Mathai – God of the Hunt; Patron of Rangers

Mathai – God of the Hunt

The arrow flying true. The revealer. The Holy Hunter. Mathai is the one who walks through the darkness to reveal what is there. He is an adventurer, a discoverer and a mystical leader. Always in their hearts his followers emerge from the darkness to overcome.

He is the patron of rangers and all individuals who venture out into the unknown. He is the urging spirit giving all people their wanderlust - to discover what was not known before. Often it is the individual who finds a great evil and must return home to tell the knights or wizards who can slay the beast. Or when people must flee with his guidance they find a sanctuary better than their previous home. Tenderfeet, elves, jahlen, charr and others have built cities in honour of the adventuring ranger who finds them a new home through his aid.  Although gifted with many skills, his followers aren't the best warriors. Stories tell of followers escaping from overwhelming odds through cunning or stealth. His followers believe that the best solution, such as stealth or trickery, is rarely the obvious one, like direct combat. Rather through wisdom, wit or will a better solution can be found.

Green is the most associated colour with his religion for most of his stories involve the forest. Clerics wear dark green tunics or robes with a brown, white or gold edge. Otherwise the rangers will choose colours that most help them blend in with the background environment. One little known druidic circle of his wears dark black tunics with a green edge.

His familiar form is most often a woodland creature: deer, bear, and panther invisible to all but the faithful. They move quickly to lead others in a great hunt versus a terrible foe. Elven tale spinners swear by a green furred deer that leads them to battle. These animal forms can rarely be requested; rather they appear to help rangers and others when the force of good can be helped.   His avatar form is an elder ranger, dressed in studded leather having an antler horned helm carrying a great bow. Never coming to speak, he leads others in a battle to the death. To help in this, the shadowy figure always carries at least six arrows of slaying to help bring down the enemies. He will never enter melee; he stands away from the battle using the arrows to help his allies’ at the most opportune times. At the battle of Oocho-Machat, Mathai' s Avatar stood accompanied by over a hundred Elven human, jahlen, tenderfeet and others to defeat an invading army.

His clerics are called guides, hunters or woodsmen; virtually all rangers revere the Great Hunter. There is no division between races, genders or urban versus rural folk among the faithful, all come to learn. One must do as one is called to do. There is rarely a sermons for the faithful, only personal lessons, as His faithful need not come to the obelisks for morals. Tithing is usually 5%; service time is five days a month (10% - months are 50 days), Yet those who cannot pay serve other way.
At the same time, if you can pay more, you do without being requested. There is plenty of differences between various peoples of the realm - what many find odd is that they do not try to assimilate, merely to serve while being who they are. Most faithful are non-lawful but almost always good aligned.

As always, the code is a personal one for followers - players should be feel to do as they want, as long as they are following the code AS THEY SEE FIT.

Mathai’s Code (CG, Patron of Rangers) 
Harm no one,
But let no harm come to yourself
Defend your rights,
But never take another’s away
Never attack first,
But strike the second blow quickly
Let not fear, laws or custom
Stop you from doing good
Evil is the common enemy
Protect the innocent
And destroy the wicked