Source: Faiths of Eberron
While the Sovereign Host is still the dominant religion on Khorvaire, the political and military strife of the Last War was a crucible for the power of the Dark Six, who emerged stronger and more influential than they ever had been before. Today, worship of the Six is dominant in more places than the Host worshipers would care to admit, including Darguun, the Demon Wastes, Droaam, as well as areas of the Lhazaar Principalities, the Shadow Marches, and Q’barra. Many priesthoods of the Six remained passive before the war, content to worship in their own way, but most have taken an aggressively missionary view in the time since. All across postwar Khorvaire, the Six are spreading their influence through a host of means, including bribery, evangelism, manipulation, and fear.
THE PEOPLE OF THE DARK SIX
While they accept the existence of the Nine, and even pay homage to specific gods thereof on occasion, the general feeling among followers of the Six is that the gods of the Sovereign Host simply are not as important to daily life as are the Dark Six. Kol Korran might have some influence over whether a given business venture prospers or dies on the vine, but the Keeper decides just what will become of the souls of the people involved. Without the Keeper’s blessing, they believe, every venture is doomed to failure in the long run.
Worship of the Dark Six appeals to beings who live existences of savagery, poverty, or violence, but that fact has little bearing on the portfolios of the gods themselves. Even the most educated and wealthy soul can benefit from showing reverence to the Six, and a great many do—in secret. Still, the need to worship in secrecy makes the faith no less genuine.
Many of those who worship the Six revere but a single god. This holds most true in barbaric cultures and among the monstrous races, many of whom do not know or care about the difference between one god and the pantheon as a whole. Among the dragonmarked races, worship of the Six is a matter of simple pragmatism. If the gods of the Host do not govern the angrier forces of existence, then logically those who wish to avoid misfortune would do well to appeal to those gods who do claim such dominion. Even Sovereign Host dogma acknowledges the purview of the Six.
THE DARK SIX AND GOVERNMENT
A priest of the Six, asked about the influence of faith in government, might respond, “At least we are honest about the way the world works.” The priests of the Sovereign Host claim to have no designs on civil or political control, but the falsehood of this is apparent everywhere on Khorvaire. The beholden of the Dark Six hold that everything is connected, and thus, everything is permissible so long as the gods approve. If the gods do not want direct influence on political affairs, they will most assuredly put an end to the practice. After all, the Dark Six have never been shy about expressing their displeasure.
The influence of the Dark Six priesthoods is strongest where social bonds are tightest. A given priesthood can run the entire political structure of a small community. More insidiously, priests maneuver members of their congregations into positions of civil and military power. If the local baron or governor is a fellow worshiper, the likelihood dwindles substantially that someone will destroy the congregation.
This attitude is turned upside down in regions where worship of the Dark Six is the norm. Gnolls and goblinoids in Droaam, for example, operate openly under the priesthoods of the Six. In such areas, the influence of religion on political life is not only permitted—it is expected. The concept of the priest-king originated largely in areas strong in worship of the Dark Six, and the gods themselves seem to prefer it. Where this is not possible, the priesthood retains its role as the whisper in the night.
THE DARK SIX AND OTHER FAITHS
At the dawn of the Last War, priests of three of the Six—the Fury, the Mockery, and the Shadow—met in secret for the first time. They had maintained little to no contact with one another before the war (even those of the same deity), but now convened with one aim: to increase the power of their gods through the war of five nations. Each priest pledged a congregation to serve this goal as best befit its capabilities. What began as a wartime practice developed into a bold new campaign to advance the hegemony of the Six and their priesthoods.
This movement translated to a two-tiered approach; both tiers, as might be expected, involved deception to a greater or lesser degree. The first step was to insinuate devout members of each priesthood into every corner of the conflict, from the front lines to the war rooms. The priests found plenty of volunteers among their congregations. Since all of the Five Nations were hungry for new blood, such volunteers integrated with little scrutiny. Most had only one assignment: spreading fear and worship of their gods. (Reporting the activities of the infiltrated groups would surely have resulted in discovery before long.) Soldiers prayed to the Fury in combat, and those who survived thanked her for heeding their call; assassins and spies called on the Mockery before dangerous missions, and then credited any subsequent success to their faith. Likewise, spellcasters invoked the Shadow to aid them in their time of arcane need. It wasn’t long before people associating with these agents began to follow suit, if for no other reason than “better safe than sorry”—a popular sentiment in desperate times.
