View source for Ivory (Reformed Stripping Path)

[[File:76734dcb-1c42-48d4-8403-9e5406eb0b84.png|200px|thumb|left|The goddess of purity and serenity, Ivory is heavily revered by members of Temple Alabaster in the northern, mountainous reaches of Aetherium.]]

'''Ivory''' is a deity of the [[Reformed Stripping Path]], representing the [[Ivory|moon of the same name]].

Ivory, the Lady Divine of Purity and Serenity, is a celestial figure believed to have emerged from the crystalline depths of the purest ice. Born amidst the shimmering frost of the winter realm, she embodies the pristine beauty and tranquility of untouched snow. Radiating calm and clarity, Ivory inspires mortals to seek inner peace and to live in harmony with the unspoiled natural world.

===Ivory in the Reformed Stripping Path===
In the [[Reformed Stripping Path]], Ivory is revered as the guardian of purity and the divine guide to serenity. Her teachings emphasize the importance of self-reflection, the cleansing of impurities—both physical and spiritual—and the pursuit of inner tranquility. Worshipers honor her as a figure who dispels confusion and reveals truth, helping mortals navigate life’s challenges with grace and clarity.

===Ivory in the Bassaridian Zodiac===
[[File:Alabastites1122.png|200px|thumb|right|Members of the cult of Temple Alabaster, known as Alabastites, prepare for the Frost Veil Ceremony at a glacial spring in the mountains east of Aetherium.]]
Although not directly represented in the Bassaridian Zodiac, Ivory’s presence aligns with the cycles of renewal and the cleansing power of winter. Her influence is most profoundly felt during the changing seasons, particularly in the frost-laden months when the land rests under a blanket of snow. These periods of stillness and reflection are seen as sacred times to honor her divine essence and seek spiritual rejuvenation.

====The Temple Alabaster===
Temple Alabaster, nestled in the snowy mountains overlooking [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Aetherium|Aetherium]], is the central sanctuary and institutional heart of the cult devoted to [[Ivory (Reformed Stripping Path)|Ivory]], Lady Divine of Purity and Serenity. Carved from pale alabaster and ice-veined stone, the temple complex serves as both a place of quiet devotion and a network of convalescent houses and contemplative schools. Within the [[Reformed Stripping Path]], Temple Alabaster is regarded as Ivory’s primary instrument for cleansing the mind and spirit, a counterpart to more outward-facing cults such as the [[Azure Sentinel Sect]] and [[Sanctum Vitalis]]. Its followers—known as Alabastites—seek to embody Ivory’s calm and clarity in their own lives and in the institutions they serve. 

Architecturally, the sanctuary is designed to express stillness. Terraced courts and cloisters step up the mountainside above [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Aetherium|Aetherium]], with colonnades that frame views of snowfields, frost-crusted pines, and distant peaks. Interior halls are lined with alabaster panels that diffuse light into a soft, almost pearlescent glow, minimizing harsh shadows and visual noise. Water from glacial springs is channelled through narrow rills that run along corridor floors and through meditation cells before spilling into larger basins in the central purification courts. In these courts, pilgrims recite verses from the [[Ivory (Reformed Stripping Path)#Mythology: The Homeric Hymn to Ivory|Homeric Hymn to Ivory]]—Lysantha’s story of despair, guidance, and renewal—as they bathe their hands or faces in the crystalline water, re-enacting the hymn’s promise that burdens cast into winter’s stillness can be transformed into peace. 

Temple Alabaster’s internal organization reflects its dual role as shrine and hospital. Novices, called Snow Acolytes, begin by copying the Hymn to Ivory, tending incense braziers, and maintaining the water channels and alabaster surfaces that define the temple’s aesthetic. After completing a period of supervised retreat and study, they may be initiated as Alabastites, empowered to guide basic meditation, supervise lesser purification rites, and serve as attendants in the temple’s convalescent houses. Senior officers, known as Custodians of Stillness, oversee sanatoria, scriptoria, and retreat programs, adjudicate the admission of long-term patients, and coordinate with external cults when Ivory’s expertise is required in joint operations. At the apex stands the High Custodian of Alabaster, who presides from the innermost sanctuary and serves as the cult’s primary interlocutor with the [[Temple Bank of the Reformed Stripping Path]], the [[Bassaridian War League]], and the [[Council of Kings]] on matters related to spiritual trauma, purification, and national periods of penance.

