[After I wrote up Panopticon, Kirsty wanted to see the write-up for her own character’s god next, so here we go. Brambleson the Rabbit Prince is actually the name and title of a character in default Pathfinder canon, but he’s a weird storybook fey creature rather than a god. Brambleson the deity in the world of Palimpsest is sort of inspired equal parts by that guy and by El-ahrairah, the Prince With a Thousand Enemies, from Watership Down – although His church is a little more “rural British Christian/Pagan cult” than either of those.]
Brambleson
Titles: The Prince of Rabbits; First Child of the Briarpatch; the Everbloom Prince
Pronouns: He/Him
Adjective: Brambleite
Realm: The Briarpatch
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Areas of Concern: Prickly Plants, Luck, Freedom, Protection
Worshippers: The Bramble Church, Bunbun in general
Edicts: Protect yourself and others, provide for those around you, look for beauty wherever it may be found
Anathema: Harm others for non-defensive reasons, permit another to go hungry, destroy something pretty
Cleric Alignments: CG, CN, NG
Domains: Animal, Liberation, Luck, Plant, Protection
Subdomains: Fur, Stars, Thorns
Favoured Weapon: Rapier
Symbol: a bramble branch twisted into a circle, often with a berry, flower or thorn prominent in the centre
Sacred Animal: Rabbit
Sacred Plant: Brambles
Sacred Colours: Pink and purple
Dogma
The Bramble Church’s three-part motto is inspired by the three primary components of bramble plants: “Protected by Thorns, Providing through Berries, Pretty as Roses”. These are the three central tenets of Brambleite dogma. Just as the thorns of the bramble protect it from harm without moving from their stem, so Brambleites are taught to protect those around them without bringing the fight to others. Just as the berries of the bramble provide sustenance for any herbivorous creature that passes by, so Brambleite doctrine insists on feeding and providing for others wherever possible. And finally, just as the roses of the bramble make it pretty despite its thorns, so Brambleites are encouraged to always “seek the rose amidst the thorns”, valuing art and beauty in even the most unlikely places as a worthwhile end unto itself, and seeking to make anything they create as beautiful as possible.
As a patron deity of rabbits and Bunbun, it is usually taught that Brambleson is inimically opposed to predators and meat-eaters. Even the few Brambleites who are not Bunbun are usually vegetarians. However, this doctrine is not entirely without question – Wolpertingers are also sacred to Brambleson, despite being omnivorous beings with wolflike teeth designed for predation, which some have theorised may indicate that even predatory creatures may have some path to the Briarpatch available to them, albeit perhaps one that does not look identical to the paths followed by the Bunbun.
History
According to Brambleite myths, Brambleson was born as a tiny baby rabbit from the fruit of a lonely bramble bush in a celestial Briarpatch, that wished upon a star for a playmate. The newborn god consumed His own brambleberry cradle for sustenance, and admired the beautiful flowers and protective thorns of the plant that had birthed Him, and promised that He would uphold the values of this marvellous bush, and furthermore would fulfil its wish for a playmate by spending the rest of His days merrily running and jumping through the Briarpatch that was now His home – a promise which he has seemingly upheld even as other deities from his pantheon and those that came after perished in one or other of Palimpsest’s successive apocalypses.
Brambleson does not like to talk about his original pantheon, perhaps because even He can find no beauty in a loss of such magnitude. He has let slip on a handful of occasions that He did once have family, including children of his own, whom He was ironically unable to adequately protect when the apocalypse came. It is also known that from early on the Prince of Rabbits somehow caught the obsessive attention of an archdemon known as the Terrier Beneath the Sands, who has hunted Him fruitlessly ever since, somehow Itself surviving multiple apocalypses to continue hunting Its prey as seemingly the sole other remaining member of Brambleson’s pantheon, in a cruel irony.
