Rose Temple
The Rose Temple is a small heretical order with a collection of its own gods. Its origin is unknown. Different temples might have different views on the Rose Temple and its gods and followers. They are usually non-violent but are capable of defending themselves if needed.
Rose Temple folk, also called Rose Folks, do many things as they travel. They live by what they call the Seven Creeds.
Contents
Seven Creeds
- 1.Carry the News:Rose folk love talking about current affairs wherever they go.
- 2.Heal the Sick: Rose Folk act as medics and their most devoted act as clerics. Many rose folk are druidic.
- 3.Take in the Lost: Rose folks will take in orphans. Also elderly that are in need of care. These are taken to Sedentary Temples usually.
- 4.Feed the People: Rose folk plant fruits and vegetables wherever they go. Often starting a garden in a place they stay for a month and then leaving it behind. Rose folk do not decorate with flowers. All their decorations are fruits, vegetables, and herbs. They collect seeds. They distribute seeds. While they may engage in merchant business they give seeds away for free. They will often feed the hungry to the best of their meager abilities. Many of their stories and songs involve telling people what can be eaten, drank brewed, and how to do it. Gardening songs and cooking songs and the like.
- 5.Tell the Tale: They are often bards or story tellers. They remember histories and legends. Rose folk are collectors. Their wagons will often be decorated vividly with clutter they have found; license plates, street signs, flags.
- 6.Spread the Word: Rose folk collect books. Reading Wagons are a wagon where a person might sit and read one of the caravan's books. See the Reading Wagon description below.
- 7.Persevere:They do not discuss this creed.
Presentation of the Rose Temple and its Membership
The Rose Temple is leisurely. Its people have an air of being relaxed. If attacked they are surprisingly able to defend themselves. Rose Temple members are often a small part of communities who gather around them because of their generosity.
Membership
There are five levels of members of the Rose Temple. 3 non-liturgical, 2 liturgical.
Non-Liturgical
Followers or Folk
Just folks. These people have actually joined the Rose Temple rather then just hanging out and working with it.
Brother or Sister
Just folks who run stuff. Usually a brother of Sister runs a wagon. A person who is dedicated to the Order in a small but official manner. They may or may not have official duties. Once someone has been declared a Brother of the Rose Temple or a Sister of the Rose Temple, its for life. No mater what changes the title remains
Solitaries
Some Rose Folk go off on their own. They follow the Order's guidelines but in their own ways. There are Rose Temple hermits, Bards, Anchorites, and pillarists.
Doyen
A Brother of Sister in charge of a Caravan. One in charge of some Rose Temple location.
Liturgical
There are no priests, ministers, reverends or other religious ranks among the Rose Folks. There is a pope but who they are is a secret.
Friar or Monk or Hermits
- Friar is the main liturgical office in the Rose Temple. Friars tend to be the vast majority of the traveling Rose Temple officiates. One may resign being a Friar. Friars are often in charge of Caravans. Friars may perform many rituals associated with Priests. Marriages, christening, Last rites. Many act as Notary Publics.
- Monks or Nuns are in the Sedentary locations.
- Hermits officiates that have left to company of others of the Rose Temple, and like medieval hermits, might find a place where they can be alone yet locals bring them offerings in exchange for some religious services.
- Pillarists or Stylites: For some unknown reason Rose Temple folks occasionally go Up the Pole. They take to sitting on a pole and preaching, starving, practicing mortification of the flesh. Many Rose Temple folk think a term as pillarist is necessary for one entering the Friar Order but too long Up the Pole makes them crazy. Stylites are people who have spent too long Up the Pole.
Abbots
The highest religious order among the Rose folk. Many Abbots run well organized Caravans
Styles
Sedentaries
They have small temples that are often little more then retirement communities for its members made up of three or fours homes with shared garden space. The retirement communities also raise children. They usually have huge gardens with Roses being the only non-vegetable plants. They may have small herds of cattle, goats, chickens, and sheep. They almost always have dairy animals. Nearly all Sedentaries have animal terrariums for lizards, snakes, and tarantulas.
