Magnus Allfather

Magnus Allfather is the chief diety of the Dwarven Pantheon, center of its worship, and the king of Khaz Urheim, the nearly-mythical dwarven fortress that bridges Ahren and The Bardo through the Atlas Mountains. Dwarves, especially those of the Clans of Magnus, hold that he is the progenitor of their race through his creation of his twelve children, and he is therefore known as the Father of All. He is seen to be the source and ultimate judge of dwarven life and morality. Magnus's teachings have set the tone for the entire religion of the Bastonian Pantheon. he is a Lawful Good deity who grants access to the Community, Good, Glory, and Nobility domains. His favoured weapon is the Greatace, and his symbol is an anvil, said to be what he used to forge the dwarves from the minerals at the roots of the mountains.

History

Magnus's teachings do not go into his origin, the origin of Ahren, or indeed the origin of Khaz Urheim. It is taught that he created the first dwarves, the other members of the Dwarven Pantheon, in a matter of a year and a day, working from a forge in the bowels of his stronghold, where the passion of the mountains heats lesser metals to boiling.

Apart from the creation of the earliest dwarves and leaving behind his works, Magnus takes no intervention in the lives of the dwarves, at least none that can be validated historically.

Relationships

Magnus is King Under the Roots, master of the Deepest Deeps, and maintains good relations with all of his children, the Dwarven Pantheon. In keeping with dwarven isolationism, he rarely interacts with other dieties apart from his children, who share his domain with him.

Magnus considers himself at war with all evil dieties, recognizing their divinity in spite of his mortal followers' general rejection thereof. The Deeps, both in Ahren and in the Bardo, are strange places, with halls that lead to Hell, The Abyss, and Pandemonium. On very rare occasions, this brings him into conflict directly or indirectly with the various dieties and godlike beings that reside in those places.

Appearance

Magnus Allfather is a gargantuan being alike in proportion and visage to the dwarves he created, albeit on a much grander scale. He has ruddy skin, tough as dragonhide, and a golden beard and braid. When he appears, he appears in dwarven fashion, often armoured in gleaming scale-mail or crowned in his glory.

Realm

His divine realm is Khaz Urheim, a fortified city in the Atlas Mountains which bridges Ahren and the Bardo. While the location of this city is said to be embedded in the soul of every dwarf, as a practical matter only the dead seem to remember it, and the location is lost to both living dwarves and some of the best scholars in all Wisteria. It is possible that the material portion of the stronghold does not have a static position, but appears only as needed.

Providence

Magnus is the father of the strength of the dwarves. A sudden turn against hopelessness is universally to his credit.

Servants

Magnus is served in his fortress by his children, by those dwarves who have earned their divine rest with him in Khaz Urheim, and by the Secondborn, dwarf-like stone golems of giant size.

The Dwarven Church

The dwarven church is unified in the worship of the Father of All, which is observed by not just his direct followers, but even by those who seek the patronage of his children, the Firstborn. The church teaches the performance of good works and the cultivation of competency, bravery, and strength (both physical and emotional) as the roadmap to ultimate salvation and an afterlife spent with the glorious dead in Khaz Urheim

Worshippers

All Atlassian Dwarves worship Magnus Allfather, and some worship him exclusively. Rank within the clergy is highly structured and determined by status and promotion from above, up to and including the primate of the religion, the Keeper of the Second Forge. Every community of any appreciable size within the Clanholds will have a temple dedicated to Magnus, often at its deepest point, or near a natural feature of volcanic activity or deep chasm.

Clergy

Priests of the Allfther wear elegant robes with braided piping, usually in black and gold. They adopt particular manners of the decoration and braiding of their hair and beards that makes them stand apart from other folk. Most clergy serve as chaplains first and pastors second, ministering heavily to the guards or militia in their charge and oftentimes leading the way into battle, by the Allfather's example.

Temples & Shrines

Like much the rest of dwarven architecture, temples and shrines to the Allfather are often masterworks of masonry or stonework, which in wealthy communities are often further embellished with precious metals or gem-mosiacs, depicting episodes from the Chronicles of Magnus. Such structures are usually subdivided internally, with an area for public ceremony and worship (which is frequent) and an area for the sole use of the clergy and those who serve the clergy in liturgical preparation, and temple complexes almost always include an outbuilding or suite of rooms known as the rectory, where the priests serving a particular temple have residence.

Holy Texts

The Chronicles of Magnus are allegorical morality plays said to be biographical of Magnuss himself, laying out his instructions on the proper manner of dwarven living. It is a short volume, and in print on plain vellum comrpises a mere hundred pages. However, copies of the chronicles in this state are rare, and more commonly are translations into the Bastonian tongue or Elven, found in the libraries of those peoples. Among dwarvenkind, the text is often memorized, and written copies exist at each temple or chapel dedicated to his worship, carved into the walls.

A copy - said to be the first - is carved runically into enormous Adamantine disks and known to be interred at Khaz Urdim.

Church History

Among the Clans, the church waxes and wanes in power over the centuries, as the focus of dwarven life shifts between isolationism amongst the clans (when worship of his children is more prevelent) to those times of great crisis when the clans stand united. The church does not lament these shifts in its influence, but stands ever-ready to prove themselves as the true defenders of all that is good about the Dwarven people.

Holidays

Magnus' holidays are the celebrations of the success of his people and their history, but their celebration is entirely out of joint as the dwarves have lost their collective sense of timekeeping, with each clanhold having deviated from the calendars of the others by as much as half a year.