Temple Law

Temple Law (also called Divine Law) is a universal law stating that temples, or churches if you will, are sovereign ground, and can afford sanctuary to fugitives from the law, if the highest ranking priest of the church wishes so.

In other words. If you are a criminal and being pursued by the authorities, once you are on temple grounds, you can not be forced to leave by anyone but the highest ranking priest. Guards, soldiers or others will not breach the sanctity and drag you out from the church grounds.

And the law, because it is perceived as divine, extends to more than the authorities. Typically no members of civilized races and nations will break Temple Law, simply because everyone knows that the gods are real, and only a fool will piss off a god or a goddess.

The law also states that drawing blood (as in using violence, whether it be with sword, hammer or magic) inside a consecrated church is really a bad idea. You might not get stricken by a thunderbolt from Heaven, but it is universally believed that, you will suffer from the decision. Depending on which church it is, the retaliation can come in a wide variety of forms, but usually it relates to the one of the spheres of influence of the god in question.

Prophecy

Prophecy is the art of predicting the future. In theory, prophecy can come from anyone gifted with spell-casting. In general, sages distinguish by three types, when it comes to prophecy. Natural prophets, reborn prophets and unwilling prophets. 

Natural prophets usually show the gift at a young age and retain it throughout their life, until their death. 

Reborn prophets are often much older when they acquire the gift of prophecy. Typically some sort of event or action of sacrifice acts as a catalyst for acquiring the gift. It could be a priest who sacrifices his eyes to better see the future, or a warlock that sacrifices his firstborn in order to remove himself from emotions to better be able to focus on the prophecies.

Unwilling prophets are "normal" spell-casters that for whatever reason are chosen by some higher power to be a conduit for the visions. Most of these prophets have a short lifespan, as only select few can handle the visions of the future.

The common ground of all types of prophets is that they have visions of the future, which they translate to words based on instinct and magic so that future generations can heed their warnings. A few do not "see" the future, but hear it instead.

The wording of prophecies is often extremely ambiguous. Interpreting and understanding prophecies is therefore an unpredictable and unreliable business. True Prophecies are always fulfilled, but not all prophecies are true ones. Or rather, all prophecies are true, but are only one possible version of the future, which can be changed, although it very rarely happens.

The Bluestones

The Bluestones, which are found primarily in the Bluestone Hills, but also in a few other remote hilly areas of the world of Gemnos, are magical gemstones with different properties.

Over the years, sages have catalogued at least three different types of Bluestones. There are rumored to be at least two more, the Soul Bluestone and the Starflare Bluestone, but there is not enough information on those.

Clear Bluestones enable a spellcaster to draw on it's energies and recall a spell he has previously cast the same day.

Jagged Bluestones have one purpose, namely to empower rituals, especially conjurations and divinations.

Essence Bluestones can be used to store spells inside, to be activated at a later time.

As a rule of thumb, the bigger the Bluestone, the more powerful it is.

Summoning demons & devils

Demons and devils were once like you and me, but an eternity in Hell has changed them. Not just physically, but mentally. Do not try to summon demons and devils. Do not try to understand them. But most of all, never ever make a pact with them. You always end up dead, your soul forever cursed to replenish the infernal armies of Hell.

Most people equate the act of summoning a devil or demon with powerful mages and spells like Gate or Planar ally. While this is certainly true, it is also true that many besides powerful mages and clerics can attempt to summon the extra-planar creatures.

The details of how and why are sketchy at best and not always accessible to everyone, as the information is jealously guarded by sages, cultists, warlocks, witches, sorcerers, shamans and the like.

Usually the act involves a summoning symbol of some kind (such as a pentagram), a lot of salt, a number of black candles, a handful or two of rare herbs and incenses, some invocations spoken in infernal/abyssal, quite a lot of death and the true name of the devil/demon. Also worth noting that certain items can further facilitate the success of the ritual. Especially a sacrificial dagger made of silver/bone/cold iron and/or a sacrificial dagger made of bone can help a lot.

But there are exceptions of course. For example, it is said that a box containing certain items (picture of you, graveyard dirt and a bone from a black cat amongst others) buried in the middle of a dirt crossroad at midnight will summon a demon with the intent purpose of striking a pact regarding your soul.

The Afterlife

Even amongst the most knowledgable of mortals, little is known of the whys and hows of the afterlife of Gemnos, but this much is known.

When a creature dies, its soul travels to the Underworld or it has sold its soul, in which case it goes directly to Hell. Sages speculate that this is why demons and devils work so hard to corrupt mortals. By striking a deal with a mortal, they bypass the 100 years of negotiations and possibly also steal souls they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. The only other exception to this is when a creature is killed by Destruction or Disintegrate, in which case the soul is also destroyed.

After the ten days of traveling through the veil, the soul arrives in the Underworld. Why it takes a soul 10 days to pierce the veil, no one knows, but those 10 days is the window during which a soul can be brought back by the use of Raise Dead. It is however impossible to contact a soul while it is passing through the veil.

Then, for the next 100 years, the soul will roam the Underworld as an incorporeal ghost, during which time Heaven and Hell will bargain with Cyric for it. If the soul has unfinished business, it will usually already be able to pierce the veil and return from time to time to the mortal world and haunt it.

At the end of the 100 years, the soul will either become as a creature of the Underworld (and possibly continue to haunt the mortal world) or travel to Heaven or Hell and be reborn there. It is during those 100 years that a creature can be brought back to life by the use of Resurrection and contacted using Speak with Dead. Once a creature is reborn, nothing short of divine intervention or True Resurrection will enable someone bring it back to life. Even with True Resurrection, there is little to do once the soul has grown used to its new body, something which happens another 100 years down the line.