Church of Amaunator

The church of Amaunator was the primary religious organization dedicated to Amaunator. Their deity died of neglect after about thousand years after the fall of Netheril, but survived as a sect in the church of Lathander.

Initiation
During the days of Netheril, or to be more precise during those days, the city Unity still stood, it was possible for a person to be invited by Amaunator himself to enter the clergy. He sent a miscellaneous manifestation of a woman in a dress with a scale sign on it. If the scale sign was even, the recipient of the omen was invited to join the clergy. The Yellow God personally informed his clergy about the new would-be comrade and priests appeared within a tenday to pick up the recipient to the city of Unity to start training.

Titles
Amaunator's specialty priests were called sunlord or sunlady depending on gender. Collectively, the entire clergy was called the Amaunatori, a term that doubled as an adjective. In their hierarchy, titles included in descending order the Righteous Potentate, Monastic Abbot, and High Jurists. Even lower-ranking priests' titles fell to obscurity.

After the church fell apart, Lathaderian priests who believed that Lathander was the reborn form of Amaunator who would mature into his old form were called sunmasters.

During their days inside the church of Lathander, it was believed that a sunmaster who managed to form and head an army of Amaunator's believers could call him or herself a Righteous Potentate. The leader was called Sunlord. the name that was formerly used for Amaunator's specialty priests. The title Monastic Abbot survived among the Order of the Sun Soul, which traced its origin back to the Amaunatori Order of the Sun.

Hierarchy
Titles in Amaunator's faith were organized in a hierarchic structure. The hierarchy in the church of Amaunator was very strict and binding. During the age of Netheril, the top of a given temple of Amaunator was called a Righteous Potentate. Any activity including relieving people of duty was done at that one's discretion. His own duties included the oversight over the members' advancement in the intra-church hierarchy and teaching lay-worshipers.

The seconds-in-command, of which seven were assigned to each Righteous Potentate, were called the Monastic Abbots. Each of them could assign or relieve lower-ranking people of their duties. Each of the seven had different other jobs distributed to them. For example, tending to the temple farms, tending to the exteriors of a temple, acquisitions to fulfil spiritual needs, acquisitions to fulfil physical needs, maintenance of the library, oversight over the monks, and preaching the benefits of following laws were all jobs that were each distributed among the seven Monastic Abbots.

Under a Monastic Abbot were again seven so-called High Jurists assigned. The titles of even lower ranking clergy were lost.

A group of priests that stood outsider of the hierarchy, but were obliged to at least annually report to the temple they were assigned to, were the monks, a type of divine spellcaster. They were relieved of temple duties from time to time.

After the church fell and the Amaunatori were a part of the church of Lathander. There, the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun was an acknowledged order and part of the elite when it came to combat abilities. They still reported to superiors of the church of Lathander, but also to their own intra-sect superiors. The sect itself was mostly a meritocracy.

Activities
Amaunator represented the idea that law and order should be followed. During the days of Netheril, the church's base consisted of rulers, soldiers, and powerful mages. His priesthood also were regional rulers or advisors to politicians.

During those days, the priests dedicated themselves at obtaining a thorough understanding of law including how to use it for their benefits, something their god wanted them to do. To obtain such understanding and certainty in applying them, priests trained each other in court rooms both in real and mock cases.

Their expertise was used to create new laws in a given community, to fulfill roles in court rooms as judges, and to settle disputes. A profitable income source of the Amaunatori was the usage of their legal understanding to settle disputes between merchants that were too low-level to be presented to the real authorities.

During their days inside the church of Lathander, their duties included finding new converts to their sect for it was otherwise in danger of simply dying out, promoting those aspects of Lathander that were most compatible with Amaunator, and tending to shrines and chapter houses that promoted Lathander's sun aspect. The latter were often entrusted to the Amaunatori by the mainstream Lathanderites.

They believed their faith to be superior to others and tried to back this claim up with through their actions. Among others, they opposed and killed rival clerics.

Their other jobs included forming and protecting groups following Lathander. When they were active in regions where evil gods or Horus-Re were strong, all their activities were done under a layer of secrecy. Otherwise, they acted in an open fashion.

The Amaunatori helped the establishment of bureaucratic and other kinds of order within communities. They also were the ones who served as witnesses when contracts were forged.

Rituals
During the days of Netheril, the church of Amaunator yearly celebrated the signing of the Pantheon Contour, an agreement between deities of the Netherese pantheon, which Amaunator oversaw. It was their holiest day.

A ritual that was conducted to celebrate Amaunator in his sun-deity aspect was the Summer Solstice. Being the longest day in the year, Amaunatori sunbathed, relaxed, and thanked their god for sunlight. This ritual had also an appeasement factor to it. Amaunatori believed that not or improperly celebrating this day would make Amaunator cause the sun not to shine for an entire year.

