Celestial Chorus



The Celestial Chorus is a Tradition of mages united by their efforts to touch the Divine as well as their belief in the One and Prime from which all things originate.

Closely tied to the God of Abrahamic faiths (but its origins and beliefs date back to Ancient Egypt monotheistic god Aten), the One represents the source of all Creation and all Creation is believed to be a part of the One. Humans in particular carry shards of the divine within them, though it is known by many names: the divine flame, the soul, the avatar. It is this connection which the Celestial Chorus believes enables them to clearly hear the One's song and to shape Creation. While their faith is essentially monotheistic, it is accepted that the Divine has many facets and can be expressed through any number of names, religions, and creeds.

Members of many faiths and denominations (including a variety of soft polytheists) come together in worship and service of the One, accepting that each person has their own path to the One. Of course, this ideal remains a work in progress and the Singers' history has been one of divisions and compromises, holy wars and martyrs, sacrifice and rejuvenation.

The One and Prime
The Tradition's doctrine states that in the beginning the One sung a Song, the Aum, and that infinite harmony split and formed into the One's children. All of Creation emanates from the Song, and the Song originates from the divine One. Thus the divine is everywhere, is in everyone and everything. People are the offspring of the One even as they are a part of it. And while the Tradition as a whole has not established doctrine on the exact nature of the divine, whether the One is a personal or impersonal force, and other theological questions, members are united by their belief that the One is a source of love and hope, and that it is present and active in the world today.

As the One directs divine energy to shape Creation, so too do the Celestial Choristers. Much of their magic is performed by beseeching the One for aid or drawing on divine authority to command Creation directly. In either case, it is not the prayers or rituals that bring forth miracles, but the mage's connection to the One. Their foci are thus designed to bring them closer to the divine through metaphor, religious reenactments, and expressions of love and compassion.

The Many
The Many, known by other members of the Council of Nine as the Pure Ones, are what people would call angels, devas or demons. If the One is the sun, the Many are the stars. They were lesser reflections of the One, but still bearers of the Song. They created many worlds, lands, seas and the creatures who inhabited them. Once the Dark Ones tried to make their own Song, the War raged and they were vanished, but the Many where shattered and became Multitude, creatures of flesh and bone. As the inheritors of the Song of the One, it is up to the Choristers to continue the labour upon the Earth, showing mercy or terrible justice to their enemies, as the One did both.

Avatar
For the Singers, the soul is what defines who and what a human is and algo the divine spark that dwells inside everyone. As the One created the Many from Himself and the Many turned into a Multitude later, these manifestations of the Multitude, the higher soul or Avatar, is a shard of the One within a mortal cover. Being portions of the divine, all humans have the power to Sing and to create, but often that goes unheard and never manifests, never realizing their true worth. Once a shard Awakens and begins to Sing again, they get the power to shape reality.

But even as they are the carriers of the Song of the One who creates miracles and leads the men and women of the world, they should never set themselves above the common manm as they also had the same spark inside and some day they may join with the Song even louder.

The Congregation has a multitude of different opinions about the phenomenon of Metempsychosis, known as reincarnation, as while some think that the soul passes through a cycle of life and death to reach Ascension, while on the other hand there are groups who say that there is only one chance in the Path to Ascension.

Ascension
As the final goal to reality is to return again to an original state of absolute perfection and unity with the One, Ascension is nothing more than an Apotheosis by reuniting with the Divine, with some mages reaching it by their own efforts and others guided to it. That is why all the members of the Congregation should strive to reach this state by themselves and aiding others to arrive to it. Sometimes, a choice should be made between one or the other, and even if the glory of Ascension is absolute, the solidarity of halting one's path to the divine because of other is without a doubt something virtuous, and the Choristers firmly believe that the truly virtuous will have Ascension as a reward from the One.

Tools and Practices
As their name suggests, singing has long been an integral part of Chorister practice. It is viewed as one of the oldest forms of channeling the One, particularly when numerous voices join together in harmony, but it is only one of many methods. Blessings and curses carry with them divine energy. Divinations are often performed by interpreting dreams, casting of lots, or bibliomancy. Anything that draws people together including simple touches, communal ceremonies, and even lovemaking are seen as ways to bring people closer to the One. On the other hand, fasting, self-denial, vows, and other sacrifices are seen as ways to free oneself from dependence on base needs in order to refocus and better hear the One's call. Likewise, religious rituals and symbols of faith are manifestations of the divine that can be touched and experienced.

