Communities harboring sin know misery for they are forsaken by the Authority. Hence, one’s sins are the whole parish’s business. Sins are to be appropriately atoned for and unrepentant sinners shunned or executed to preserve the Authority’s favour.

For the reasons listed above, a pious person should distrust, fear and fight things that dwell in the dark. This concept is not clearly defined in the Holy Texts, but, over the centuries, the Church has interpreted it as including such things as people who do business after sunset, nocturnal animals, humanoids with darkvision, aquatic creatures, the undead, people who live underground, winter, and people who have been incarcerated.

Since the Church considers a dark home abandoned, in some principalities, a person is cast aside from the community by ritually devouring all the lights in its home, plunging it in total darkness. The shunned person is thus stuck in an impossible dilemma: stay and be considered a darkness dweller, or leave their home, either which legitimates the expropriation. Once the spell ends and the light shines back in, the house is claimed by the community.

A sinner who wants to avoid being shunned better atone before others take the matter in their hands. That is why confession is one of the core sacraments of the Orthodoxy. In many cathedrals, confessors ritually plunge certain alcoves in complete darkness for that purpose. They sit there in prayer, unable to see who will join them. Darkness serves a double purpose here: preserving anonymity, and being the first step towards penance, as willingly entering it is an admission of sin by itself.

Orthodox monasticism implies some sort of ritualized tests of faith. Sometimes, these take the form of long daily meditative prayers isolated in complete darkness. During them, monks look inward, pray and reject everything they perceive. Indeed, in the dark, the only certainties are yourself and the Orthodoxy.

Once per year, on the day furthest apart from the holiest, certain parishes test their faith by holding ostentatious demonstrations of virtue. These demonstrations are simple in appearance: a crowd — self-important bourgeois men dragging their servants and household, debaucherous nobles demonstrating their restraint for a future court plea, unwed youth looking to impress potential in-laws, hungry commoners hoping to improve their lot — gathers in the church at noon which is then locked from the outside and plunged into magical darkness. When the six o’clock bell rings, if the crowd hasn’t devolved into chaos, the rest of the year will be auspicious. But with darkness providing impunity, and with masters, servants, rivals and lovers trapped together, the occasion is ripe for drama ranging from petty theft to murder.

Xvartholomeus appears in many legends. Most often as some sort of mousy accountant for some powerful being. After years of unappreciated servile labor, he steals some part of his master’s power (gold, divine spark, secrets, etc.) and runs away. He is never caught because many people look like him.

‘Xvart Coins’ depicting his taunting face as the ‘heads’ are often left where a petty crime was uncaught. The Church tolerates celebrations of Xvartholomeus during carnivals, notably because he is real and undeniable, but would severely punish outright worship. Over time, the Inquisition has narrowed down some traits as suspiciously Xvarthlomeus-like: male pattern baldness, small stature, blueish skin, and a phrygian cap. But these could be false leads.

The Church teaches that things in the dark are deceptive, any shadowy business ill intended, and any plea a potential manipulation. Some zealots known as the Dark Solipsists push this to the extreme and will kill anything they encounter in darkness with righteous ruthlessness, believing that the only truths is the dark are themselves and the holy texts.

For them, the Devour Light spell is akin to a berserker’s rage. They roam the streets at night armed with flails and spiked chains chanting holy psalms in a drunken fervor fueled by blind faith and rage. For many, dark solipsists are little more than hooligans and little to no tears are shed when the body of one is inevitably found with its throat slit when the morning comes, which ends up fueling the monks’ paranoia.

People call to Coltilde before throwing a coin in a wishing well or any opaquely dark hole. It is said that doing so might goad her into interceding in your favour to the Authority. She was martyred by being tied, weighed and thrown down a well by pagans. She was still alive and praying after two weeks. Heretical folklore believes she still survives in some well as a ghoul, while some scholars have theorized her being the syncretism of some Gullet Gods or the Lady of Loss (see below) by the Church. These scholars were executed.

It is well understood by the Orthodoxy that the base state of the world is dark chaos. Only once divine light poured in from Heaven were civilisations able to rise. Some scholars see the proof of that in the Devour Light spell. It indeed seems like light can be banished like any extraplanar creature and, like any other foreign element, it quickly dies if not fed copious amounts of energy to consume. From this theory rose the Elysian Restorers, a doomsday sect who believes that the quantity of light is finite.

For them, it being diluted over many planes is the reason righteousness and morality are fighting a losing battle. Civilisation is an experiment doomed to be imperfect and only by returning light to the Authority can there be a strong, perfect, invincible and good empire. For most of them, this belief is translated by using as little light as possible and casting Devour Light over areas where light serves little purpose. The more extreme Restorers would love to cast devour light on the sun, ushering a heavenly golden age above, and the collapse of most civilisations.

Sorcerers, elementalists and shamans know that each tree, stream or rock is inhabited by a spirit. Not least among them are the earth elementals manifested in each dark cave and tunnels. Their personalities vary, but they all demand offerings to be laid in their mouths. Depending on the cave, these spirits can hunger for as little as a few gems and as much as human sacrifices. In exchange, they provide shelter, hideouts, safe passage and precious ore veins. Powerful sorcerers can bend them to their will.

Present in many old and foreign polytheistic pantheons, the Lady of Loss often plays an antagonistic role in pagan mythology. Sometimes known as Shar and identified by a dark circle symbol, she is prayed to as a last resort by people who have lost everything. She is said to know all secrets shared in the dark and to whisper plot ideas to those who cry themselves to sleep.

An ancient elven queen so cruel and powerful that she is worshipped as a goddess. Or perhaps a demonic spider whose whispering brood has infiltrated the silken hair of elvenkind like a disease. Her cult is more akin to an extremely complex conspiracy where nobody is ever exactly who they say they are, loyalties are ever shifting, and every moment of weakness is exploited. Each of her worshippers think they are one step ahead of everybody else, yet none seem to know exactly what is the real overarching goal of the Conspiracy. Many historical crises have been theorised to be linked to the Conspiracy, and many more people died trying to investigate.

On the surface, prophets wake up mad after having had visions of oblivion: Deep underground, below even the murder palaces of the Drows and the Aboleth mazes, is a pulsing hunger that gnaws at the world itself. Those who believe that truth cannot bear the weight of a futile existence, for the end is near and life is meaningless. Delirious, they beckon doom by feeding the hunger through inhuman sacrifices and by devouring all lights, perhaps hoping to ascend. Wherever they rise, they are swiftly and ruthlessly hunted down by the Inquisition and adventurers, some of which, now disappeared, noticed similarities in goals with the Elysian Restorers.

The price to see the future is being blind to the present. At least, this is what many seers claim across the world. Often said to be blessed by the local saint or pagan god where they reside, they are somewhat contradictorily common and similar across many cultures, faiths and geographies. This led to many conspiracy theories about who or what gives them their powers of prescience, from demon worship to simple arcane divination.

Their ambiguous auguries are never quite straightforward, with consequences that become obvious a generation after their proclamation. As many cautionary fables are told about the tragic consequence of listening to them as there are heroic tales about those who trusted them. This is not helped by the fact that each of them seem to bear a different, ironic, curse that limits their gift, such as never being believed by the right person, or only seeing the consequences but never the actions.