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The kestavo

The kestavo is the ancient religion of northern Sembara and the Highlands, and is still practiced in some places in the highlands. It is a religion focused around small gods, the spirits of villages, streams, and hills, who are celebrated in their communities. These spirits, the kestavo, bring the prayers of their communities to Ako, the Divine.

Although most kestavo are worshipped only by the people of their particular town or village, some kestavo have gained great fame and pilgrims come from far and wide to their shrines to ask for blessings to be passed along to Ako. These include:

  • Romil, the glacier king, with his shrine in the tallest mountains in the north
  • Kamak, the lurker, who dwells at the bottom of the great Lake Kamchak
  • Besla, who came to the land in the ancient days from the Green Sea, and each spring asks Ahra to send the waters of her homeland to her for company, and thus brings the monsoon rains.

The kestavo are not the only spirits in the land, however. The cruel west wind, Ziva, and Vacla, the fire-below, have many offspring, the vazska. These spirits must be appeased or driven off, or they bring misfortune. The children of Ziva are the spirits of the cold and dry air, of hardship, shortages, and mischief, and although they are not worshipped, they are placated and bribed to stay away. The children of Vacla are the spirits of war and destruction, of injury, of sudden death, of the burning home. They are feared and driven off, whenever possible.

The Kestavan Religions

At the heart of Kestavan practices is the local shrine, the home of a kestavo. Each spirit has a home in a specific place, usually a shrine, and watches over the inhabitants of that place. Within their homes, they have great power, and can bring the blessings of Ako to their worshippers. But their domains are small, and limited to what is nearby their homes. The kestavo do not live in great heavenly palaces, watching over all of Taelgar; they live in small shrines, tended by the community, local places of devotion. A few kestavo, of great fame, live in two, three, or even a dozen shrines, but no spirit can divide itself too much without dispersing on the winds, an unquiet ghost. And so to gain the blessing of even the greatest and most famous kestavo, one must travel, to their shrines.

In the ancient days, many kestavo were known far and wide, and pilgrims would come to their great shrines, which became centers of highland culture. Today, many of these shrines are abandoned, the kestavo gone. Only a few of the most famous kestavo still attract pilgrims, and mostly only in the far north of Zimkova: Romil, the glacier king, with his shrine on the slopes of the Sentinel Range; Kamak, the lurker, who dwells at the bottom of Lake Kamchak, and has shrines dotting the shores; and Besla, who came to the land in the ancient days from the Green Sea, and each spring asks Ako to send the waters of her homeland to her for company, and thus brings the monsoon rains.

As the Drankorian traditions of Mos Numena spread, many adopted the new religion with its powerful divines, but held to some of the ancient traditions. Others held to the old ways, and kept the local shrines.

Traditionalist Practice

Most practice is focused around local shrines, invariably thought to house a specific spirit, who is believed to inhabit a specific object, feature of the landscape, or similar. That is, kestavo have specific physical homes in specific objects or places, which must be protected as they provide the gateway through which a kestavo can influence/help the world.

A new town/community must attract a protector spirit, either because one is already living in the land, or by getting one from an existing shrine to agree to live in two places. Great ceremony around this and very formal establishment of a village / group based around this.

Some spirits watch over many villages, and are therefore much more powerful… but also, much less focused on any one village.

Most practice is centered around maintaining the shrine; specific worship doesn’t necessarily occur in the shrine, but it is the house of the god, literally. It is very important that it be well kept, clean, decorated. Sometimes, this means a building – but if the kestavo lives in a waterfall in the forest, it might mean ensuring no one draws the water or something. The practice also includes specific rituals around giving prayers and wishes to pass on to Ako, and practices and rituals to scare off or bribe the children of Ziva. 

Each kestavo also can only carry prayers to Ako if they are nearby. This leads to both pilgrimages to specific shrines as well as a great importance on having a shrine in each community, as a center of worship. A new village cannot be established if no kestavo will watch over it.

Personal shrines are rare – there is little point in having a shrine if the kestavo doesn’t inhabit it, and the rituals to coax a kestavo to establish a second home are long and complex. So some rare homes have personal shrines, but most do not. Some shrines are not in communities, when the kestavo happens to be attached to a natural place that no people live. Most notably, neither Romil nor Kamak live near human settlements.

Vazska don’t have homes – they are the children of the west wind, and everywhere. Rituals around them are mostly in the form of bribes or threats to keep them away. Sometimes people ask them to bring curses on their enemies etc.