The cult’s theology is anchored in Ivory’s identity as guardian of purity and guide to serenity. Homilies emphasize that purity is not identical with fragility or withdrawal; rather, it is the strength to remain clear in the midst of turmoil. Drawing upon Lysantha’s vision at the crystalline spring, teachers at Temple Alabaster present spiritual cleansing as an ongoing discipline of truthful self-examination, renunciation of corrosive habits, and deliberate cultivation of quiet. The temple’s curriculum stresses three linked virtues: lucidity (clear perception of oneself and one’s situation), composure (the ability to act without panic or rage), and gentle exactness (the practice of making corrections without cruelty). These virtues shape the temple’s approach to both individual therapy and institutional reform: Alabastites are often called upon to help cleanse not only persons but also councils, shrines, and campaigns that have drifted into confusion or excess. 

Ritual life at Temple Alabaster is intentionally understated. Daily observances include dawn and dusk stillness periods, during which bells are rung softly across the terraces and worshipers sit in silent contemplation while snow or mist moves across the mountains. Weekly Frost Veil Ceremonies—depicted in art showing Alabastites gathering at glacial springs—feature the recitation of selected passages from the Hymn to Ivory, followed by the symbolic “veiling” of worries: worshipers write griefs or compulsions onto thin sheets of rice paper, which are then dissolved in flowing spring water and carried away. In winter months, certain inner-court rites involve long, silent processions through lantern-lit cloisters, culminating in the pouring of pure water over alabaster bas-reliefs of Ivory and the [[Rift Harpy]], her associated creature, as a sign that even fierce, mountain-born spirits can be aligned with serenity.

In civic life, Temple Alabaster is best known for its sanatorium network and its role in treating spiritual and psychological injury. Following the horrors of [[Operation Somniant]] and the first fully manifested encounter with the [[Somniant Eidolan]], at least one War League officer suffering irreversible spiritual trauma was placed under long-term care at a Temple Alabaster sanitarium.  This case, widely cited in internal doctrine and medical reports, helped establish the cult as the primary institution for managing deep eidolic shock, identity fragmentation, and cyclical dissociation. Alabastite clinicians and Custodians of Stillness developed stabilization protocols in which meditation, controlled exposure to symbolic imagery, and carefully paced narrative recollection were combined with medical support from [[Sanctum Vitalis]] and the [[Pharmacon Sect]]. Over time, these protocols have been adapted for veterans of the [[Morovian Frontier Campaign]], the [[Valley of Keltia Campaign]], and other operations in which prolonged stress or metaphysical disturbance left enduring scars.

The order also plays a quiet but significant role in domestic Leviathan-era security operations. While cults such as the [[Azure Sentinel Sect]] and the [[Order of the Umbral Oracle]] focus on enforcement and investigation, Temple Alabaster is frequently brought in once crises have been contained to manage the “after-echo” of fear and rage. In cities like [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Delphica|Delphica]], [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Thermosalem|Thermosalem]], and [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Somniumpolis|Somniumpolis]], Alabastite teams have organized post-riot retreat programs for shrine staff and civic mediators, run quiet counseling circles for families estranged by doctrinal disputes, and offered purification rites for buildings where violence or sacrilege has occurred. These activities are rarely publicized, but War League and Temple Bank assessments repeatedly credit them with reducing long-term radicalization and preventing traumatised communities from becoming future flashpoints.

Economically and institutionally, Temple Alabaster is woven into the ritual-economic landscape of the [[General Port of Lake Morovia]]. As a cult-sponsored service actor, it appears in internal Port ledgers as both a provider of specialized missionary services and a modest investor in goods required for retreat work: white stone, textiles, incense, and convalescent supplies.  Temple Alabaster missions are dispatched to cities where shrine networks or administrative councils have become strained by conflict, scandal, or overwork. In such locations—often hubs like [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Vaeringheim|Vaeringheim]], [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Lunalis_Sancta|Lunalis Sancta]], and [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Aetherium|Aetherium]]—the order conducts leadership retreats, implements sabbatical protocols, and designs spaces where officials can step briefly out of constant visibility into structured quiet. In the Port’s broader ritual-economic model, these activities are treated as “purity maintenance”: essential to keeping decision-making elites clear-headed and thus maintaining the [[General Port of Lake Morovia#Civic Equilibrium Index|Civic Equilibrium Index]] at healthy levels.

