🔥 The Antipriests of Motion
“Stillness is for statues.”
Overview
The Antipriests of Motion are the heretical mystics and engineers of Embervault, a sect devoted not to gods but to the act of movement itself.
Where Serendahl sanctifies stillness, they sanctify entropy.
They believe the universe’s first prayer was friction, and every invention is a continuation of that divine spark.
Antipriests are not clerics in the traditional sense — they are metallurgists, physicists, machinists, and philosophers who weave spiritual defiance into the blueprints of the world.
Their “sermons” are experiments. Their “psalms” are equations sung to the rhythm of forges.
Origins
The first Antipriests arose during the early years of Embervault’s founding, when Serendahl’s influence smothered all innovation across Canava.
A circle of inventors gathered in secret under the volcano, swearing to make a god that could not stand still.
Their founding text — The Liturgy of Sparks, written by Master Lume Jarra — declared motion itself the only sacred constant:
“We will not kneel before the Coin on Its Edge. We will spin it.”
When Serendahl’s inquisitors came to silence them, their forges flared so violently that the mountains shook. The survivors called it the First Ignition, and from that day, Embervault has burned without pause.
Doctrine & Beliefs
Core Tenets:
Motion is sacred. Every act of creation must change its creator.
Perfection is death. Any system without error is a prayer to Serendahl.
Entropy is mercy. Only things that can decay can truly live.
To build is to blaspheme well.
Antipriests intentionally design imperfection into all things — machines that drift slightly off rhythm, gears that hum with harmonic dissonance.
These “blessed flaws” are their way of preventing divine stagnation.
They preach that to correct every error is to build Serendahl’s cage again.
Practices
Their rituals resemble engineering more than worship:
The Unbinding: A daily ceremony where they disassemble a perfectly functional device to remind themselves that nothing is untouchable.
The Asymmetric Blessing: Before a major project, a random component is forged crooked on purpose, ensuring the invention will never be flawless.
Combustion Psalms: Hymns shouted over roaring furnaces to drown out the goddess’s silence.
Every forge in Embervault doubles as a temple; every engineer is, in some small way, an Antipriest.
Relationship to Silverwake and Serendahl
Their existence is officially illegal under Canavan doctrine.
Silverwake’s Sanctifiers call them “the corrosion within the clockwork.”
Yet paradoxically, the Sanctifiers’ own warships, rifles, and engines all rely on Embervault’s designs.
The Antipriests accept these commissions, building what Serendahl demands — and secretly sabotaging perfection.
Their tools hum with microscopic discord, embedding heresy into the empire’s machinery.
“If we cannot kill stillness,” Lume Jarra once said, “we can at least make it vibrate.”
Organization
The Antipriests have no hierarchy; the title is earned through creation, not ordination.
However, some figures hold legendary status:
Master Lume Jarra, author of The Liturgy of Sparks and founder of the sect.
Cindermark the Reforged, brass dragon and treasurer of Embervault, who tolerates their chaos so long as the ledgers balance.
The Council of Sparks, Embervault’s technocratic guilds, many of whom secretly follow Antipriest philosophy while pretending loyalty to the Senate.
Influence & Legacy
Outside Embervault, Antipriests are feared, romanticized, and plagiarized.
Their designs have reached Harlequin Vale through merchants, powering fireworks and stage machinery; their theories circulate in Fenmarrow as smuggled blueprints.
To Silverwake’s clergy, they are heretics.
To the Rational Coin scholars, they are unscientific mystics.
To Embervault, they are prophets of motion — flawed, brilliant, and necessary.
Their ultimate goal is not rebellion but momentum.
They do not wish to destroy Serendahl — only to make her blink.
Common Sayings
“Mistakes keep the goddess away.”
“Rust is just metal breathing.”
“Stillness is for statues.”
“Every god needs an opposite — we are hers.”