Prayer
A pray is, for a Singer, a way to manifest the firm belief in something beyond our reach and everything that the common world offers. The more customary prayers for a member of the Celestial Chorus are the petition, where one pleads to the Divine and the command, where the mage draws on the power of the Divine to rule creation itself.

One thing that the Chorus teaches is that the One is not a impersonal force of power. They believe that the Divine can be reached through love and wisdom, so they talk of the One as someone address a person they know and love, so a prayer is not a rote to call a spell but a conversation with the Divine and a way to nourish their own souls.

Prayer is where paradigms intersect, as even the most complex ones are based in the intervention of the divine in some way or another, meaning that the Choristers have easier than others to work as a team with other mages despite their beliefs and paradigms, being the sole exception something that absolutely opposes their Resonances and creeds.

The First Age
Traditional Chorus teachings divide the history of Creation into four or five ages. The First Age, a period of time called the Shattering when the One's pure unity was broken, extends from the dawn of time to two centuries before the Christian Era. The Choristers believe their original members and greatest heroes lived and fought during this time; heroes of immeasurable faith and power called the First Singers who bear names such as Bhishma, Enoch, Gilgamesh, Zoroaster, Gunder, and Mithras (though it should be mentioned that there are multiple characters in the Classic World of Darkness with those names). Almost nothing is known of them, but the Choristers believes they were among the first to confront the Dark Singers, the Nephandi, who from the beginning sought to destroy everything that had been made. Though perhaps beings of god-like power, the First Singers were mortal men and women with their own flaws and who eventually perished or were tempted into darkness. Still, Choristers remember them as the first to hear the call of the One and perform great works for humanity during a difficult beginning.

The Second Age
The first true gathering of Singers is attributed to a priest named Mentu-hetep, who promoted the worship of a single sun god in Egypt despite the scorn and wrath of his peers. It is said that after 40 days of wandering and fasting the One appeared to him, commanding him to gather the One's children that they might sing together in unity, a Celestial Chorus to guide the Sleepers. Though blinded by the visitation, Mentu-hetep called to other Singers and with the aid of his pharaoh built a city for them called Akhenaten. Though they called the One by different names, people from disparate lands and creeds gathered to take part in the Sacred Congregation. Of those that left, many went on to construct places of worship for the Choristers throughout the world.

Responsibility for the destruction of Akhenaten is placed on other priests jealous of Mentu-hetep and Nephandi that aided them. Faith continued to spread around the world, however, through kings such as Solomon and nations like Rome. For many years the Chorus tied its power to that of the Roman Empire, though rivalries between cults such as the Messianic Voices and the Sons of Mithras divided Choristers until Constantine the Great himself embraced Christianity.

The Third Age
Over the centuries Christianity was codified and its power cemented, both through academic debate and at the tip of a sword. The Messianic Voices became a strong majority within the Chorus, resulting in many other faiths becoming marginalized. From this road the Cabal of Pure Thought was born, which stressed a need for a unified doctrine over any tolerance of religious diversity. As the power of the Church rose in the Middle Ages so too did the Celestial Chorus, but the predominance of Christians within the Congregation created deeper schisms with other faiths. Many of the Chorus' greatest accomplishments were made during this time, but so too were many discarded in arrogance and ignorance. The Cabal of Pure Thought was removed from the Congregation shortly after the Albigensian Crusade, but that would mean little in the aftermath of the Inquisition and the formation of the Order of Reason.

The Fourth Age
The Convention of the Ivory Tower marked the beginning of the Celestial Chorus' slow descent. Warring with Hermetics and Verbena, divided both over Christian theology and the place of other faiths, and losing many of their own to the flames of the Inquisition, the Congregation faltered. It was not until a man named Valoran (actually Valoran is a pseudonym for a person whose true identity is kept confidential), inspired by visions from the Archangel Gabriel, would the Singers have a leader capable of rejuvenating them. By 1461 a unified face could be presented to the Council of Nine under the name of the Chœur Céleste, having reconciled many of the differences that had divided factions and faiths for so long. Confrontations with the Order of Reason and Nephandi strengthened the Singers' resolve, though further divisions within the Church and awareness of the evil wrought by the Inquisition created new troubles. Ironically, during this time the Celestial Chorus' growing doctrine of acceptance and united faith made it somewhat heretical to the many religious orders of the time, but the true danger was in the steady removal of religion from the lives of people at the hands of the Order of Reason. Over the next several centuries the Choristers found their influence steadily weaker.

