Mining Firebirds: Saints Alive

In Fading Suns, the dominant religion seems to be a mix of Muslim and Christian (Catholic and Greek Orthodox?), with the worship of the Pancreator and the Prophet who revealed the truth of the Holy Flame.

The Eight Disciples of the Prophet Zebulon were the first saints of this religion, but there are many more that are mentioned fleetingly in the material.

I wanted to bring in a bit of this into the Fading Suns gameplay, with a bit of the local color I've discovered.

In the Philippines, there are regular devotions to saints. There are these almost human-size statues of saints that are paraded around on small floats or carried on a palanquin once a year during that saint's festival. The rest of the year, it's in the home of a devotee.

It is said that the intentions of the devotee will be answered by God, through the intercession of the saint -- but the devotee will, in the course of his or her life, undergo a similar trial to that of the saint. Naturally the martyred saints seldom get this kind of the devotion, but some would prefer some physical pain over the social or cultural persecution that other saints have endured...