In the Middleland, the highest religious and bureaucratic authorities are the priestesses of the Cult of Mahara, which is the Middlelander state religion. While each priestess has status over all laypersons and is essentially above mundane civilian law, the priestesses themselves must defer completely to their own authority: the High Priestess.
The High Priestess (less often called by her full title: Highest Mother, Mahara Incarnate, Queen of the Universe; more often simply called The Mother by most Middlelanders) is a powerful sorceress who is not only leader of the entire Maharan religion, but is the de facto supreme leader of the Middleland, even outranking the High Minister. The High Priestess is widely considered to be Queen of the Middlelanders themselves as well, including all ethnic Middlelanders who exist outside the Middleland proper, even those few who have rejected the Maharan religion or refuse to acknowledge her as their leader.
As the Highest Mother, Middlelanders consider her to have symbolically given birth to all of their kind, and possibly to all human beings. The High Priestess is viewed as a living incarnation of the Goddess Mahara herself, and is therefore said to be infallible by the Middleland government, officially-speaking. In reality, many of the political elite are atheists and their respect for The Mother is more for practicality because she is the single most influential living Middlelander.
Origins
According to the public teachings of the modern Cult of Mahara, the High Priestess has no origin, because she is merely a manifestation of the Goddess and therefore was never born.
According to Outerland scholars who study the religion from an atheistic perspective, the role of High Priestess likely existed in some form in the pre-Maharan ancestor religion shared by the Middlelanders and Lowerlanders, eventually evolving into an institutional position as the Cult of Mahara transitioned from a fringe religion to an organized theocracy. This theocracy eventually served to unify the disparate tribes and families that made up the Middlelander people into one country, one culture, one identity under The Mother.
Since the Maharan religion has its origins as a mystery cult, the role of High Priestess has always carried a tradition of secrecy. In addition to being anonymous, she is also the keeper of sacred texts that contain detailed records of the evolution of the Middleland theocracy and the origins of the Maharan religion, which no layperson–not even high-ranking members of the government–are allowed to view.
And so it can be said that the only one who knows where The Mother came from is The Mother herself–perhaps.
Death, Rebirth, and the Motherless Period
Though she is officially all-powerful, the High Priestess also represents the Middleland’s greatest vulnerability: Relying on a single person to maintain their unity (both in obvious bureaucratic ways and in more subtle metaphysical ways), leaves the Middleland with a single point of failure that could be attacked by both external and internal enemies.
In order to delay entering into a Motherless Period (a chaotic stretch of time between the death of one High Priestess and the discovery of her next reincarnation, which can span for decades), the High Priestess’s life is closely guarded through a web of obscurity and ritual. Her identity is kept secret, even from most other priestesses. She also will engage in extreme religious practices, such as long-term fasting rituals and the consumption of special toxins, that are meant to extend her natural lifespan further than even a typically long-living priestess. The High Priestess who ruled in the era just prior to Goda Brahm’s birth is rumored to have lived over 160 years.
Officially, the High Priestess never dies and so, according to the Middleland government, there has only ever been one High Priestess. The government acknowledges that The Mother may “decide to change her body” from time to time, but they guard the details of her transition and the search for her new incarnation as closely as they do her human identity.
Though no layperson can ever know for sure The Mother’s exact age or the ages of any prior incarnations, most people can infer through clues when the Middleland has entered a Motherless Period. It is considered a critical time when the country is vulnerable to disorder or chaos.
It is generally accepted by most Middlelanders who are aware of the scandal that The Incident at Samma Valley probably occurred during a Motherless Period.
How a New High Priestess is Chosen
When the position of High Priestess becomes vacant, a waiting period of nineteen years takes place, after which a search for the High Priestess’s new incarnation can begin. Because the High Priestess is thought to incarnate as a Middlelander, and to incarnate as someone who is naturally devoted to the Maharan religion, the search is concentrated among entering clergy and novice priestesses who have already ordained. (This is not a rule, however; it is merely an assumption that has not yet proven to be incorrect.)
The former incumbent will also typically leave clues as to how to find her new incarnation, though these can often be vague and leave a lot up to interpretation. Typically, the new Mother is found within twenty to twenty-five years of the former Mother’s departure.
Once a new High Priestess is chosen, she will be trained by advisors and begin advanced education, then is progressively allowed access to secret knowledge. She will also read the journals, codices, and documents that the previous Mother left behind for her, which can include instructions on how to carry out long-term plans that began long before the current Mother was born.
In fact, her most important mentor is considered to be the previous High Priestess herself, who is interred in the Heart Chamber of the central temple in Suda, in a disguised urn that hangs over The Mother’s throne. Unlike most Middlelanders (including priestesses), the High Priestess’s body is not cremated upon death, but is instead mummified. This is so that her successor may slowly consume her body. Once the new High Priestess has eaten the entire body of her predecessor, which takes roughly ten years in most cases, her initial training is considered to be over.