Organization
The hierarchy of the Celestial Chorus has changed little since the Roman Empire. The Pontifex Maximus, usually an old and well respected Singer who has demonstrated great wisdom, faith, and mastery of Prime, is the Tradition's leader and instructs the Congregation as a whole. The position is not one of absolute authority, however, and the Curia, the council of 17 ministers of the Chorus' eldest Singers called (of which the Pontifex and Primus are members) has traditionally asserted the rights to dictate the Congregation's mission as well as matters of faith. In the past the Curia would meet in the Celestial Chorus' main Horizon Realm, the Great Adytum, however the Avatar Storm has made this largely impractical. Beneath the Curia are the Exarchs, sometimes called "bishops", especially in areas where the Church is strong, they are tied a territory, their primary sanctuary being housed in a major city within it. The lowest level of the true hierarchy consists of Presbyters, sometimes called priests or elders (especially for non Catholic groups), they act as the visible face of the order, functioning as local leaders and organizing the order's activities on a small scale. The Catechumens are the newest members in the Chorus and usually apprenticed to a more experienced mage (called Praecept), who instructs them in the ways of the order.

The Guardian Orders

 * The Brothers of St. Christopher: An exclusively Christian male order dedicated to protecting innocents at all cost, even those with life styles condemned by religious groups. Specialty Sphere: Mind.
 * The Chevra Kedisha: Jewish group which attempts to seek out and help troubled souls and lost spirits, assisting the dead move on. Specialty Sphere: Spirit.
 * The Knights of St. George and the Dragon: An order dedicated to protecting humanity from vampires and other monsters such as demons and werewolves. Speciality Sphere: Forces.
 * The Order of St. Michael: A faction which focuses on local communities and bringing justice and mercy to those who deserve it. Speciality Sphere: Forces.
 * The Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon: A strictly disciplined conspiratorial organization that has remained independent of the Traditions for centuries. Specialty Sphere: Forces.
 * The Sisters of Gabrielle: An ancient order tasked with slaying demons and watching the Umbra. Specialty Sphere: Spirit.

The Theological Orders

 * Alexandrian Society: A faction of Choristers who seek to reconcile faith and technological advancements, seeking wisdom through science and divinity in all things. Specialty Sphere: Matter.
 * Anchorites: Individual hermits, monks, and other loners who seclude themselves in the wilderness, rejecting human society for the divinity to be found in the natural world. Specialty Sphere: Spirit.
 * Children of Albi: A sect with gnostic influence that believes the material world is corrupt and that purity is found only in spiritual things. They reject mortal authority, generally only accepting the advice of spiritual beings.
 * Latitudinarians: A movement to revolutionize the Chorus and remove a structure centuries old, arguing that traditions centuries old stifle the Singers and interfere with personal visions of the One.
 * Monists: A faction emphasizing that all faiths, all people, and all creations are one. Tolerance and an open mind are pivotal.
 * Nashimites: A group which believes the battlefield for virtue is the Umbra, and that by actively purifying the mortal world the spirit world will be healed.
 * Septarians: A variety of unaligned sects of highly traditional, strictly conservative denominations of Christianity.

Other Factions

 * Bat Binah: Jewish women that have chosen to study portions of the Torah and Kaballah that were forbidden to them. Some Choristers think that Bat Binah may have some relationship to an ancient, hidden group called the Lions of Zion, but nobody would know what to make of this if it were true. All mages trained in this faction begin with the study of Prime, but they almost always eventually learn something of the Spheres of Matter and Life.
 * Song of the Ancients: Founded in the early 1980s to serve as a gathering place for Choristers who were from or studying tribal and other ancient religious beliefs, the Song of the Ancients is a loosely organized network of students and practitioners who are members of the Chorus. They include members of monotheistic tribal groups in Africa, members of Afro-Caribbean faiths and followers of ancient Celtic pagan-Christian synthesis beliefs. Although most such Choristers study the Sphere of Prime, a few mentors train their students to first study the Sphere of Life.