Church of Auril

The Church of Auril

Clergy
Clerics of Auril were mostly women and were known as chillbringers. They wore ice white robes with blue trim, and a wide silver colored belt. Their ceremonial axe hung from this belt. They also wore a circlet of silver around their head. Specialty priests of Auril were called icepriestesses.

Clerics of Auril worked to establish themselves as a powerful figure within a tribe. They used this power to form a cult and channel a tribe's worship away from their traditional deities towards Auril. The tribe was taught to channel their fury towards those not of the tribe, as a way to be spared the harshness of winter. This led the subverted tribe into a life of pillaging and raiding. Sacrifices to the Frostmaiden were common, especially in the North, as people hoped to appease her and thus avoid cripplingly cold winters. Travelers forced to travel in the winter tossed coins, usually gold or silver coins, into a cold stream or the snow before embarking into cold. At the first sign of winter, it was common for farmers to throw some of their harvest into the north wind.

Fanatical members of her cult engaged in human sacrifice. Humans sacrificed to the Frostmaiden are often left tied up to perish from exposure to the cold, or drowned in ice-cold ponds.

Auril used frost giants and winter wolves to deliver commands to her cults, while frostwind viragos and winter hags were the handmaidens of the Frostmaiden.

Holy days and rituals
Clerics and other worshipers of the Frostmaiden made their prayers during the coldest part of the day, or a midnight. Prayers were made while kneeling in deep snow or in a cold stream, for as long as possible, sometimes even an entire evening.

During the winter months, individuals who approached clerics for a blessing, or mercy, from Auril were expected to first undergo a a lengthy prayer called a cold cleansing. This prayer involved the individual to hold a large piece of ice in their hand, praying until it melted. The prayer had to be done outside in the cold and ideally in the evening.


 * Midwinter (Night), Hammer 30 to Alturiak 1. This was the most holy night of the year for the clergy, a festival of ice-dancing that lasted all night. Druids were also known to pay respect to the Frostmaiden on this date.
 * The Coming Storm and the Last Storm, informal but enthusiastically celebrated rituals where the priests gathered and called howling ice storms down on a region to mark the onset and end of winter.
 * Auril's Blesstide, or Auril's Day, was a holiday (of sorts) held annually in the city of Waterdeep on the first day of new frost in the year. It was not so much a holiday as a way to seek to appease the Frostmaiden in hopes of a mild winter.
 * When an individual wished to become part of the clergy, they had to undergo a ritual called the Embracing. This ritual required the applicant, in only boots and a thin robe, to spend the evening exposed to a raging blizzard. Holy symbols of Auril were painted all over the applicant's body. The applicant was forbidden to use any sort of magic to protect themselves from the cold. Those who survived until morning were deemed worthy by Auril and accepted into her Church.

Magic
Clerics of the Frostmaidan were bestowed a natural immunity to cold which was identical to the effects of the resist cold spell. Powerful clerics had the innate ability to duplicate the effects of the ice storm spell, and summon ice para-elementals. Clerics of Auril had access to the spells of both the Time and Wards spheres. Unlike rank and file clerics, speciality priests of Auril were unable to turn the undead.

The Codicil of White was a magical book containing basic rites, rituals, services, and major ceremonies of Auril's faith. The book also had several pages devoted to the goddess' favorite arcane magic. It was created as a tool for Aurilian wizards and sorcerers to gain a better understanding of the faith.

Many of the following divine magic spells were believed to be recorded in a holy book of Auril called Revelations of the Icedawn.
 * Auril's flowers • Cold fire • Cold snap • Corona of cold • Freeze • Frost breath • Frostbite • Frost fingers • Frost whip • Heart of ice • Heat leech • Ice axe • Ice blade • Ice gauntlet • Snowshoes • Mass snowshoes

Regions
Shrines dedicated to Auril could be found in Bezantur, Calaunt , Iriaebor , Nashkel , Phlan , Tasseldale , and Zhentil Keep

Notable temples to Auril were:
 * The House of Auril's Breath in Glister
 * Icedawn's House, south of Nashkel
 * The Towers of Fury in Calimport
 * The Winter Palace in Luskan
 * Ice Temple, located between Andora and the Wandering Village in Icewind Dale