The Briarpatch, it seems, was scorched by each apocalypse, its protective thorns and providing berries largely burned away each time, and only Brambleson’s combination of swiftness and luck has allowed Him to dodge unharmed through the flames. The Terrier’s realm of the Undersands, located – in a cosmic sense – ‘under’ the protective layer of the Briarpatch, has perhaps been thus sufficiently shielded for the Terrier to survive also – although it should be noted that the Briarpatch has mostly regrown to its former lushness each time, whereas the Undersands, so far as anyone can tell, has never been anything but a barren wasteland without much of note for the apocalypse to scour in the first place.
Since the loss of His pantheon and family, Brambleson seems to have mostly kept to himself, hiding from the newer deities who are often more violent or more predatory than He is. In recent times, however, He has become more active. The Briarpatch contains a hidden entrance to the Garden Beyond the Stars which only Brambleson and his chosen Bunbun can access, and Brambleson claims to have snooped around enough over time to pick up all the information He needs to put together a plan to break the cycle and prevent the next apocalypse before it starts – if He can get enough of the other deities on His side.
Home
The Briarpatch is a vast thicket of brambles cosmically adjacent to the Garden Beyond the Stars, and is the realm where Brambleson was reputedly born and has lived ever since. Navigation through the near-endless tangle of briars is said to be impossible for any non-lapine creatures, but for Bunbun and other rabbit-adjacent beings is simple and intuitive. Bunbun souls are therefore freely able to hop between the Briarpatch and the Garden Beyond the Stars through one or more secret entrances that are impenetrable to anyone else.
The plants of the Briarpatch embody the principles of Brambleson’s doctrine, being at all times equally thick with beautiful flowers, delicious berries and powerful protective thorns.
However, it is also said in a few more obscure texts that, if one were to travel far enough through the Briarpatch, away from both Brambleson’s influence and the border with the Garden Beyond the Stars, one would eventually find a place where the pleasant and fruitful brambles give way to ugly, twisted, charred, scoured and blighted dead brush, revealing what this realm was reduced to over the course of several apocalypses – although, even here, gradually, new growths bloom among the ashes, as the Briarpatch slowly heals and reclaims itself over time.
Somewhere far beneath the Briarpatch, at the base of its many thorned roots, lie the barren, oppressively hot, ever-crumbling shifting tunnels of the Undersands, where the Terrier Beneath the Sands constantly hunts and plots and designs Its traps, surrounded by the lesser demons which It spawns as Its young or which breed on its hide like fleas. Legends say there may have been a small handful of times when the Terrier managed to briefly break through the protective thicket of roots and chase Brambleson down on the surface, but all the stories agree that Brambleson’s swiftness, cleverness and luck have never allowed the Terrier to get very far in such incursions before It is returned to Its own realm once again.
Appearance
Brambleson is most often depicted as a tall, lithe Bunbun with particularly rabbitlike features, or simply a somewhat anthropomorphic rabbit. He is almost always shown to be dressed in fine clothes in various brambleberry shades, as befits His commitment to prettiness and His station as prince. Often He is said to be constantly twitching His ears and nose or hopping from spot to spot, even when trying to remain still.
Those Brambleite Oracles that have heard Him speak agree that He has a refined, noble accent but always speaks as an excitable, breathless rush of hurried, almost stuttered thoughts.
In many depictions, Brambleson is armed with a rapier, considered the sacred weapon of the deity as it befits both his princely station and his love of thorns – however, in recognition of His principle not to engage in violence except where absolutely necessary for protection, the rapier is almost always depicted as snapped in half with the actual pointy end missing.
Relationships
Brambleson’s relationship with the other deities of Palimpsest is best described as ‘wary’. He is old enough to have seen several pantheons come and go, and has experienced hostility from many of them. As a prey animal, His instinct is always to leave others to their affairs and focus on the survival of Himself and His followers. However, there are known instances of Him approaching other deities for help when it seems such cooperation will be necessary to protect those Brambleson cares for.
Like all unsanctioned deities from before the Eight arose, Brambleson is decried as a false deity by the churches of the Eight, which He evidently does not appreciate. For His part, Brambleson seems to view the Eight mostly as inexperienced and irresponsible, and dangerously powerful at best, actively predatory at worst.
