Views on Leya Worship
This is from the message boards in October, 2000. Armaxis' player had asked these questions:
Category Role-Playing (4)
Topic The Gods of Elanthia (13)
Message What's your view? (1804)
By DRAGOSIS@PLAY.NET (Armaxis)
On Oct 25, 2000 at 14:51
Well, I'm bored and have some free time, and since I love reading about other characters and there haven't been any threads like this on this board for some time...
How does your character view their chosen God(s) or Goddess(es)? How does it affect their life? Are they fiercely devoted or just a mild payer-of-respects, or somewhere in between?
The following is the response I posted regarding Danay's and my views on Leya in terms of religion.
What's interesting to me is that after almost four years of actively playing a character dedicated to Leya, I can still sit here staring at the screen having a hard time trying to put into words my views and/or my character's views of her. You would think that since Danay is a cleric I would be able to sit here and easily write a short essay all about Leya, but it's not that easy for me.
Some of that is due to the type of person my character is, some of it is due to my feeling that we are still missing key information about Leya (what she did after building the shrine) and some of it is due to starting with one concept and having to adjust as further information was revealed.
Followers of Leya are both lucky and unlucky in that we have one of the few gods that has been fleshed out more in the game in the time that I have been playing. It's always lucky to be following one that is active and about which more is known because it gives you more material to work with. But the sometimes unlucky aspect of that is having to deal with revelations that may not mesh with previous conceptions of the god.
When I started playing this is what I had to go on from the official documentation, listing Leya as a minor god in the Pantheon of Liabo (this was before many of the gods, including Leya, got "demoted"):
- Leya -
Daughter of Kai, master of martial arts, patron of Amazons. She is a superior
warrior who appears to be twenty-something with azure eyes and wavy mahogony
hair. She wears a belted tunic over her slender but athletic form and laced
up sandals upon her feet. She has a cool, confident demeanor and is skilled
in many weapons. Shrine - uknown. (Laia)
I had a very basic view of her as a warrior goddess who understood and appreciated bloodlust and the desire to perfect skills. She was the one Danay called on to bless weapons, to aid in battle, etc. To start with it was more of a personal worship with the feeling of Leya being a patroness as listed above. (Danay also served Imaera at the time and that was much more of an outward religious type of thing.)
When Leya's story was revealed, there was a huge emphasis shift with her. The warrior aspect was dimenished in some ways and the whole mercy aspect was added as being significant to who she is and what she expects of followers. It was a hard adjustment to make both as a player and as a character.
Danay now only serves Leya and has for a long time. As a cleric you would expect that she would be more "religious" oriented in her devotion than many of Leya's other followers. But in a lot of ways that isn't true. There are other non-clerics and at least one cleric that I know, who are much more worship oriented and devoted to Leya as a faith than Danay is. As a player and a character, I see Leya much more as representing ideals to be emulated, rather than a god to be worshipped in the way that Armaxis talked about Luukos. In the Tribe we refer to it as the Amazon Way. So rather than viewing following Leya has a religion, I would describe it more as a way of life to be led.
When it comes to Danay specifically it's an interesting (to me anyway) mix of dedicated devotion to her goddess and being seriously flawed in her attempts to follow the way of life she believes Leya expects. Strength and mercy are the two major aspects Leya represents and Danay often fails miserably at both of them. It is an ongoing struggle for her to try and live up to the expectations of her chosen goddess which I believe to be honor, strength at arms, wisdom in word and deed, all laced with an understanding of and willingness to show mercy to others. As I said before, it's more a way of life than a faith full of prayers and preaching. Yet even though Danay struggles with it and is not as religous as one might expect of a cleric, her life is so totally intertwined with her service to Leya that it is central to everything she is.
Saying that following Leya is more a way of life than one of prayers and preaching is not to say that prayer and ritual have no place. As a cleric ritual is very important to Danay and as a player I think it's one of the things I have most fun with in terms of creativity in the game. It was a natural extension to develop the four holy days from the four aspects of Leya's shrine and to associate them with the four seasons. Danay considers them to be the High Holy Days where Leya is fully celebrated as a goddess and where worship is done full blown with ceremonial items, prayers and ritual.
But rather than feeling that Leya expects or wants these things as a norm, they are special occasions to honor her. The rest of the time my sense is that Leya feels you can best honor and serve her by living out her ideals, which I feel is also true for the vast majority of her followers. I haven't yet met anyone, cleric or not, who felt that regular prayer services or that type of thing are an expected aspect to worshipping Leya.
Danay's player - rambling