Pharasma (fah-RAZ-mah) is the stern observer of life and death, scrutinizing the tangled webs of fate and prophecy, mercilessly cold in the administration of her grim duties. Having seen infants die, the righteous fall too soon, and tyrants live to advanced age, she makes no judgment about the justness of a particular death and welcomes each birth with equal severity. At the moment of birth, she knows where a particular soul will end up, but she reserves her official verdict until the last possible moment, as she knows prophecies can be wrong or fail completely. She believes in fate and predestination but understands the need for vagueness and misinterpretation to allow for the illusion of free will.
Legends claim that Pharasma knew the death of Aroden was fast approaching and even judged him as she did all those born as mortals, but did nothing to warn her followers, many of whom were driven mad by the event. Though prophecy is no longer reliable, prophets continue to be born, and most of these are driven mad by their confusing and contradictory visions—and the church has taken it upon itself to care for these poor souls, devoting portions of major temples to be sanitariums.
In art, Pharasma is depicted as the midwife, the mad prophet, or the reaper of the dead, depending upon her role. Her visage usually has gray skin and white eyes. As the midwife, she is efficient and severe, hair pulled back and arms bare from hands to the elbows. As the prophet, she is wild-eyed and tanglehaired, her words echoing like thunder. As the reaper, she is tall and gaunt, with a f lowing, black-hooded gown and an hourglass with fast-f lowing red sand—moving with deliberate care rather than aggressiveness. Pregnant women often carry small tokens of her midwife likeness on long necklaces to protect the unborn and grant them good lives.
Sitting atop an impossibly tall spire, Pharasma’s realm in the afterworld—the Boneyard—awaits all mortals. Once there, they stand in a great line, waiting to be judged and sent to their final reward. Those who die before experiencing their full fate may be lucky enough to return in this life or the next, though in some cases their fate is merely to die an ignoble or early death. The Lady of Graves opposes undeath as a desecration of the memory of the f lesh and a corruption of a soul’s path on its journey to her judgment.
The church works much like a strong, predominantly matriarchal family, though some have compared it to a severe, conservative nunnery. Though neutral as a whole, the church has many traditions passed down by the goddess and her prophets, and members of the church follow these teachings stringently. However, different branches of the church give some rituals and practices more weight than others; though this is never enough that church factions war on each other, it is easy for one of the faith to recognize a member of his own sect, or realize a visitor is unfamiliar with local practices.
Pharasma manifests her favor through the appearance of scarab beetles and whippoorwills, both of which function as psychopomps and serve to guide recently departed spirits to the Boneyard. Black roses are thought to bring good luck, especially if the stems sport no thorns. Pharasma will also sometimes allow the spirits of those who have died under mysterious conditions to transmit short messages to their living kin to comfort them, to expose a murderer, or even to haunt an enemy. Her displeasure is often signified by cold chills down the spine, bleeding from under the fingernails, an unexplained taste of rich soil, the discovery of a dead whippoorwill, or the feeling that something important has been forgotten.
Pharasma is neutral and her portfolio is fate, death, prophecy, and birth. Her weapon is the skane, a special dagger with ritual signif icance. Her holy symbol is a spiral of light, representing a soul, its journey from birth to death to the afterlife, and the confusing path of deciphering prophecy. Her domains are Death, Healing, Knowledge, Repose, and Water. Most members of her priesthood are clerics, with a significant number of diviners, oracles, and adepts. Roughly twothirds of her clergy are women, though the gender mix may vary regionally.
Pharasma’s followers are midwives, morticians, so-called “white necromancers,” expectant mothers, and (though much less so since Aroden’s death) Harrowers, palmists, oneiromancers, cloud-readers, and others who use non-magical forms of divination. In smaller communities, a Pharasmin priest may assume several of these roles, or a wife-and-husband team might split the duties between them. Of course, as the goddess of birth and death, Pharasma has many lay followers as well, and even in lands where her faith is not large or organized, commoners pray to her for guidance or protection, much as farmers everywhere pray to Erastil for good crops.
Worshipers of Pharasma—as well as most commoners— trace the goddess’s spiral-symbol on their chests, typically as a form of prayer when hearing ill news or a spoken evil, in response to blasphemy, and before or during an event that is dangerous or has an uncertain outcome. Different lands perform this gesture differently—in Ustalav, it is with a closed fist, while in Osirion it is with the first two fingers extended. Especially devout folk see or repeat this gesture in everyday activities, such as stirring soup or scrubbing a floor.