Philosophically He is aligned with the Beggar Man and the Sailor in his love of freedom and play, and does seem to perhaps have somewhat a softer view on those deities than on the more actively predatory likes of the Soldier, the Rich Man or the Thief. His love of pretty things is also shared with the Tailor, but they differ severely in their tastes, with the Tailor seemingly unable to see any beauty in creations that predate His own, which Brambleson obviously resents.
Brambleson shares many values with his close neighbour in the sky, Tybalt, the Prince of Orphans, as both are whimsical Chaotic Good princely figures committed to the protection of their respective subjects. Tybalt, however, was originally a deity of the Catfolk, and so They have the boldness, boisterousness and cunning of a predator animal which Brambleson’s prey instincts drive Him to avoid in spite of their shared values. Tybalt, for Their part, finds Brambleson flighty and reclusive, and a little old fashioned – where Tybalt lives and cares for Their charges in a stationary tree-fort of Their own design, Brambleson has no fixed abode and sees no need to design a house for Himself, preferring to be always on the move throughout the Briarpatch and rely on its natural resources rather than any artificial creations of His own.
Much less is known about Brambleson’s relationship, if any, with the third of the celestial Princes: the Prince in Saffron, He-That-Walks-Beyond-The-Wall. If Brambleson even knows anything at all of that eldritch, wandering fellow Prince, it is likely that He finds the Prince in Saffron’s vibe threatening enough to keep His distance.
Brambleson has an ancient enmity with his exact opposite number in the sky – Worgoth, the Wolf at the Door. The two draw on opposite extremes of the animal kingdom. Brambleson represents survival and subsistence through cooperation, mutual protection, wariness and flightiness, while Worgoth represents survival and subsistence through desperate struggle, predation and dog-eat-dog aggression. Brambleson represents the kind and helpful side of luck and fortune, while Worgoth represents the cruel callousness of random chance. Brambleson represents nature as a cradle, a source of beauty and provision and protection, while Worgoth represents nature red in tooth and claw. Perhaps most simplistically, Brambleson is a rabbit, and Worgoth is a wolf. Brambleson fears Worgoth as He fears no other deity, and despises the cruelties It visits upon even Its own followers, while Worgoth, for Its own part, views the Prince of Rabbits as a weak, pampered and spoiled aristocrat well overdue for some true suffering. The Gnolls that follow Worgoth particularly relish any opportunity to capture a Bunbun.
Panopticon, the Eyes and Arms, has a surprisingly cordial relationship with the Rabbit Prince, considering the latter’s chaotic sensibilities and the former’s usual commitment to containing that which It-and-They do not approve of. In fairness, the Eyes and Arms has a strict code against killing (preferring to lock up and seal away Its-and-Their various enemies), and so is one of the few other deities that definitively is not, at least in the traditional sense, a predator. Perhaps it is this, along with their shared interest in the value of protection, that led Brambleson to consider Panopticon one of the deities most worth approaching when He committed Himself to trying to stop the next apocalypse.
It is known that Brambleson is at least aware of Conscript Hodge, the Walking Wounded, and even has memories of Her lost pantheon – however, those memories are mostly of hiding from them. As a rabbit, Brambleson is understandably reluctant to approach anyone who carries a gun.
The Terrier Beneath the Sands is, in many ways, the deity with the most direct relationship with Brambleson, in that It has seemingly marked Brambleson as its designated prey and dedicated Its existence to hunting Him. Brambleson, however, while He does acknowledge the danger of the Terrier, does not seem to have had cause to dedicate very much effort towards staying ahead of It.
Providence
Brambleson’s star, like all the celestial bodies of Palimpsest, exerts a sort of astrological gravitational influence on forms of magic that align with His areas of concern. Spells and rituals to do with plants, or with being fleet-footed and alert, are particularly potent in areas where Brambleson’s astrological influence is stronger than that of any opposing stars, or during periods when Brambleson’s star is particularly bright.
The growth of brambles and other thorny plants is often considered an indicator of the presence of Brambleson. If the plants are particularly thorny, it is considered a warning of trouble ahead, while those with more berries are considered a sign of encouragement, and those with flowers are considered a sign of approval.
