The Navigator
Born from the Beacon's supernova at the birth of the third age of the divines, The Navigator is a god of sight and guidance whose first great work was to reconnect the galaxy's stars to its divine heart. They are best known as a god of flight and magic, of the will to chart a path from one place to another, to overcome that which stands in the way of a journey. They also a god of magic learned, of the tools by which the arcane may be understood by mortals and conveyed from man to man.
Origin and Mythology
The Navigator was born a spirit to chart the ways and flows of space in the age of fire. While the other gods fought the Beacon’s blazing first death, the Navigator laid the paths of Ley-lines that divine power might touch the world’s stars once more. When the Beacon had once again been restored to its place as the bastion of the gods, the divines unified their power to bring spark and life to the ley-lines. The vast network of interweaving magics became the domain of the newborn deity, and they then took the name of the Navigator; under their watch the ley-line junctures grew and birthed spirits to tend and guard them.
Cult, Rituals, and Veneration
The teaching of magic and the practice of stellar navigation are the tasks which most interest the Navigator, although many tasks of research and travel are considered part of their domain. The largest organized cults to the Navigator are the ley-line surveying guilds.
Tech-mages, wizards, and alchemists frequently pray to the Navigator both to guide their learning and the encodings of their spells in the hours before their use. The most common offering of these mages is the monitoring of sacred frequencies of the Aether by specialized instruments. Those who do not have access to the appropriate devices donate to the maintenance and operation of the sensors by local cults or survey guilds. Alternatively, they may demonstrate their learning by casting spells which produce little observable effect, but which result in enormously complex and precise motions of Aethiric energies. In addition to maintaining shrines, and offering books of knowledge to the sacred libraries, most large schools of magic maintain groups of adepts performing these rituals of veneration at regular intervals. The Academia Arcanos is notable for having a single casting of its most prominent spell of devotion maintained continuously, without interruption, for the past two and a half centuries.
In addition to being critical to faster-than-light travel, the regular surveying of the ever-shifting ley-lines is widely understood to be a form of veneration looked particularly well upon by the Navigator. Survey guilds sponsored by local governments, regional coalitions, and by donations are the largest and most widely known groups dedicated to the Navigator. They receive much of the offerings made to the Navigator by individuals and organizations, and are frequently substantially funded and equipped in this way. It is common for pilots and navigators who have experienced a run of bad fortune to volunteer for tours of duty aboard surveying ships as a form of purification. Once a surveying trip is complete and the data collated into a useful form, the uploading of the reports is often the centerpiece of local festivals, particularly at times of heightened ley-line activity.
Starheart stations are near-universally dedicated to the Navigator and the Forgemaster, and operated by groups dedicated to their service, although their immense cost means that even the most pious systems can cover only a small fraction of their cost with votive offerings from their people.
The solving of mazes is considered a sacred activity to the navigator in some regions; it is not uncommon in areas with such a belief for "Navigator Maze" devices which physically or digitally produce randomized mazes to be solved, to be used as ritual objects, with some large versions in temples and shrines being the focus of ritual observance, and smaller pocket mazes being used by folk to complete as part of smaller prayers. Paper airplanes folded according to exacting plans and marked with sacred symbols to the navigator are also common offerings made at the Navigator's shrines.
