Arrano, God of Preparedness, Helpfulness, and Bravery
___Neutral Good
Arrano is a compassionate, caring god who states that the path to goodness and godliness lies in being ready for anything, being willing to help whenever possible, and maintaining a good, clean life. His priests and paladins operate by several core principles. They're trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. They maintain hundreds of organized churches and troops, and have influence and reach everywhere civilization can be found. They accept all races, as long as they are good people who live by these virtues.
The church of Arrano boasts significant reach, and its followers number many thousands. One reason for this is that ceremonies and liturgy are encouraged less strongly than in most religions; to experience a good afterlife, one must simply live a good life. In addition, their paladins and priests must help other people and evangelize as part of their training and oaths, spreading the positive message that everyone is capable of living the best life possible and improving those of others.
Arrano has three holy days in a year, memorializing significant events in the history of the church.
Paladins of Arrano have several levels of training they go through before full initiation. First, he must demonstrate knowledge of and devotion to Arrano's principles, as well as display the holy sign, speak the sacred oath, and utter the holy greeting. In order to advance to Ray, he must complete several adventures of varying difficulties, both unsupervised and supervised.
The requirements for Star are more difficult, including campouts, medical knowledge, skill with rope and knots, familiarity with basic tools and equipment, a high level of physical fitness, participation in religious events, navigation, basic cartography, swimming, and rudimentary tracking.
To advance to Eagle rank, paladins must teach and guide others, display specialized knowledge in fields of his choosing, volunteer in service to others, complete several individual challenges, grow as a person in maturity, respectability, and faith, and present his reasoning for advancement to a clerical council, who evaluate his life, deeds, and service to the church and decide whether he should be allowed to reach the crowning achievement of Eagle of Arrano.
At any given time, there is a single Sun of Arrano. The Sun operates in less of a religious role and more as a traveling champion of Arrano. He enforces the will of the church in more concrete matters, and is always a very experienced warrior. The Sun is chosen by the leaders of the church, and before initiation, he's tested thoroughly. Rumors tell of a grueling training process for every new Sun, but nobody really knows what takes place in the time between the Sun's selection and his coronation. A new Sun is chosen when the current Sun dies, inevitably in battle.
___"Have you heard that there's a new Sun? It'll be a few weeks until he's ready for coronation, I reckon. I wonder what happens between now and then. I hear rumors of some sort of training where he risks life and limb every day. My mate Fred says they give him potions and cast spells on him that make him stronger and faster, but there's a cost, there's always a cost. I've never met a Sun, but all I know is they're scary buggers up there on the podium, so broad-shouldered and imposing. I wouldn't want to stare down that blade, no sir."
___— Conversation overheard at the Cock & Swallow tavern in Megagrad
For the duration of his service to Arrano, a paladin or priest must always seek to help others freely, evangelize, display a symbol of faith whenever possible, and otherwise live by the twelve tenets of the faith.