Temple Alabaster’s most visible extraterritorial role appears in the context of the [[Baratar Scandal of 52 PSSC]] and subsequent [[Bassaridian involvement in Corum]]. When it became public that Baratar-linked documentation and freight channels had been exploited to route illicit arms into the [[Corum War]], the Council of Kings and the [[Temple Bank of the Reformed Stripping Path]] authorized a limited, non-combatant missionary deployment to northern and central [[Corum]], placed under a single civilian religious chain of command and structurally segregated from the War League.  The 118-person mission included one [[Kleisthenes]] each from the [[Celestial Harmony Sect]], [[Reverie Nebulous]], Temple Alabaster, and [[Sanctum Delphica]], plus a [[Dodekas]] and a [[Hetairos]] from the [[Order of the Umbral Oracle]]. Mandated tasks were deliberately narrow—relief, education, and reconciliation—with all units operating under [[Straits Conventions of 52.06 PSSC]] White-Lane humanitarian corridor rules and subject to oversight by the [[Haifa Compliance Exchange]] and external observers from the [[Imperial Federation]], [[Nouvelle Alexandrie]], and [[Oportia]]. 

Within this architecture, the Temple Alabaster Kleisthenes focused on trauma care, conflict de-escalation education, and the cultivation of small “islands of stillness” in villages and urban districts. Mission reports describe Alabastites running quiet rooms in school basements and shrine side-chambers where civilians could rest away from propaganda broadcasts and battlefield noise, leading breathing exercises and short, non-coercive meditations framed in neutral language easily adapted to local customs. Because the mission’s legitimacy depended on visible non-militarization, Temple Alabaster operatives deployed without weapons, encrypted radios, or autonomous sensors, logging all movements and kit inventories for HCE auditors and partner states. In sermons later delivered in [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Aetherium|Aetherium]] and [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Vaeringheim|Vaeringheim]], the order presented this posture as a form of “transparent quiet”—Ivory’s insistence that true purification cannot be imposed by force or hidden behind secrecy.

Within the broader theology of the [[Reformed Stripping Path]], Temple Alabaster stands as the archetypal “purity cult” of [[Ivory (Reformed Stripping Path)|Ivory]]: the order that demonstrates how serenity can coexist with complexity, and how clarity can be maintained even in the wake of horrors like Somniant and scandals like Baratar. Whether tending sanatoria in the mountains above [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Aetherium|Aetherium]], guiding exhausted officials through silent retreats in [[List_of_cities_in_Bassaridia_Vaeringheim#Vaeringheim|Vaeringheim]], or sitting with frightened children in far-off [[Corum]], Alabastites present their work as a continuous effort to bring lives and institutions back into alignment with Ivory’s frost-born calm. In their teaching, every honest pause, every carefully tended quiet space, and every burden laid down in trust becomes a small, crystalline spring in which the nation can see itself clearly—and choose, once again, to be clean.

===Mythology: The Homeric Hymn to Ivory===
The Homeric Hymn to Ivory, composed by the esteemed playwright Eliyahu al-Bashir, recounts the tale of Lysantha, a mortal burdened by sorrow and doubt. Lost in the snowy wilderness of the Aetherium peaks, Lysantha prayed for guidance.

Ivory appeared as a luminous figure, her cloak of frost shimmering in the moonlight. “Mortal,” she said, her voice as soft as falling snow, “cast your burdens into the stillness of winter, and let the purity of the frost cleanse your soul.” Ivory led Lysantha to a crystalline spring, where she bade her to drink deeply and immerse herself in its waters. Emerging renewed, Lysantha found clarity and peace, her doubts and sorrows replaced with serene purpose.

The hymn celebrates Ivory as a compassionate guide who brings clarity and renewal to those lost in the storms of life. 

===Worship and Festivals in Bassaridia Vaeringheim===
====Taşrakah (Reverence of the Stone)====
Held on the 61st day of Thalassiel in Luminaria, this festival includes stone-carving rituals and the anointing of sacred sculptures with fragrant oils. Worshipers indirectly honor Ivory by reflecting on the permanence of truth and the clarity that emerges through patience and stillness.

===Epithets===
Ivory is honored through epithets that reflect her divine essence and influence. Known as the Frostkeeper, she embodies the purity and stillness of the winter realms. As the Mistress of Tranquility, she offers solace and calm to troubled hearts. Her title, the Lady of Crystals, signifies her ability to dispel illusions and reveal truth through her pristine essence.

===Iconography and Depictions===
Ivory is frequently depicted as a radiant figure cloaked in swirling snowflakes and frost crystals, her form glowing with an inner light. She is often shown holding a delicate snowflake or crystal orb, symbolizing her connection to purity, clarity, and the serene beauty of winter.

Symbols associated with Ivory include the [[Flora and fauna of the Strait of Haifa#Avian Fauna|Rift Harpy]], a mystical creature that inhabits the mountains surrounding Aetherium, and the lotus flower, representing spiritual awakening and enlightenment. Artistic depictions capture her ethereal presence and calming beauty, inviting worshipers to find peace and renewal in her divine embrace.

[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Bassaridia Vaeringheim]]
[[Category:Reformed Stripping Path]]