Prayer services to Pharasma are a mixture of somber chants and joyous song, with local celebratory or somber music mixed in. Services usually end on a positive or uplifting note, for while death comes to all, there are new generations of life to praise (at least, until the end comes, which they will deal with at that time). Each temple keeps a record of births and deaths of its members, and priests speak their names on anniversaries of these events (while those close to the departed light candles to honor them).
Pharasma is in favor of marriage, as it leads to births, but is not against having children out of wedlock, or childless couples adopting, or children being raised in orphanages. Church weddings may be simple or ornate, depending on the social status and wealth of the participants. Though she is the goddess of birth, she does not oppose contraception, and her temples have been known to provide this assistance to women with a history of stillbirths and deformities. However, she believes killing a child in the womb is an abomination, for it sends the infant soul to the afterlife before it has a chance to fulfill its destiny; thus, the goddess’s midwives refuse to aid in such matters, even if bearing the child would be a great risk to the mother. Some church midwives, called casarmetzes, are so skilled in a combination of medicine, magic, and surgery that in dire circumstances they can cut a living child from its mother’s womb and save both. Curiously, the church does not frown upon suicide, though individual priests may debate whether taking one’s own life is the natural fate of some souls or a means to return to the goddess for a chance at a different life.
A traditional bread associated with the church is kolash, made from braided dough and bent in a tight spiral until it forms a round loaf. Often, the dough is filled or topped with diced fruit, and eaten with sweet cheese. For the winter feast, the center portion of the spiral is left open to allow for a wax candle, lit at the start of the meal and extinguished when the bread is to be eaten.
The church has a tradition where a family calls a gathering on the third day after a child’s birth, to welcome it as a new soul in the world. Superstition holds that the child must be given a name before this gathering, else the child will be unlucky. Visitors bring small cakes, seeds, salted peas, and watered beer to share with the family and other guests. A priest or family elder lists the names of the child’s maternal or paternal ancestors (matching the child’s gender), calling for the child to be named and grow up with good health, and for the parents to live to see the child married and grandchildren born.
When a member of the faith dies, the body is cleaned, immersed in water, and dressed in a special multi-part shroud (consisting of 5 pieces for a male, 9 for a female). A prayer written on parchment, bark, cloth, or stone is tucked into the shroud, and the corpse is sealed in a casket (if one is to be used). A guardian sits with the body the night before the burial—sometimes to honor the dead, sometimes to guard against body thieves, sometimes to watch that the body does not rise as an undead.
Those who can afford it usually pay to have their remains interred on holy ground by priests. The cost varies by the local economy and the nature of the burial; a tiny burial cell in a catacomb or ossuary is inexpensive (especially if shared with other bodies), whereas a room-sized private tomb may be something only a wealthy merchant or noble can afford. Disinterring a buried corpse is considered a violation of the dead, and the church normally refuses to do this—even when a city government has sought to break ground for a sewer, aqueduct, or other vital construction, the church has refused to permit it. However, if a priest discovers a worshiper’s corpse that has been buried improperly and exposed, he or she usually arranges for a proper burial in accordance with church teachings.
Those mourning for the recent dead (typically the father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, and spouse) traditionally mark their eyelids with black ash or an herbal paste for five days after the burial. The faithful honor the deceased by burning a votive candle on the anniversary of the death. This squat candle lasts 24 hours; many tombstones have niches to protect soul candles from the wind. The church allows the dead to be cremated, though burial in earth is preferred; disposing of a corpse at sea, sky burial, and funerary cannibalism are generally considered disrespectful. The church does not mourn apostates, and priests refuse to give rites to those who turn their back on the faith.
In Ustalav, a belief called the Pharasmin Penitence has taken hold in the minds of those who worship the Lady of Graves. It is their understanding that the pains and trials of life add a certain weight to the soul, and when Pharasma judges that soul, she counterbalances that weight with rewards in the afterlife. Though most who share this belief merely take on ascetic-like restrictions in their diet and what meager pleasure they can find in life, some sacrifice more by blinding, deafening, or flagellating themselves, or by wearing hairshirts to limit or counter what would lighten their souls, hopefully guaranteeing greater rewards in the afterlife. In some counties, extremists view enduring pain as a condemnation of pleasure and change, and hunt those who alter the world to satisfy mere mortal whims—specifically, users of arcane magic.