Category:Church of Hala

The Church of Hala worships Hala. It is a mystical faith loosely based on modern, real-world paganism and witchcraft practices.

Centers

The Church of Hala does not actively recruit and thus is not the major religion in any domain. However, it has hospices for the needy and sick sprinkled throughout the Core.

Beliefs

The Church's sacred text, the Tales of Ages, tells of nine gods who created the world from Chaos. The gods then withdrew, intending to allow mortals to fill their world with acts both good and evil. But the mortals lacked wisdom, and the world was soon filled with pain and anguish. Just one of the Nine Gods, the goddess Hala, returned to the world to ease its suffering. She gathered together thirteen women and thirteen men and taught them the secrets of the Weave, forming the first covens.

The Weave

The Church of Hala describes magic in a different way, a sort of universal weave. It is not clear if witchcraft or the Weave is something separate from magic powers elsewhere in the multiverse.

Members

Clerics of Hala are called witches, both male and female. However, in Van Richten's Guide to Witches, a Hospice of Healing Hands in Valachan maintains a group within the mundane functions of the hospice that separates the sexes into "witches" and "warlocks."

A witch is usually a magic user with hereditary or innate power.

Persecution

The Weave is also known as witchcraft and provokes widespread, superstitious fear. Witchcraft’s wretched reputation is largely due to hags, the most infamous practitioners. Although witchcraft is not inherently evil, it is thought to be rife with occult dangers. Exposure to witchcraft is thought to create calibans, and according to folklore, witches who lose control of their magic may be permanently transformed into monstrous hags. Hala’s witches often face hostility when beyond the doors of their hospices. Any witch of Hala unwise enough to encounter the inquisitors of Tepest, for example, should count herself lucky to escape with her life.

Data from the Ravenloft Catalogue

		Ravenloft Third Edition
		Ravenloft Third Edition - p52
		Ravenloft Third Edition - p54
		Ravenloft Third Edition - p52