Magic and Religion

While hardly a part of everyday life for most of Oenklay's peasants, magic is far from rare in Oenklay. Most of the magic that is performed is in the form of utilitarian rituals: a baron may seek out ritualistic cure for a disease; a blessing on the farmland of a wealthy serf may be performed before planting in the spring and so on. The other form of magic seen is in the form of the minor tricks performed by those in traveling entertainers. Most of the “magic” seen there is in the form of sleight of hand, but someone capable of true magic in some low form travels with nearly every such group.

On Oenklay, almost all serious professional magic users learn their craft as apprentices to skilled masters, not as students. Even when part of a guild, academic, or religious institution, the pupil learns their craft through long years of study and practice under the eye of skilled mentor rather than in a classroom. With such individual training being the norm, most arcane practitioners the common folk encounter are relatively low skilled amateurs. Magic is viewed by most nobles as a “commoner's trade” and so even though every noble that can afford one has a magician of some sort on staff, it is rare to find a noble who has more than rudimentary magical skills.

Like the rest of western Antire, Oenklay venerates a set of vague beings known as Elders. A wide variety of Elders are venerated in Oenklay. Even malicious gods are venerated openly. This is generally in the form of offerings intended to placate them rather than veneration. A number of monasteries exist in Oenklay and this is where most of the priests, clerics, and paladins get their training. A number of these are monastery-cathedrals located in towns, while others are their own countryside demesne. Every town has at least one temple, every village a chapel, and many roadside shrines exist throughout the land.