Servants
Brambleson is not alone in the Briarpatch, and is said to have several playmates or princely subjects even beyond the Bunbun whose souls He shepherds.
Brambleson’s primary race of Divine Servitors are known as Briarpatch Wolpertingers. These celestial beings have two forms, both of which have barklike skin which naturally grows a coat of thorns like fur, often with highlights of flowers or brambleberries. Their default form otherwise resembles a mundane wolpertinger as can be found on the Material Plane, but for the purposes of interacting with mortals more easily they can also assume a form that resembles a Bunbun with the addition of wings, antlers, hooved hindlegs, wolflike teeth and a squirrely tail.
Mundane wolpertingers are also sometimes viewed as heralds of Brambleson, and it is said that Celestial wolpertingers, along with Celestial rabbits and Celestial hares, can be found populating the Briarpatch.
Pookas are an interesting case, as they share Brambleson’s rabbitlike features and trickster magic but are not usually known to serve Him directly, being more independent and freewheeling. Pookas who have been convinced to speak on the matter have confirmed that they do have some connection to the Briarpatch, and speak of its resident deity, whom they call “Uncle Bram”, as if He were something of an older relative whom it amuses them to play tricks on but whom they nonetheless ultimately view with some measure of respect. For His part, Brambleson seems to at least tolerate the presence of Pookas in the Briarpatch and among his followers on the Material Plane, exasperated as He may be by their antics.
The magic of the Briarpatch seeping into the Material Plane has also been known to produce Leshies, who often revere Brambleson, the “First Child of the Briarpatch”, as their natural leader, and seek to serve Him in their horticultural pursuits.
Church of Brambleson
The Bramble Church controls the Bunbun Warren in the underground depths of the city of Palimpsest as an insular theocracy, separated and protected from the outside world by a surrounding thicket of brambles known as the Tangle. The Church’s authority derives largely from their ability to sustain the Tangle deep underground, using their divine magic to provide the necessary light and water for the plants to thrive, and thereby providing the Warren with protection as well as a food supply.
Every evening, the Bunbun of the Warren are gathered in silence for a communal meal, during which a member of one of the three holy orders of the Bramble Church will deliver a sermon in Earspeak, the silent, ear-based sign language of the Bunbun. The word for ‘preacher’ in Brambleite churches is literally ‘Twitcher’, in reference to the twitching of their ears as they deliver these silent lessons. During this time, vocal speech is not permitted, but the congregation are permitted to converse in Earspeak themselves, and the church is thereby able to watch their conversations and monitor the concerns of its people.
Notably, this leaves lop-eared Bunbun, who cannot speak Earspeak, systematically ostracised, unable to contribute to these evening community meetings and unable to serve as Twitchers.
Temples and Shrines
Brambleson is so rarely worshipped outside of the Warren that no formal temples to Him exist there, and Brambleites outside of the Warren tend to create makeshift shrines for themselves out of bramble branches.
In the Warren, the Bramble Church maintains a single vast, multi-level central temple of shaped wood and earth decorated with bramble plants, located in the middle of the settlement for the purposes of their nightly sermons. This structure is centred around the dining hall where the communal meals are held, which is then attached by twisting tunnels to the respective headquarters of the three holy orders.
Clergy
Interestingly, despite their deity being male, the Brambleite religion is a matriarchy, as Bunbun culture places a great deal of value on procreation and birthgiving. The Bramble Matriarch, currently Easter Lindt, is the head of both Bramble Church and Warren, at once a queen, a religious leader, and the symbolic mother of every Bunbun within the warren. Traditionally the Bramble Matriarch is expected to have no more biological children once she ascends to the role, to better allow her to care for her entire warren of symbolic children.
The Matriarch most often chooses her own heir when she is old, guided – supposedly – by visions from Brambleson. Most of the time, the Matriarch will be Brambleson’s Oracle on the Material Plane, and when she dies her Oracular gift will miraculously pass to her chosen heir. On some occasions – including, as it happens, at present – Brambleson will instead empower a different Bunbun as Oracle, usually because He has some task He requires of them which the established church is not positioned – or not trusted – to adequately carry out.
