Category:Khitan Pantheon

The Khitan have a specific Pantheon and religious belief structure that is particular to their culture. Included in this page is as much information as possible about the spiritual beliefs of the Khitan, including their Pantheon.

Chief Deity - Yun
Representation: A mysterious masked figure in golden emperor robes. He is seen as the Emperor of the Khitan Pantheon.

Gender Representation: Male

Yun is the main god worshipped in the jungle temples. He is the head of the Khitan pantheon, considered both the Emperor of the Pantheon and Lord of the Underworld. He manages the hierarchy of souls living there and is a counterpart to the God Emperor of the mortal world, along with advisors and a palace. The souls residing here, the po, continue life much as it was lived before although an anchor with their corpse or place of burial ties them to the mortal world.

His worship seems to involve music in the form of chimes or bells. All kuei of the underworld are obeisant to Yun and so the priests of Yun believe it is their right to call and command the kuei as it forms part of their loyalty to the Emperor of the Gods.

Yun is a popular god in the Imperial Court and is served by a devout and ferocious priesthood supported by a cadre of warrior-monks and holy warriors who believe that, upon death, their souls will become honored ancestors and serve in the po armies of Yun, fighting across the underworld. Yun is therefore sometimes seen as the equivalent of the Source of All Things.

Those spirits that are forceful on some shape or form can be summoned forth as demons and are even treated as demigods. Similarly the underworld is inhabited by beings that were never human to begin with or who have been perverted by Chaos somehow. These creatures are the kuei or demon-spirits, and they take many forms.

Khitai’s cults, unlike many Western religions, do not bother teaching they are of the only true church and that all the others are fundamentally flawed. However, it is not normal for someone to follow the Khitai Pantheon with other gods outside of it.

The Pantheon of Khitai
The complete pantheon contains hundreds of immortals and demigods, including deified historical figures, outsiders and demons. The lesser gods are served by demigods, who are served by spirits, immortals and human souls.

Most of the known gods are:

 * Yun (The Lord of the Underworld)
 * Cheng-Ho (The moon-goddess)
 * Yogah (Elephant-headed star-being, God of Magic)
 * Yu Huang (The August Emperor of Jade)
 * Ch’eng-huang (Protector of Humans)
 * Cheng Wu (Divine Warrior of Heaven)
 * Chi’fu-shen (The Seven Gods of Happiness)
 * Chi’-ku-niang (A Goddess of Maidens and the Betrothed)
 * Ch’i-Ti (The Sky God)
 * Ch’i-wen (The Dragon of the Waters)
 * Yang Sung-tzu (God of Rain and Fertility)

Symbolism

 * Bells
 * Wind Chimes
 * Lotus (Yun)
 * Moon (Cheng-Ho)
 * Elephant (Yogah)

Spheres of Power

 * Sorcery
 * Knowledge
 * Divination
 * Necromancy
 * Summoning

Rituals and Beliefs
Few Khitans are well-travelled enough to even know about other religions, so Khitai’s religions do not have the need to compare themselves to other religions. They do not claim other religions are ‘flawed’ or have false teachings. Khitan worshippers simply do not care.

Two Souls The Khitans believe a person has two souls. The first is known as the hun, it materializes at birth and moves into heaven after death, becoming a spirit linked to his descendants. The second soul, known as the po, materializes with conception and, at death, descends into the underworld as a ghost linked to its physical corpse and/or tomb.

The Universe The Khitans believe the universe has three basic divisions: the heavens, the earth and the underworld. They all retain connections to the other, in the same way a person is connected to all of his ancestors.

Heaven and the underworld are not reward and punishment arenas. Heaven is where the cosmos is controlled by the Source of All Things and his attendant gods, nature spirits and ancestral souls (* hun). The Underworld of Yellow Springs is just a place where other souls (po*) live much as they did in life.

Ancestor Veneration The primary form of Khitan worship revolves around the veneration of ancestral spirits. Gifts, usually in the form of wine and food, are offered to the ancestors to show respect and to make the lives of the ancestors easier. Food, wine and precious objects offered to the ancestors feed and aid the ancestor spirits. Slaves sacrificed to the ancestors grant the ancestor spirit a slave in the afterworld. These offerings may be made in temples devoted to ancestors of a village, or they may be made in shrines within the home, where a list of dead relatives is kept in an altar. Not providing the gifts on a regular basis can bring about natural or personal disasters.

Khitans believe their ancestors continue to have a keen interest in the affairs of humanity – especially in those of their descendants. Thus, Khitans are expected to inform their ancestors of any major decisions and seek their guidance. There is a Khitan notion that a person’s spirit lingers on in a spirit world after death. If a scholar shows proper respect to departed ancestors, this realm’s powers can be tapped to aid the living. This being the case, the dead in Khitai are buried with possessions and slaves needed to live a comfortable life.