It can therefore take as much as thirty years or more for the Middleland to replace a late High Priestess with a fully-trained equivalent who can take on all duties. This is why the Middleland clergy is heavily invested in preserving the current High Priestess for as long as possible, since the death of a High Priestess is believed by them to bring decades of spiritual and political vulnerability.
Role of “The Imposter”
If the Motherless Period persists beyond what was expected and a new Mother has not yet been found after about twenty-five years, a priestess will eventually be chosen from the clergy to temporarily perform the duties of The Mother. This role is called The Acting Mother or The Imposter. While her identity is also kept a secret and she gains many of the ceremonial obligations of The Mother role, she does not have full access to the privileges: She is not above the law and cannot access the full cache of hidden knowledge that is meant to help the High Priestess understand her role. She also cannot eat the body of the former High Priestess (which is believed to transfer the predecessor’s power).
The Imposter is a strange position that is imbued with mixed connotations. It is considered an honor to be chosen, but a burden to take on the role. No priestess ever wishes to be offered it, though she cannot decline without being seen as offending The Mother.
The Imposter is chosen solely on merit. She is a priestess that the highest levels of the clergy have decided is spiritually gifted enough to handle the role. However, because she lacks many of the tools to succeed that are afforded to the real Mother, burnout is common and many Imposters fall ill within a few years of taking on the role. If this happens, the clergy can choose to relieve her from the position and a new Imposter will take her place. The Imposter herself has no direct choice in this and must continue in the role until she is granted permission to abdicate by the committee that ordained her.
Though Motherless periods are few and short compared to the typically century-long reign of a High Priestess, the clergy can burn through half a dozen or more Imposters over an extended transition.
In order to be ordained as an Imposter, a priestess is taken in secret to the central temple and subjected to an elaborate ceremony of ritualized shame and abuse, where she is called an invader by a committee of six specially-chosen priestesses who will ritualistically discourage her. In reality, the purpose of this handful of clergy is to serve as witnesses who will remember The Imposter’s identity and therefore guard against her ever claiming to be the real Mother.
During the ritual, The Imposter roleplays that she is a defiant blasphemer and, ignoring the insults and discouragement, eventually takes a seat on The Mother’s throne in the Heart Chamber of the central temple in Suda. Because this is among the most sacred places in the Maharan religion, her act is considered to be desecration. However, once she has been seated, the witnesses become silent. From then on, until The Imposter is relieved of her position, they will refer to her as the High Priestess and pretend that they have no knowledge of any Imposter.
When The Imposter gives up her role (either to the new Mother or to another Imposter), she performs a similar ceremony, but in reverse, where she rises from the throne and is ritualistically punished for her desecration. She will then be imprisoned at a monastery for an entire season and not allowed contact with the outside world during this period. After this is over, she is honored by her government for her service with a higher stipend, but will forever carry a subtle stigma within the clergy for committing what is essentially sanctioned blasphemy. Other priestesses who know she was an Imposter may avoid her.
Former Imposters are more likely than average priestesses to defrock by marrying a slave.
Identity of the High Priestess
Because her personal identity must be kept secret, the High Priestess only appears in public in ceremonial garb during important events, covering her face with a veil. Otherwise, she disguises herself as a mundane priestess with a normal job, with only the High Minister and a handful of high-ranking clergy members knowing who she is for certain (although they will pretend they do not know). Lower-ranking clergy, such as temple assistants, may suspect over time if they have repeated contact with her and notice “strange” things, but it is considered unthinkable to outright ask.
Either way, if a priestess is ever asked whether she is The Mother (such as by a clueless foreigner), her official answer is always “Yes.” Every priestess is taught to adamantly claim that she is in fact The Mother, even to the point of arguing with the priestess next to her, who will also be claiming that it is rather she who is The Mother. This is a form of security that makes acquiring intelligence on The Mother and her whereabouts difficult for a foreign government, as they would in theory have to capture every priestess, at every heavily-guarded monastery spread across the vast Middlelander territory, in order to ensure that they have captured the leader of the Middleland.
While the High Priestess tends to follow (by choice) all the hundreds of daily commandments that a typical priestess must adhere to, she is the only priestess who is not required to follow these precepts. In fact, the High Priestess may break any law, religious or otherwise. For example, she is the only Middlelander who is permitted to commit murder. She also has the power to unilaterally excommunicate members of the Maharan religion, though there is no recorded incidence of a High Priestess ever doing this.
The only unforgivable sin in the Maharan religion is to look under the High Priestess’s mask during a public ceremony and discover her identity. If this were ever done, the High Priestess herself would have to kill the perpetrator with a blade she carries in her robes specifically for this purpose. No Middlelander has ever committed this sin, partly because it could only conceivably happen if the High Priestess allowed it.