Amaunatori believed that other occasions to thank Amaunator were when they managed to legally pull someone over the barrel, won a debate, or passed a new law. Celebration was done by a priest burning magically preserved oak leaves and incenses.

Magical Abilities
Priests of Amaunator could turn undead rather than rebuking them. Their specialty priests could do so too, which was not something every faiths' specialty priests could do. Their favored weapon was the light mace as did the Risen Sun and Three-Faced Sun heretics. The latter group also used the scythe as their favored weapon.

Amaunatori had access to the Law, Nobility, Planning, Sun, and Time domains. the Risen Sun heretics had the Fire, Law, Nobility, Renewal, Sun, and Time domains as their options, while the Three-Faced Sun heretics had Death, Law, Renewal, Sun, and Time domains as their options. After the Spellplague, the Amaunatori had access to the Civilization, Justice, Sun domain. After the Second Sundering, Amaunatori had access to the Life and Light domain.

Those people who were introduced to their church's secrets gained the ability to cast augury, haste, order's wrath, sunburst, and time stop on preparation and the ability to convert their spell energy into any fire spell. The church of Amaunator developed a number of spells that were unique to them.


 * Advanced sunshine:Advanced sunshine was a spell that shortened the daylight hours by one minute for various immediate effects.
 * Amaunator's eternal sun:Amaunator's eternal sun was epic magic. It created a second false sun.
 * Amaunator's uncertainty:Amaunator's uncertainty was a spell that instilled a sense of uncertainty in the affected creature that made it pause before taking action.
 * Illumination:Illumination was a spell that allowed the caster to spend in a state of accelerated time to request a form of physical aid or answers for questions from the deity.
 * Sun scepter:Sun scepter was a spell that enchanted a golden scepter with the ability to imbue the caster with authority that made others comply with it.
 * Weapon of the deity:The Amaunatori version of the weapon of the deity spell was usable by the members of the two heresies. The Risen Sun heretics used same as Lathander's followers and turned their light maces into flaming ones as did the Three-Faced Sun heretics who could also change scythes into flaming scythes.

Base of Operations
During the days of Netheril, the enclave of Unity held the biggest temple to Amaunator called the Forested Enclave of the Face on the Sun. Their temples were called Courts.

During the days within the church of Lathander, Lathanderite chapter houses and shrines that primarily represented the Morninglord's sun aspect were often guarded by Amaunator's followers. It caused them to have two sides to answer to, their Lathanderite superiors and their Amaunatori superiors who were not necessarily found in the same place. Such a chapter house usually had up to five sunmasters, up to five acolytes and clerics who were not yet sunmasters and two to ten fighters, paladins, and warriors who also followed Amaunator.


 * Temple beneath Athkatla:


 * A group of Amaunator's followers existed in the catacombs beneath the city of Athkatla. This group of followers had been bound by divine contract to forever guard half of the planar rift device, an artifact so powerful the gods cursed it and split it in two. Millennia of guarding took its toll, and gradually the people grew weary of spending their entire lives in this catacomb, dying, and having their souls recycled to the next generation. Amaunator had not spoken to them in many years, and the people lost faith. Their bodies became sick and diseased as a symbol of their despair, and the hatred they focused towards the temple resulted in the formation of a Hate Incarnation, which repeatedly destroyed Amaunator's avatar.


 * In the, when Gorion's Ward and companions entered the catacombs to retrieve the guarded piece of the planar rift device, Amaunator offered no resistance but also no help. Entering the temple, they found that the Hate Incarnation could not be killed in combat (a wound in faith could not be healed by fighting) but could be dispelled via healing magics. Amaunator's avatar then appeared and gave the party the device, telling them to reconstruct it and deplete its power so it could be destroyed. After the party returned the depleted rod, Amaunator and his followers, renewed in their faith, departed.


 * Shrine in Bryn Shander:
 * This remote place of worship catered to Amaunator's faithful in the trade city of Icewind Dale.

Dress
Amaunatori priests wore bright yellow, red, or orange clothes for ceremonial purposes. These were generally long-sleeved and had a lot of decorations starting with sun depictions through in various ways including the use of gems and gold to form a sun. When a priest wore clothes made of cloth-of-gold, it was a sign that the given priest owned a temple. Another part of their regalia was a headpiece in the form of a sunburst.

The Amaunatori holy symbols were made of either gold, gold-plated metal, or gold-painted wood. To become a sunmaster, a cleric after the days of Netheril needed to retrieve such a holy symbol or obtain one from a practicing sunmaster.

