The Web of the Weaver is a sect of followers of the Hellean goddess Ananke. Once popular around the southern coast of the Gulf of Teneucia, today they have been driven underground and are believed to only exist in the central forests of the Halakran League and in parts of the Western Coast.
Edicts and anathema
- Edicts
- Same as Ananke
- Anathema
- Same as Ananke
History
The Web of the Weaver originally formed in the early years of the tenth millennium, as worshipers not of Ananke but of Ivoa, a hero-goddess from Caeno. A skilled shapeshifter and druid, Ivoa cultivated a group of followers through her teachings on nature and its geometry. She and her cult would be otherwise relatively unremarkable by the standards of hero-gods were it not for what took place after her death. Rather than splinter to new faiths, as is typical for the devotees of hero-gods, they remained together. Soon after she was laid to rest, the hero-goddess' remaining clerics convened at a ritual site in the wilderness south of the Twin Lakes, where Ivoa was said to have acquired her spark of divinity. There, they say, the Hellean goddess Ananke spoke to them, and told them of how Ivoa had been a vessel for the Wide-Pathed Earth. Thus enlightened, the clerics returned to the cult, who received this knowledge enthusiastically, turning their worship from the hero-goddess to an even more powerful deity.
In its first century this remade cult spread rapidly throughout central Hellea, finding many adherents in the communities along the [[Isminis River and around the Thunderlands in particular. But their propensity for living in these less settled borderlands and for shunning the activities of the cities would turn against them. Caught in the middle of clashes between the Halakran League and Iaramnae in the ninety-fourth and ninety-fifth centuries, they were accused by both sides of spying and conducting sabotage for the enemy, and soldiers from both armies were sent to the villages of the cult to drive them out.
Since then the Web of the Weaver has existed in secret. They have largely been driven out of their old territories, now heavily patrolled by Hellean soldiers. They are instead believed to exist in the central Halakran forests, west and south of the Thunderlands, as well as in parts of the interior of the Western Coast, yet the secretive practices they have adopted leads to far more rumors than fact as to their whereabouts. Some even believe the sect to be entirely defunct.
Beliefs and followers
While still broadly adhering to the more typical beliefs surrounding Ananke, the Web of the Weaver maintains that Ananke as a creator god is akin to, or literally is, a deific spider, having spun the world out of nothing in the earliest of eras. By forming the web she drew permanent connections throughout nature, and between people and the wilderness, thereby creating patterns and meaning out of the chaos. Ananke is always depicted by the sect in this arachnid form.
The Web eschews temples or any form of manufactured shrines, instead conducting offerings and sacrifices at pristine groves, in caves, or under natural stone arches.
Clerics of the Weaver tend to live as hermits, isolated from both broader society and from their own communities of faithful, aside from their involvement in rituals and ceremonies.