The Church of Seven or "The Faith"
The religion that follows the Seven is so dominant in
Westeros that it is referred to simply as “the Faith.” It was brought over by
the Andal invaders, some of whom wore the seven-pointed star of their gods
painted or carved into their flesh.
The Seven are the Crone, the Smith, the Mother, the Father,
the Maiden, the Warrior, and the Stranger. The Crone, Mother, and Maiden are
female, the Smith, Father, and Warrior male, and the Stranger both and neither.
Each has a broadly defined area of concern, so the Crone watches over wisdom
and discernment, the Smith over creation—particularly through crafts of all
sorts, the Mother over parental love, the Father over rulership and justice,
the Maiden over innocence, joy, and youth, and the Warrior over valor and
combat. The Stranger is concerned with death. While most people, nobles and
smallfolk alike, treat them as seven gods, the doctrine of the Faith is they
are seven aspects of a single god. Know god, love god, serve god is a common
saying in the Faith.
Worship commonly takes place in a seven-walled building
called a sept. Each god is represented inside by artistry weather by paining or
statuary, and candles burn in front of the images, lit by those who have
prayed. The Stranger rarely has more than a handful of candles, while in times
of war, the Mother and Warrior stand behind rank upon rank of lights. The decoration
of the Sept depends on the wealth of those who support it. Private worship
consists mainly in saying prayers and lighting candles before the images.
Public worship includes devotional hymns and an address. The Seven also feature
in many popular songs, which treat them with varying levels of respect.
The clergy of the Faith are known as Septons if male and Septas
if female. In some places, they live together in institutions known as Septries,
but a poor village might rely on a wandering Septon to come and lead the
services and hear confession every few weeks. Septons and Septas are celibate
and are generally expected to also be chaste. The distribution of virtue and
vice is about the same among Septons as it is among all other people, so there
are saints and sinners among them, but most are just people. Some education is
necessary to become a Septon, and most of them are literate, some being great
scholars— most of the legends of the distant past of Westeros were written down
by Septons. On the other hand, a village priest might only know the necessary
prayers, and being illiterate, know them only by heart.
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| Most Devout Holcomb |
The Faith is led by the High Septon, the next rank below him
are the Most Devout, who are responsible for electing a new High Septon when
the current one dies. On election, the High Septon renounces his name, which
can make history somewhat confusing. The election is largely free; even the
king can exert little more than subtle pressure. The Faith has strong enough
roots among the population and nobility that not even the royal family can
directly challenge it. There
are a number of orders within the Faith. Among the most visible are the begging
brothers, who wear simple clothes and walk the roads of Westeros, begging for
their upkeep offering prayers in return. The Septons who live in Septries are
known as Brown Brothers, and are somewhat apart from the world, having taken
special vows. However, the order about which most stories circulate is the
Silent Sisters. These women have sworn vows to the Stranger and never speak.
They are given charge over the dead, and one of their duties is escorting the
corpses of noblemen home to their estates.
Faith doctrine indicates there are seven Heavens and seven
Hells and that a soul resides in purgatory for seven ages for judgement before
their soul ascends into Heaven or descends into Hell. Church doctrine generally
eschews local traditions and disavows magic calling it heresy and witchcraft.
The Old Gods
The old gods are nameless and numberless; once, they held
sway over the whole of Westeros, as they were worshiped by the children of the
forest. When the First Men came, they first fought with the children but then
made peace and accepted their gods. The children of the forest probably
worshiped their gods in the groves of the forest, but the First Men created
godswoods, groves within their castles and villages where the old gods could be
found and venerated.
The Andals brought the worship of the Seven, and the old
gods retreated before them. The Faith never sought to eliminate the old gods,
however, and in some regions, they remain strong still. In particular, most
Northmen still worship the old gods, though small septs can be found in large
settlements. In contrast, while the Faith is far stronger in the south, most
castles still have a godswood, even if it is treated more as a nature garden
than a place of worship. Beyond the Wall, there are only the old gods, and the
Night’s Watch allows new men to say their words before either the Seven or the
old gods, making no distinction between them.
Worship of the old gods tends to be a private matter, even
when a number of people gather for it, but marriages can be contracted in a
godswood as well as in a Sept. Knights, however, are purely a creation of the
Faith.
Weirwoods are the great trees at the heart of a godswood.
Whitebarked, they are carved with faces that stand out red. It is said the old
gods look out of these faces and that the children of the forest could do the
same. Weirwoods also grow wild, and they are still treated as somewhat holy
even when they are not carved. Sometimes, people claim the face in the godswood
weeps when tragedy is approaching, but few believe such stories.
Not all godswoods have a weirwood, but those without feel
incomplete. A godswood may lose its weirwood to damage, and some, such as the
godswood in the Eyrie, are in places that make it impossible to grow the tree.
R’hllor, Lord of Light
R’hllor is an important god across the narrow sea, but he
has yet to find many inroads into Westeros, though the red priests are more
numerous in Dorne. He is a god of light and fire, and he is eternally
struggling with an unnamed, possibly nameless—or even unnameable—enemy, who
rules over darkness and cold. His priests are known as red priests (red
priestesses, if female) because of the red robes they wear, and his rites
center on flames. Most notably, fires are lit every day at dusk, as part of a
prayer to R’hllor that he brings the dawn.
The followers of R’hllor have a prophecy of a great warrior
called Azor Ahai, who will come to the world and tip the balance in the war against
the darkness. Azor Ahai will bear a sword of fire and bring dragons to life.
This prophecy is not widely known in Westeros but is common knowledge among the
followers of R’hllor.
Many rumors suggest the red priests have mystical powers,
seeing the future in the flames and wielding burning swords. Some
attribute this to magic, others to alchemists’ fire and a constant supply of
new swords.
Mother Rhoyne
Mother Rhoyne is the chief goddess of the orphans of the Greenblood, in Dorne. She is a personification of their ancestral home, the river Rhoyne, and is also known as Mother River. Her worship does not extend beyond the orphans, though most Dornishmen claim some Rhoynish heritage.
The world is full of gods and monsters, and their shrines
and idols litter cities and ruins alike. Along the coasts of Westeros, sailors
erect small shrines dedicated to strange gods, often cobbled together from
misunderstood figures and beliefs encountered on their travels. Across the
narrow sea, the Drowned God, Storm God, the Faith, and the myriad of other
religions fade as peoples embrace their own gods. While the Lord of Light
commands a strong following throughout the Nine Free Cities, even his influence
wanes once one passes the girdle of civilization and enters the wilderness of
ancient societies. When traveling abroad, a person quickly learns to keep his
pious devotion to himself lest he offend others by his zeal or become offended
when others mock his beliefs as fantasy.
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