Let's talk about coming of age rituals, inheritance, and blood pacts.

Event-Driven Observances

While girls have a ritual to mark their first blood, we’ve already talked about female moon rituals. Similar rites mark the transition from girlhood to womanhood, involving teaching of the lore that women must know in their alignment with the Goddess. A different ritual, closer to mourning but also to the accession of a noble, marks the end of a woman’s fertility, and her transition to the end stage of her life, where her accumulated wisdom becomes her most important asset and her social function. Boys have a series of rites to mark their transition from child to adult, some triggered by age and others by physiological changes. Likewise, gwēthru have rites to mark physical maturity, and nwēthru to mark age-based transitions and their experiences with the Harmony and the Deep Magic.

When a boy enters puberty, the men of his community formally recognize his leaving childhood behind and entering a transitional period in his life, where he begins to learn to be a man. In most communities, the pubescent boys go into a retreat in the late fall, spending a week with a Priest and a guide or two, and learning the initial lore and skills they will need as adults. Some of this is basic hygiene, the necessities of grooming and personal care involved in being male. In urban communities, there may be sexual education as well; boys growing up in rural communities generally don’t need teaching about the physical aspects, having dealt with livestock breeding already, but will be taught the same lessons in behavior, courtship, and consent protocols as city kids. Some of what is taught is religious lore, stories of the God and His position in the cosmos. These generally have a role model aspect, providing guidance to help the boys grow up to become responsible, compassionate men. At the end of the retreat, a ceremony begins at sundown with a big, flashy event, such as shooting a volley of fire arrows out into a lake, and the boys are walked through a passage ritual, formally leaving behind their childhood and taking on their new role in the community. Variations on this occur throughout Antillia, based on the size of the community, the availability of facilities and guides/mentors, and the number of boys coming of age at any given time. Similar retreats and rituals are held when the young men reach late adolescence, and are ushered into the fullness of manhood.

Gwēthru rites are separate from those of girls and boys, as they represent the third state of the Divine. The gwēthru of the community, or a nearby community if the habitation is small enough it has very few of the third Form, decide when each transition ritual should be performed. They’re often individual, as gwēthru do not always mature as male and female at the same time, and while there may be several children or teenagers of similar age in the community, they may not all be ready for the ritual at the same time. The physical and social components are necessarily more complex than those of girls and boys, as the Unity is Itself more complex than the God and Goddess, and aligning oneself with the Unity requires considerably more effort. The exact nature of the ritual may vary from one gwēthru group to the next, and from one gwēthr to the next, depending on the needs of the celebrants and the requirements of the Unity, which will be made known at the appropriate time. Most gwēthru will not discuss the nature of the rites, contending that they involve the personal relationship between the young gwēthr and the Divine, and are private as such relationships must be.

Similarly, nwēthru rites are intensely personal, and require guidance from an elder nwēthr, preferably a Transcendent Theurge or Sage. Nwēthru have no sexual maturity, as they represent the fourth state of the Divine and have no reproductive organs, so there can be no puberty or adolescence rites based on physiological changes. Their coming of age rituals derive from their first experience of the Harmony, and the changes they experience as the Deep Channels open to them. Recognizing that these are happening requires an experienced Deep Magic worker. Traditionally, nwēthru are assigned a mentor in late childhood, called an athro, who guides them through the perilous mystic waters to adulthood, teaching the young nwēthr how to cope with the mind-altering experiences of the Harmony, and how to handle the Deep Magic without blowing up themselves, their community, or both. Very few things can be as terrifying as an angry teenaged nwēthr, sliding toward UnBalanced, with no athro ready to hand to calm them down and guide them back to center.

Rituals of inheritance generally occur only among the nobility, marking the passing down of responsibility from one generation to the next. Heavy robes, a weighted cloak, and a metal circlet, crown, or other headgear represent the burden being laid upon the newly ascended noble. A bloodletting, creating a bond with the land associated to the title and position, seals the pact between the noble and the Divine. From that moment forward, all consequence, for good or for ill, will flow upwards from the land, through its animals, plants, and people, to the noble. The decisions the noble makes will affect the health and livelihood not only of their domain, but of themselves directly. They literally live and die with their lands. Similar rites may sometimes be found among the Theurgy, binding those who serve the Divine to their Order or temple, or directly to the Form they align with. A few of the fighting Orders, such as the Fire Paladins of Uster, keep a blood pact among the most senior members, and sometimes with their primary temple, to ensure that their most powerful warriors do not strike out on their own. What affects one, affects all, giving them an incentive to police their actions. More about blood pacts and how they work will be found in the Magic chapter.