Under the Bramble Matriarch, the church is split into three holy orders, each representing one of the three core tenets of the religion – “Protected by Thorns, Providing through Berries, Pretty as Roses”. Each of these orders is headed by a figure called a Brer, with the three Brers considered symbolically the “elder brothers” of the Warren just as the Matriarch is their mother. Brers are forbidden from marrying or procreating, as they are expected to dedicate their lives wholly to the order – as such, it is tradition for the eldest nephew of a Brer to be his heir and the one to take over as Brer when the old Brer dies.
The Brambleknights of the Briar are the first of the three holy orders, and serve as the protectors of the faith and the border guards of the Warren. They are currently headed by Brer Bigwig Briar, a tall, scarred, lop-eared hare-blooded Bunbun who commands several Chevaliers who, in turn, command the rank-and-file Knights. They embody the principle of protection, and contain most of the church’s Paladins and its few Warpriests, along with many Fighters, Swashbucklers and combat-focused clergy.
The Tangle Tenders of the Berry are the second order, whose job is to maintain the Tangle and handle the Warren’s food supply. They are currently headed by the elderly Brer Dependability Berryld, an expert navigator and gardener (assisted by his Bramble Leshy familiar Jamtop), who instructs several Cultivators who in turn instruct the rank-and-file Tenders. They embody the principle of provision, and contain most of the church’s Druids and Rangers, as well as the more agriculturally inclined clergy.
The Petal Archive of the Rose is the third order, and serves as the centre of culture and learning for the Warren – part library, part art gallery, part schoolhouse. They are currently headed by the clerical young Brer Petallion Rosa, who governs several Curators who in turn govern the rank-and-file Archivists. They embody the principle of prettiness, and contain most of the church’s Bards and more scholarly or artistically inclined clergy.
Clergy of all three orders who are able to speak Earspeak also serve as Twitchers for the Warren’s nightly sermons.
Outside of the Warren, Brambleson-worship is rare enough that essentially no clergy can be found, although some Bunbun who do venture further afield for whatever reason have been known to take it upon themselves to spread the word of Brambleson amongst their friends and allies.
Holy Texts
The principle holy text of Brambleson is a collection of stories known as Passages Through the Briarpatch. These various collected tales about Brambleson and his devoted followers across history, mostly quite twee in tone, together paint a picture of how – in the opinion of the Bunbun – to best live in a way that will please Brambleson and ensure that one’s soul reaches the Briarpatch upon death.
It has been noted by some critics that the entrenched orthodoxy of the Bramble Church – and even some of the very texts collected in Passages Through the Briarpatch – seems to assume that the passages collected in this book are the only routes by which a follower might reach the Briarpatch, but this assumption is never actually stated as fact within the text itself.
Holidays
Twice a year, when the Wandering Moon is closest to Brambleson’s star (at the mid-points of Sailormoon and Beggarmoon), Brambleites observe the food festival of Berryfest, which celebrates the end of the brambleberry harvest.
The festival lasts for two nights. Food, most of it brambleberry-based, is prepared on the first night and served on the second. The centrepiece of any family’s Berryfest feast is traditionally a brambleberry tart, the sacred foodstuff of Brambleson, with each Bunbun family having their own family recipe, traditionally handed down the maternal line. The sacred drink of mulled berry wine (or “mull’berry wine” as the Bunbun often confusingly call it) is also traditionally plentiful at a Berryfest feast. This drink is very mildly alcoholic, to an extent that would not be noticeable for most creatures but is just potent enough to affect a Bunbun.
During Berryfest, music is played and carols are sung, making it the only night of the year when the evening meal is not held in silence. In fact, it is the only time of year where vocal speech at the dinner table is permitted by the Church.
Sacred Animals and Plants
Rabbits, of course, are the sacred animal of the Prince of Rabbits – although this is often expanded to include other lagomorphs such as hares and wolpertingers.
Just as obviously, His sacred plant is, of course, the bramble bush.
The Court of Ranternal Affairs 