play no part in the selection. While historically, there has not been any documents for the public on how these individuals are picked, the known ones share a few matching traits.

1. All the selected are literate. (Whether they are intentionally educated before officially announced or not remains to be judged)

2. The selected are generally not tied by marriage or other such oaths.

3. In general, they are people who have strong bloodline ties, despite being commoners.

There is only ever one position for a commoner priest each at a time-the only exceptions are for those who are born as twins. Within history, this has only occurred twice.

This will have been a first opportunity for a new one to be titled in a half-century- unfortunately, despite living healthily for several years, the previous high priest perished at sea. The new one is only being brought due to her being missing for so long and the local unrest with nobility.

Some of us are aware that priests from common heritage are not too uncommon outside Tieza, but due to its political influence and unique past, it's a bit different. Tieza does have minor temples that have sworn off of political influence, but they are more often community run and politely ignored by officials.

Commoner priests were first brought into fame in order to quell rebellions to varying levels of success.

To elaborate further into the dubious history;

It is popular knowledge that the worship of the blood-tied deities in Tieza are far more fanatical than that of our home kingdom. While both Tieza and several other kingdoms popularly are reigned by a ruler whose last names are relinquished to gain the crown, Tieza also has a large temple hierarchy that also collaborate in ruling their land.

According to the historian who maintains the temple's records, in [XX of XXX the 3rd] the Light King, Naven, was the king who establish a religion-based kingdom. This is in no small part thanks to the Clementines family [note: while the Clementines have several branch families, only those who keep their last names are allowed to use their fire blessing]

During Light King Naven's reign, there was an unknown folk hero who had protested this in King Naven's later life-period. Due to the mass outbreak of commoners who heavily committed to blasphemy due to the social hierarchy, it was clear that Naven's reign was not established with foresight. While chatting with the historian (she's a lovely elder), she let me know that it was recommended by the folk hero herself to add commoners to the worship of deities.

While I am not allowed to talk of the personal documents of her ancestors, she allowed me to transcribe from ancient script, I am able to talk of the fact that the folk hero had a poor reputation after she had settled with this compromise. Until further notice, please allow this lack of further elaboration, as talks to the temple officials are being worked out. However, due to Tieza's policies, as a commoner I have not yet been able to arrange any meetings until any further notice. By the time I revisit this letter alongside my peers, I will have revised that information into a different article about Tieza's rulers.

To return to our discussion of the anointed priests, soon after the folk hero left the lands, the commoner priest became something of a celebrity and helped clean up the reputation of both the king and the temple.

During my visitation to Tieza, she was one of the few priests from that time to be immortalized in household portraits. While it would be a wiser choice to not send it alongside this letter, I will describe her as a rosy woman filled with a homeliness. It's hard to imagine her as anything but humble and loving by her flushed cheeks and cheery eyes.

The painter of which I purchased the miniature from, upon prompting, notes that his family taught him of how she had personally saved one of his many greats' grandmother from dying from treason. I can't help but speculate the accuracy of such claims, and truly her influence on the kingdom she was in. It was eerie to see such clarity for a figure from a nearly forgotten time.

Ignoring that, thanks to this painter's family, I have learned the general gist of how the selection is carried out. I should come to expect the fanfare to solely be based on the village of the eastern shoals, due to it being close to the temple-other villages celebrate but since cannot directly help in the ceremonies. This village often holds early markets on the shoals themselves every 6th day in order to promote commerce from passing travelers (Including me, unfortunately), and thus often had exotic extremities that I had not seen elsewhere.

Upon a hunt, I eventually found a sturdy man who could elaborate further on how he was instructed to host such festivities.

Surprisingly, he said that the day of and before there is to be none at all. It is only the 10th night after the priest has entered the temple that they celebrate. It is due to this, my return trip will be delayed further, so I can properly inspect the village's operation. To make up for this, he allowed me to have some insight of what they stock up on and prepare as long as I participated.

It's no surprise such a village was filled with those who could handle the summer heat! In fact, amidst them, I must've been one of a handful of people who got burned from the fire star's rays.

The man-who is apparently the village's elected chief-with the help of some disagreeable looking girl, told me that they treat the festivities as they do with funerals. According to the girl, when she saw my dumbfounded look, she rudely informed me that it would be cruel to purely celebrate the loss of an ancient blessing without properly acknowledging the great grief. In hindsight, it may have been my fault for being so shocked.

During the first hourglass of the morning, the able-bodied adults will release dried flower leaves into the shoal. I've been told according to the previous chief that the petals of the dried flowers will turn transparent and disappear after the day truly warms up in the salt waters. After watching to ensure everything properly is sent off, often the day will return to normal until evening, where the tides will slightly overtake a certain rock in the village's outcrop.

Here, despite no need or official recognition, the village chief and the person who was closest to the selected will go to a cave and carry a specially carved thin bowl into a cranny in the shelves and pray to the relinquished blessing to continue to protect even without the blood contract.

I refrained from asking further due to an uncomfortable air rising in the room at the time. However, she did let me know that afterwards were the actual events outsiders like me were allowed to personally witness. Alas, I will be sending such news in a separate letter.

I apologize for the unorganized manner I have written this, but hopefully once I am afforded more time, I can properly write more cohesive explanations of Tieza's kingdom.

Sincerely your scholar,

Lyrin, Marcielle D.