Baptism

The Baptism Ceremony is held when a child turns seven.

At the baptism ceremony, a child is registered as a citizen of the duchy they live in. This is done by registering their mana with a small silver disk that is kept by the relevant authority. For nobles this is done using a magical tool however commoners need to use blood. The child is dressed in white with embroidery on the clothing using the relevant god's divine colour. They are read the tales of the gods out of the bible and taught how to pray to the gods.

A nobles baptism is held on their birthday. The family organises for a priest (one with the highest social standing they can get) to come to their home. They may also invite anyone else who wishes to celebrate the baptism such as friends' family and others for political reasons. As a general rule of thumb the higher the rank of the family, the more guests will be present. In case of archnobles this number of guests can even reach into the hundreds.

The priest will start the ceremony and then the parents will lead their child from a waiting room to the front of the hall. The child walks up alone to the priest who hands over a magic tool, that takes some of their mana to register its mana with the silver disk by pressing the stick onto it. After that, a parent walks up and presents their child a ring which enables the proper channeling of mana. The priest blesses the child with the relevant god's blessing and the child gives a blessing in return.

After the ceremony, the child is then introduced to those who have gathered to celebrate the baptism according to status by walking up to the child one family after another.

Those nobles who are born in winter, or live far from the capital and cannot afford to pay a priest to travel all the way to their home, are all baptised at the start of winter. They go through the same process and the order is determined by their social ranking, least to greatest. After every child in question was baptised, all children that were baptised throught the year, have a debut that consists of playing a harspiel song dedicated to their birth season's god as a prayer in social order from least to greatest.

In the capital city of a duchy, where the temple is located, baptisms are held on the first seasonal day of each season.

Processions begin in the main streets at the edge of the city and progress to the central plaza. Once all the processions have gathered, they then move on to the temple. While moving, the wealthy children walk in the front, while the poor children walk in the back. Only the children themselves may enter the temple for the ceremony, while the adults wait outside. Once in the temple, they are registered by blue priests using blood to mark the silver disks then are sat on carpets. To keep the noise down and suppress the screams of the more squeamish children having their finger pircked, the temple employs magic tools that dampen any sound from the children to a mere whisper. Once all the children are registered, the High Bishop then arrives and tells the children the shortened version of the story of the gods and seasons after which they are taught how to pray. Finally the High Bishop blesses the children with the relevant god's blessing.

For all other commoners, the baptism ceremony is held during the harvest festival. Since everyone is baptised at the same time of the year, clothes can be handed down no matter when in the year they were born. The ritual is the same as the capital city where the children are registered, read the story of the gods and seasons, taught to pray and then be blessed.


 * Since under Bezewanst the blessings spoken over commoners were mere words without any mana in them and his long reign as High Bishop, Rozemyne's true blessings are seen as an unusual novelty.
 * Rozemyne's baptism was performed by Ferdinand. To help solidify her title of Saint of Ehrenfest, her guardians instructed her to bless every person present. This caused great surprise among the nobles, which in turn caught Rozemyne off guard since she had assumed that such big blessings were the norm in noble baptisms until she witnessed the stunned reaction of the audience.