Balfagor

Balfagor - Watercolour by King Fisher Arts

About

Balfagor is part of the larger Waejiran Pantheon. The god of night, shadows, and darkness, is also the god of dreams but benign and malignant. People believe dreams contain prophetic visions of the present and future, as well as revealing secrets form the past. Belief in Balfagor is found primarily within Waejir and amongst Waejiran cultural groups that exist outside of the empire's borders.

Priests and Priestesses of Balfagor are seen as seers, capable of interpreting dreams and guiding those faithful towards a deeper understanding of the soul and mind. Balfagor's followers often consume psychoactive substances to induce dream-like states and evoke higher consciousness.

First Appearance

Early dream cults associated the moons as the source of dreams. These merged with the personification of a master of the night directing the dreams to mortals.

People would beseech Balfagor for protection from the dangers that lurked in darkness, when they had to be active at night and beyond the safety of home and hearth.

Balfagor

Other Names

Balfagor / Master of Dreams

Waejiran god of night, shadows and darkness. He is believed to send out his stei, Rae and Nae, to deliver dreams to sleepers. Balfagor was fathered by Qeinor and born of Silat. Balfagor is depicted wearing a robe of shadow, his face obscured by a deep hood, in his hands sit two glass spheres containing dream-like images. Typically he is accompanied by his stei, Rae and Nae.

The Church

Key Dates

Double full moon

Balfagor's Night / Festival of the Moons - A celebration outside of the annual calendar which occurs whenever both moons are full together over a three night period. Celebrants beseech Balfagor for dreams and visions of their future during this time.

Church Hierarchy

Holy Seat

<--where is the central authority-->

Pontiff

<--top cleric in the hierarchy-->

Cardinals

Archbishops

Bishops

Priest

Acolytes

Laity

Clerical Orders

Dancers of the Endless Dream

A faction of the faith who practice a ecstatic form of worship wherein they dance to the point of exhaustion under the influence of hallucinogens then collapse into a deep sleep in efforts to reach further mysteries of the universe.

Tenets of the Faith

Dreams

Dreams provide of what could have been, might come to be, or what was in another version of reality. The practice of lucid dreaming is encouraged amongst the faithful.

Fae

Creatures of myth and superstition are manifestations of the Endless Dream. They exist because dreamers bring them into reality as lingering residual parts of dreams not remembered.

Night

The night is not to be feared, but embraced as a time when the bonds of the physical world are weakened. There is nothing in the night that cannot be understood. The unknown is not to be feared, but to be sought out and discovered.

Perceptiony

Reality is only what one perceives. The physical world is a constructed prison of the mind, which one can escape with a proper understanding of the universe. Finding ways to alter ones perception provides doors and windows into the truth of the universe.

Heresies

Faerie Cults

some faithful of Balfagor beileve that instead of individually transcending to the endless dream, that they can bring the dream into reality. They do this by encouraging faeries and other cryptids to exist and interact with the physical world. The goal of such activity is to destroy the division between physical realm and the dream realm, merging the two forever.

Death Cults

There is a small sect of followers of Balfagor who believe that the true moment of transcendence can only happen at the moment of one's true death, prior to the return to Silat. Such individuals will engage in ritualistic near death experiences in attempts to discover just how one might achieve the dream. Such individuals associate ghosts and physical undead as examples of partially successful transcendence whether intentional or not. seeking answers in the study and interaction with such entities may lead to greater understanding.

The Endless Dream

Other Names

Many followers of Balfagor believe in a spirit realm separate from but connected to the physical world where time is meaningless and all creation is pure consciousness. It is believed that one can transcend to this realm leaving their physical form entirely and escape the cycle of death and rebirth.

Divine Servitors

Balfagor's Stei

Other Names

Balfagor's Cats

The god Balfagor is said to be served by a pair of stei, whom assist him with delivering dreams and visions to mortals. It is believed that these entities can travel through time and space, and are insubstantial unless they choose to take physical form.

Nae

Waejiran mythic figure believed to deliver benign dreams to sleeping people. Nae is associated with the silver moon, and appears as a grey and silver marbled tabby.

Rae

Waejiran mythic figure believed to deliver nightmares to sleeping people. Rae is associated with the red moon, and appears as a red/orange striped tabby.

Persons

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Stories

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See Also

Festival of the Moons