Story of Saints

Veneration

In our moment of crisis we prayed to our Saints. To our awe and terror, they answered. This was The First Intercession.

We did not recognize the Saints when they returned to this world from beyond. We know now that they are shaped by our veneration, their bodies transformed irrevocably by our faith. Enormous. Faceless. Silent. Graceful. They embody the icons and attributes we have ascribed to them. They appear symbolic.

What’s more, they are in flux. For the brief time they are here, their bodies are stable, fixed only by the belief of those who brought them here. When they depart, their bodies will be cast back into memory, becoming mercurial until they intercede once again.

After all, they are no longer human, but something more — something perhaps closer to divinity.

Intercession

In Opera Eterna, characters may choose to take on a Patron Saint if they fall under that Saint’s jurisdiction. This is mostly a social gesture and provides little benefit to the character beyond, perhaps, a personal sense of guidance. It is not often that prayers are answered.

In rare cases a patron Saint may choose to intercede, but will do so only in extraordinarily dire circumstances. Conviction and desperation both are powerful conduits for summoning in this way. The arrival of a Saint, however, is spectacular and catastrophic. The land suffers a new scar for every Saint summoned to it, and those who summoned them bear the weight of responsibility for these events.

Exempting this, a Saint will only answer to the prayers of the many. Every so often in cities across this land, congregations will form for days and nights of continuous prayer, united by a wish to summon a Saint to their side. Only when their prayers have have reached some uncertain critical mass will the Saint answer their call, and that place will remain forever changed.

Upon their summoning, a Saint will carry out the wish of their summoners without discretion, disregarding the will — and sometimes the safety — of their summoners. Upon the fulfillment of the wish to the Saint’s satisfaction, they will dissolve once again into memory. The conditions under which a wish is fulfilled to a Saint, however, may not align with those who have summoned them. Some Saints choose to remain in perpetuity, devoted to the fulfillment of a wish long since past. Some collectives task themselves with vanquishing these wayward Saints to force their departure, though their lives are often short-lived.

Maidens

Intercession is a dangerous and unpredictable event, but it is not the only way summoners call upon the Saints for aid. For most needs, a Saint’s benedictions will serve instead. These small but powerful blessings are provided by the saints in exchange for our veneration. Maidens are those trained to perform these rites.

The maiden is one of playable jobs in Opera Eterna. They don a circlet and capelet, which they pair with a mid length skirt and knee-high boots for a modest traveller’s silhouette.

Whether by tending to a shrine or embarking on pilgrimage, those who take on this job will learn to bless others with some small glimpse of the grace of these ancestral figures. At first, a maiden is only capable of performing the rite associated with their patron saint. They may learn additional rites on their journey through other maidens and, if they are so fortunate, from the Saints themselves. Among maidens, a rite is a sacred practice, however, and will only be shared with others in trust.

These rites have various effects specific to the Saint that is invoked. Usually they are a limited version of the Saint’s own miracles that they perform. Tending a shrine to a Saint of Wine, for instance, might improve the yield on a vineyard, whereas a prayer to a Saint of Retribution might protect the blessed by retaliating against those who inflict harm on them.

The Hagiary

The Hagiary is the holy catalogue of Saints. It was once kept by The Faith, though those records have since been lost. Today, some collectives assemble their own hagiaries, documenting the many Saints that have been summoned. It is believed that no one hagiary is complete.

Though the contents of these hagiaries vary, some information categories repeat across texts and prove particularly useful in the effort to disambiguate the Saints. Most hagiaries include some form of the following:

Attributes

Saints may often be visually distinguished by their attributes. These attributes are a combination of relics and symbols associated with depictions of a Saint that, when interpreted altogether, tell the story of how the Saint is remembered as a mortal. These attributes, through the process of manifestation, may be incorporated into the new physical body and form of the Saint upon intercession.

A Saint attributed with the axe that beheaded her, for instance, might manifest wielding the axe. Alternatively, she may have axe blades hanging from the hem of her blouse, or she may simply appear beheaded. Her form is, literally, up to interpretation.

Miracles

Saints have been witnessed performing miracles in both life and in death, and these miracles are the source of a Saint’s greatest influence upon the material world. Documenting the miracles helps to understand the impact that a Saint will have if summoned, as well as the benedictions that they might offer when venerated.

In her mortal life, Milena, Saint of Clean Water, dredged water up from a dry well to bring to her village in a draught. In death, when her shrine was placed by a stream, its water always ran clear. As a Saint, she was summoned to cleanse a subsurface lake of impurities so that the thirsty might drink. She remains there, with their water system built around her, filtering water for the city above, her miracles forever at work.

Patronage

Saints, while incredibly powerful, exert that power over a limited domain. As such, only those who fall within a Saint’s domain may claim them as their patron. The scope of a Saint’s patronage is often but not always related to their miracles and the benedictions that they provide or to their attributes and their associates in their mortal life. Studying the Saint’s patronage helps us better align our prayers with those who might, in crisis, extend their aid.

Ascension

After the shattering of the Crystal Basilica, the rites of canonization were lost to time. While this marked the end of the cardinals’ hagiary, ours is still being written. In the years since, folk Saints have come to our aid in our times of need. Every so often, a new Saint will appear to us and confirm that the world beyond continues to recognize our veneration. Some of us today might even aspire to join their ranks. All it requires is that we be remembered.