The second step involved the priests themselves, who were in the best position to administer the effort from the safety of their homes and temples. They took responsibility for seeing to the needs of the families of war dead, and not just those of their own congregations. For the first time, temple funds and resources went to assisting those outside the congregation, even to those who worshiped only the Sovereign Host, in the interest of long-term benefit. The priesthoods of the three gods spent a great deal of money during the war, in effect buying the faith—or at least the allegiance—of many new converts. Ironically, this subtle integration earned great success—just like the tradition of the Sovereign Host.
Thanks to these efforts, the names of the Dark Six were on the lips of just about everyone in those grim days, even trusted figures such as ship captains and battalion commanders. This greatly reduced the social stress of letting slip a forbidden name, thereby spreading the one thing the priests desired above all else: acceptance. By the time the war ended, the cabal of priests had managed to make offering prayers to the Fury, the Mockery, and the Shadow a common practice.
This brief sense of unity and cooperation began to fade even before the war had ended. By the time of Cyre’s destruction in 994 YK, most of the priests who had attended the original conclave were either dead or defrocked, often at the hands of subordinates who saw betrayal in such diversion of precious resources. Today, that liturgical league—never very numerous to begin with—has all but disintegrated. A few priests yet strive to maintain relations with the few similarly minded scions who remain in other temples across Khorvaire.
Specific Attitudes
The worshipers of the Dark Six are as varied as those of any other faith. The following points summarize the archetypal views of the faith as a whole toward Eberron’s other religions. Just remember that these are stereotypical attitudes, not rigid dictates.
The Sovereign Host: Despite what some of my fellow faithful might say, the Nine are equally as important to the balance of the world as are the Six—just not as important to me.
The Silver Flame: You cannot be serious. A cult that asks its adherents to accept as law the mortal interpretation of a “divine voice” none can hear? And to think they call us deceivers!
Druid Sects: I once heard tell of a peasant boy whose sole dream in life was to become a squire to a great knight. When asked why he didn’t dream of becoming a knight himself, the boy replied, “How could one such as I hope for such things?” The boy would have made a fine druid.
The Blood of Vol: Children who will never know the error of their ways until they stand face to face with the Keeper—by which time it will be far too late.
Other Sects: When beings of such power and magnitude as the gods exist, why would one waste time giving one’s faith and obeisance to a mere idol or to a beast, even one as mighty as a dragon? As powerful as they are, such beings can still be felled by blade and bow—the last time I checked, one could not say the same of a god.
THE DARK SIX IN THE LAST WAR
The disparate priesthoods of the Dark Six spoke with equally disparate voices during the war. Though issues of nationality and territory overtook those of religion, worshipers of the Six did not let their prayers and obligations slide. The war reinvigorated their faith, particularly in the Fury, the Mockery, and the Shadow, whose congregations expanded greatly during and as a result of the Last War.
The influence of the remaining three dark deities also increased. One sage observed, “War is the preferred environment for the exiled gods, and who among us believes they would not choose to make it the preferred state of ourselves as well?” Regardless of which side’s ranks swelled the fastest during the war, the influence of the Devourer, the Keeper, and the Traveler continued to grow. Desperation and suspicion are the children of war, and wherever they appear, hushed prayers to these gods are sure to follow. Sailors increased their prayers to the Devourer tenfold, to insure calm waters and victorious battles at sea; soldiers whispered pleas to the Keeper to spare them painful death or empty afterlife (or both), as priests of the Keeper walked the sidelines of every major battle; and all those who journeyed to meet strangers in battle many leagues from home kept the Traveler in their hearts in the hope of safety until they could return. By the time of the Treaty of Thronehold, the Dark Six had grown more influential than any among the Five Nations could have guessed.