They do a great deal of brewing, canning, pickling, smoking, and curing.
Many Sedentary become the center of villages and help people survive in hard times. Despite the generosity of the Sedentaries there is something people outside the order find odd about them.
Caravans
The Rose Temple followers are like gypsies. They travel in caravans of vardo wagons, trailer, and wagons. There are no typical caravan descriptions but a Rose Temple Caravan will usually include a minimum of 3 large Vardo wagons drawn by horses. A couple few dairy cows used as pack animals. A few dairy goats used as pack animals. Few people would take to the road without these basics.
However a standard caravan would have about 20 wagons and the people to manage them. They would have a fairly big flock of cattle, goats, sheep, and dogs, most of which second as pack animals.
Nearly all wagons have a cat, possum, ferret, rabbit, or some small animal that hunt vermin and provide companionship. Many family wagons have gerbils, hamsters, lizards, snakes, and tarantulas.
Main Wagons
This is a family wagon usually containing 2 adults and as many as 3 children. Pulled by 2 to 4 horses. Whiles its layout depends on the owner it almost always has extra space for people they take in.
Feed Wagons
These are cook wagons and food storage wagons. Depending on the location they have refrigeration in some. A feed wagon might be a BBQ trailer. In general they are someone's home vehicle that also has a food truck sort of thing going.
Bulk Trailers
These are straightforward storage wagons. While some have a living space component most are strictly cargo carriers. Some are Long term storage such as a Pole Wagon or a Tent Wagon. Some have wall and defensive storage and camp items like weapons racks and chairs, tables, and cooking and cleaning areas.
Family Wagons
Family wagons are their own little part of things. Most are designed to be self-sufficient. Most Family Wagons have a undercarriage box for growing mushrooms, potato, and root vegetables. A family wagon is built for at least a couple with a child but the types vary wildly.
Craft Wagon
These are often family wagons run as repair stations but can also be mobile leather work shops, metal work space with forge, or many other kinds. One common wagon is a rope making wagon.
Bus Wagons
Sometimes a caravan will have a wagon dedicated to letting people sit in it as passengers and convers, work on small crafts, and other activities while the caravan is moving. A bus wagon is often a Vardo being worked on but while construction is going on people can sit in it and talk while the caravan is on the move.
Reading Wagons
A Reading Wagon is a wagon set aside for storage of books. People can be allowed to sit in one of the reading seats and read a book in the wagon. Rose folks collect books and store them in a reading wagon. A gratuity is generally expected for the chance to read. The person who runs the wagon may live in it but not always. The Librarian is almost always at least a Friar of the Rose Order.
Guest Wagons
A caravan of some size often has several Guest wagons. These are Vardos that have been built, arranged, and prepared to one day become a family wagon. But till then they are used by visiting guests. Partly, when used as a guest wagon, they are a recruiting tool.
Gods of the Rose Temple
The Rose Temple has its own pantheon but they recognize fully the main belief systems of the other gods. They act like the Rainbow Pantheon in being willing to appeal to any gods a person desires. They seem to know all the required rites. They can perform catholic mass and Last Rites as well as bar mitzvahs.
It is important to note that while the Rose Temple has a pantheon they admit their deities, the Rose Temple deities, may just be Idealizations of concepts and not actual beings. But even they are not sure. Rose Temple folk do not push their deities on others and do their good works without calling on the deity as many other religions do. They do not require religious observations in any of their works.
Tolknor-God of Order
Supports Orderliness, cleanliness, record keeping.
Ko'ob-Good of Chaos
Known for Drunkenness and combat.
Dolki-God of the Soil
Farmer. Raiser of herds. Cook.
Jermee-God of Wreckage
Dark Magics. Creator of magical items.
Venki-God of Music and the Winds
A singer of songs, teller of tales. Creator of smoking herbs. God of Wind