When venturing out as adventurers, Amaunatori priests wore clothes that put usefulness to the front. They were still fond of ornamentation and had a tendency to use bright red or orange cloaks, tabards, and other accessories. They had a tendency to wear armor with gold-plating or -washing.

Magic Items

 * Shard of the sun:The shard of the sun was a relic holy to Amaunator. It was found by Daelegoth Orndeir in 1374 DR.

Dogma
Amaunatori believed that law was the foundation on which any civilization was built without which any civilization would fall apart. They viewed the predictability with which the sun rose every day as an aspiration how securely the law would deal with wrongdoers and solve problems. They were also expected to take advantage of their legal knowledge by their deity.

This belief was lived out by teaching their novices to not just learn but also live in accordance with the law. The idea was that people who knew about law were the ones who could live a life without coming into conflict with it. The church of Amaunator was a very hierarchical organization. Those in the lower rung were told to keep tabs on their superiors. The goal of this policy was to increase the number of precedents that could be used to give rulings uniformity and with it their church influence.

After the Netherese church of Amaunator fell, an Amaunatori sect within Lathander's church was where the Yellow God was worshiped. They existed for fifteen centuries in the 14 century DR. The dogma of this sect, the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun, believed that the god of dawn was Amaunator's reincarnation and would one day take over Lathander and return to be Amaunator. According to the Amaunatori during those days, Amaunator was not just a god of the sun, but the one of glory, light, and perfect order who could possibly take over the entire Faerûnian pantheon. Like their forebears, they promoted the aspect of law over good and viewed their god as a force that could bring order into the world.

Those who believed in the Risen Sun heresy followed the idea that Lathander was close to become Amaunator. Those who believed in the Three-Faced Sun heresy followed the idea that Amaunator was an aspect of an overgod who represented itself in the sun and Amaunator was merely an aspect of that overgod.

Orders
During the age of Netheril, the church of Amaunator had a lot of orders with representation in most cities of that nation.


 * Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun:The Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun was a sect within the church of Lathander that believed that the Morning Lord was reincarnation of Amaunator and would one day re-emerge as the Yellow God.


 * Brotherhood of the Sun:The Brotherhood of the Sun was a group of monks. They did the fieldwork and were relieved of their duty at their temple from time to time, but had a duty to report to the temple they belonged to. They were the forebears of the Order of the Sun Soul and maintained good relationships with both the church of Lathander and the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun.


 * Most Transcendent Affiliation of Paradisiacal Pens:The Most Transcendent Affiliation of Paradisiacal Pens was a group of Amaunatori scribes who made it their goal to build centers of Netherese legal knowledge of every city and land in which Amaunantor's faith had a presence.


 * Syndicate of Celestial and Righteous Lawmakers:The Syndicate of Celestial and Righteous Lawmakers was an order of warriors, especially paladins. They consciously ignored or softened up Amaunator's tendency of non-good behavior and put his lawfulness to the forefront.

Classes
The church of Amaunator had a total of three kinds of divine spellcasters, clerics, monk, and specialty priests called sunlords or sunladies depending on gender. The monks were members of the aforementioned Brotherhood of the Sun and

During the days within the church of Lathander, the Amaunatori had acolytes, clerics, fighters, paladins, and warriors dedicated to the Yellow God who were led by sunmasters.

When the church was reborn, the church had cleric, called sunlords, paladins, and morninglords who believed in Lathander, Amaunator's youthful aspect.

With other Churches
The church of Amaunator was allied with the church of Kossuth and was at odds with the church of Shar. Amaunatori worshiped their god as the god of time from time to time. Amaunator prevented to on this for fear to get on Mystryl's bad side during the days of Netheril.

Horus-Re believed that he was the only sun-god on Toril and took therefore a very dim view on the Amaunatori. It went to the point that Amaunatori who were active in regions where Horus-Re's church held secular power needed to hide their allegiances.

Lathander
After their god died, the Amaunatori, called the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun, were a part of the church of Lathander and an acknowledged clerical and knightly order. Their differing views on Lathander caused them to collide with the main branch of the church. However, due to Lathander's claim that he viewed all of people who worked as true believers, the differences never degenerated into open violence. However, the Morninglord accepted these extra worshiper at the cost of undermining his own authority within his own church. His policy of equal treatment did not extend to all members of the sect. Those who actually switched their allegiance to Amaunator and gained spells from the dead power were judged Faithless on dying, while the radical members of the brotherhood, who believed that Amaunator's re-emergence was nigh, were deemed False on dying, unless Lathander actively pleaded his case to Kelemvor, something no god did without the use of a wish or miracle spell or Lathander embracing the heresy.