The spirits of ancient kings act as intermediaries to the actual gods, who are strange and unknowable to mortals. Spirits are nourished by human blood, so vast numbers of human sacrifices are necessary to maintain the integrity and unity of Khitai. Ancestral spirits require blood to be spilt to prove the serious nature of any request. River, mountain and other nature spirits often require similar tokens.

Polytheism The worship of the gods is distinct from ancestor worship. The Khitans do not have difficulty in believing in multiple gods and worshipping many things, for to the Khitans, many things are deserving of worship and honor. The gods of Khitai live as men do, in a hierarchy much like that found in Khitai, with all the gods serving an emperor god named Yun.

Sexuality As far as sex goes, in Khitai, both men and women are seen to have magical forces within them that are counterpoints to each other and necessary for life. The female magical force is felt to be infinite within each woman, but the male magical force is considered quite finite. Thus, sexual relationships are seen as a necessary transfer of these forces to the other. Since the female force is infinitely contained in each woman, she is expected to climax multiple times, masturbate often and have sex with other women if she wants. Men, however, are expected to climax once, and must never masturbate or have sex with another man, since they would lose their finite magical energy and not get anything back. Women who have sex with many men are felt to have more magical energy, so many men seek out prostitutes.

Death & Funerary Rites Tombs in Khitai are built below ground with walls and floors of rammed earth. The tombs are often huge, an eight foot tall wooden chamber is built to house the coffin. The Khitan kings are buried with hundreds of bronze artifacts, jades, bone objects, ivory carvings, pottery and cowry shells. Men, women, children and dogs are sacrificed for the benefit of the tombs’ occupants and buried with them. They are sacrificed by beheading in a gruesome ritual. The skulls are stacked in the center of the tomb facing the wooden chamber.

Sorcery Virtually all the sorcery styles are open for a Khitan sorcerer. Khitans are notorious diviners and demon worshipers, who make pacts with spirits and demons lurking in the lost jungles to learn spells and magic. Many Khitan hermits lurk around the tombs, practicing Divination and Necromancy.

The Kuei (Demons) The spirits and demons of the underworld, the kuei, are worshiped as gods in Khitai. Kuei take many forms and have many powers, including:
 * The souls of suicides, warped by the act of taking their own life, denying the ancestral chain.
 * Wandering demons from far away planes or stars, trapped in the underworld by sorcery or residing there through choice.
 * A manifestation of a natural force or power, such as the sun, the moon or the oceans.
 * A dragon spirit, for dragons can assume many forms.

Summoning of Kuei - demons
 * Dig a hole or pit. This creates a metaphysical channel to the underworld and allows the kuei to pass between the mortal barrier.
 * Create a covering. Most kuei summonings are performed in naturally occurring shelter, such as a cave or basement or in a purpose-built chamber.
 * Offer a sacrifice. Kuei adore blood and souls.
 * Cast the spell. The spell includes the necessary incantations to establish a working conduit between the mortal world and the underworld.
 * Offer reverence. If the summoning is successful and the kuei appears, the summoner must offer reverence as a mark of duty and respect. Any sorcerer arrogant enough to summon a kuei without being prepared to offer such reverence risks being attacked and dragged into the underworld and either imprisoned or killed.

The Priesthood of Yun
The Lord of the Underworld is a popular god in the Imperial Court and is served by a devout and ferocious priesthood supported by a cadre of warrior-monks and holy warriors who believe that, upon death, their souls will become honored ancestors and serve in the po armies of Yun, fighting across the underworld. The Priests of Yun are mainly responsible for two things, the cultivation of the lotus plant and the worship of Yun. They believe that in order to keep the universe in balance, the Emperor of the Underworld must approve of the God-Emperor in the real world.

They have their main temple deep in the jungles of Paikang, but they have a presence in almost every village and city between the Great Wall and the eastern coastline. They perform divination and summon ancestor spirits to advise those who need it — for a small donation.

More on the Priesthood
Khitan priests are not evangelists nor missionaries. They do not try to win converts or spread their religion. Human sacrifice is the name of the game for Khitan priests. In addition to human sacrifice, animal sacrifice is also rampant, especially large animals such as elephants and rhinoceroses. Bells and chimes play a large part in solemn Khitan rituals.

There are two kinds of Khitan priest: the shaman and the ritual priest. The shaman serves the villages, living out of a house or personal temple, and uses magic to control life circumstances and events, cure the sick and predict the future. Ritual priests serve the temples and live in communes. The kings of Khitai like diviners. Only the king practices divining but he employs court diviners to interpret the results of the oracle bones.

Khitan priests dress in high-necked, long silk jackets, embroidered trousers, hooded and wide-sleeved robes of a very dark grey or black material and sandals beneath their robes. The men shave their heads. The women fix their hair in complicated coiffures.

Implementation In-Game
Vanilla Derketo as a placeholder.

More Information

 * Faith and Fervour (Conan RPG Book)
 * Stygia - The Serpent of the South (Conan RPG Book)
 * Return to the Road of Kings (Conan RPG Book)
 * Khitai (Conan RPG Book)