Church of Lathander
As mentioned above, the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun and the mainstream branch of the church of Lathander did not have violent confrontations because of Lathander's claim to accept everyone. Instead, the brotherhood was an acknowledged clerical and knightly order that was tasked with organizing chapter houses and shrines where the sun aspect of their god was the primary one. However, they still had their differences, which they were willing to accept for the brotherhood's benefits in combating for their faiths was viewed as more beneficial than cutting them off. Still, when a member of the brotherhood was vocal about his or her belief, that person could not expect to be provided with food, lodging, or other forms of help. Furthermore, Lathanderites were fragmented into a lot of sects. At least some of these Lathanderite sects were so hostile towards the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun that they would actively disrupt a sunmaster's work.

General Public
During the days of Netheril, the church of Amaunator was widespread and powerful, but after Karsus's Folly, the church became increasingly tyrannical and with it less and less influential to the point of powerlessness.

During the days within the church of Lathander, the general public could not distinguish between a follower of Amaunator and Lathander and treated them equally when they were not followers of the Morninglord. That said, evil people did not like the Amaunatori, for Lathander's followers attempted to stamp out evil. Even good people found the Amaunatori's zealotry off-putting.

Before Karsus's Folly
During the days of Netheril, the church of Amaunator was a popular church with a presence of their orders in the majority of the nation's cities. During those days, rulers, soldiers, and powerful mages made up the worshiper-base of the church.

After Karsus's Folly
Two factors caused the influence of the church of Amaunator to dwindle. First, when Karsus's Folly happened, their god was correctly accused of having done nothing to stop the catastrophe. The Yellow God could do nothing because he had had no legal right to do so and this lack of action made people abandon him and with it the church. Second, the following seven years after Karsus's Folly were marked by bad harvest and the Anauroch was expanding. While the Amaunatori did their best but insufficient efforts to stop the desert's expansion, their people revolted. The decision of the church's priesthood was to mercilessly quell these uprisings. It ultimately led to the church losing its influence and authority. Over the next millennium, their god died. Given that the fall of Netheril was in –339 DR, the breakdown of the church was about 661 DR.

Inside the church of Lathander
Amaunator ultimately died of neglect and his corpse was shunted into the Astral Plane after his divine realm collapsed. This fact was unknown to the people on Toril and scholars had a discussion about what happened to him. One of these theories was that he was absorbed or became the god Lathander. One group that did not just believe in the latter idea but turned it into a religious organization was the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun, not just one of many sects within the church of Lathander, but an acknowledged clerical and knightly order. By the 14 century DR, they existed for fifteen centuries.

Amaunator's Return
Around 1374 DR, Daelegoth Orndeir, the leader of the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun, embraced the Risen Sun heresy, a radical group among the sect that did not just believe Amaunator was Lathander but the Yellow God's return was nigh. He came up with the idea to create a second sun to make Lathanderites believe the same thing as him thus turning his heresy into the mainstream. Towards that end, he developed the epic spell Amaunator's eternal sun. He put his subordinates into important positions and managed various deeds that increased his renown, influence, and base. In the end, he told his people that a sign of Amaunator's return was nigh, meaning him casting Amaunator's eternal sun, and after he cast it in Elversult, people believed him and flocked to the "church of Amaunator". The entire course of action was under scrutiny of the mainstream and Daelegoth risked excommunication.

Post-Spellplague Era
After the Spellplague, unlike during the days of Netheril, Amaunator was prayed to as a god of time. his worshiper-base consisted of farmers, merchants, and nomads. Put simply, people who benefited from having a good knowledge about an accurate grasp of time and seasons. The church took over the church of Lathander. All of their priests were called sunlords and the church was very uniform. One exception was the worship of Lathander as a youthful aspect of Amaunator and the morninglords that practiced it and destroyed Amaunator's enemies.

Post-Second Sundering Era
After the Second Sundering, Lathander re-appeared. The two deities were worshiped and it was not clear how the resources were divided. Amaunator was worshiped as both the god of sun and law.

In the Post-Second Sundering era, farmers prayed to Amaunator both for sunlight and rain. It became also normal to invoke him when making promises and swear oaths. The church managed to make Amaunator associated so well with contracts that it became common for people to wait for the clouds to pass through for the sun to shine before sealing transactions or pronouncements.

Members

 * Andar:Andar was a sunmaster who picked up orphans from the street and gave them employment as torchbearers, a service he personally organized.


 * Cera Eurthos:Cera was a cleric of Amaunator from Chessenta. She was also the lover of Aoth Fezim.


 * Daelegoth Orndeir:Daelegoth was the Sunlord of the Brotherhood of the Glorious Sun and the caster of Amaunator's eternal sun.