Ioun

Ioun is the god of knowledge, skill, and prophecy. Sages, seers, and tacticians revere her, as do all who live by their knowledge and mental power. Corellon is the patron of arcane magic, but Ioun is the patron of its study. Libraries and wizard academies are built in her name. Her commands are also teachings.

Dogma
 Ioun is a curious deity by the standards of the divine. She prefer to communicate to her followers through prophecy and almost never issues commands. Instead, she expects her followers to act independently and on their own reasoning and judgment. It is said that Ioun is often pleased should her clergy accomplish their tasks in ways she did not expect.


 * Seek the perfection of your mind by bringing reason, perception, and emotion into balance with one another.
 * Accumulate, preserve, and distribute knowledge in all forms. Pursue education, build libraries, and seek out lost and ancient lore.
 * Be watchful at all times for the followers of Vecna, who seek to control knowledge and keep secrets. Oppose their schemes, unmask their secrets, and blind them with the light of truth and reason.

Rituals
If the church of Ioun can be said to be a university, its Clerics can be said to be its professors. Clerics are the most likely of Ioun's servants to engage in original research alongside those Wizards who worship the goddess, and they take the role of proselytizers and teachers within the clergy as well as its most learned healers. Clerics are usually called upon to run sponsored schools and libraries and to liase with leaders and other faiths, and tend to be the most politically involved of the orders. They are trusted to be the keepers of the faith, able to go into the world and survive its rigors as better people.

Although the clergy concerns itself with the theoretical more than the practical, it's most famous for its work on curing epidemics. New diseases attract healers of Ioun, eager to examine and if possible cure the new strain. The church doesn't maintain many healing houses, but those are always of the highest quality and brimming with the most brilliant minds in medicine.



Her divine commands are also teachings, but they are also the only hard and fast commandments that her servants must swear to uphold. All of her other pronouncements are designed to be interpreted by her followers, and they are thus called meditations. There are many meditations, but four in particular stand out in importance and each of the four arms of Ioun's church- The Avengers, Paladins, Clerics and the rare Invokers- identifies primarily with one meditation.



Meditations

 * The meditation of the Avenger is as follows; Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
 * The meditation of the Cleric reads; There is one truth; There is no truth.
 * The meditation of the Invoker is; There is no darkness.
 * The meditation of the Paladin; Knowledge is nothing without the knower.

Temples
Worshipers of Ioun have created temples in her name, most of which take the form of great libraries or places of study. The Bortala Academy was founded centuries ago by followers of Ioun and is today one of the greatest places to pursue knowledge.

Ioun's shrines are a common sight in larger cities and a popular destination for travelers as they proudly showcase, much like a museum, the artifacts and knowledge that Iounian followers have gathered from across the globe.

As the state sponsored religion of the Imperial Empire of Nazca, one can find many temples and shrines to Ioun, along with its largest temple in the known realm, within the capital city of Nazca.



Important Figures
Although a young religion compared to the Pelorians, Ioun has amassed a sizable amount of scholars, academics, and public figures to her fold that appreciate the faith's love and pursuit of knowledge.


 * Sybil Pagoli is one of the most well regarded historians of the world, chronicling the major events of the land as they happen.  Her writings have become so popular that Iounian temples across the world have taken to publicly posting copied scrolls for public viewing.
 * Penelope Apexus was enshrined as a saint within Nazca's Temple of Ioun for her attempts to pacify the gnoll raiders of Highport.  Well loved by the common folk, her death in 1166 was considered a monumental tragedy that gripped the popular consciousness.
 * Kelkra Corvax is the current headmistress of the Bortala Academy and has made it her mission to expand the practice of Ioun in the many races of the world, rather than keeping all knowledge within the hands of humans.
 * Paulo the Round was the first human to circumnavigate the Ibuth Steinum continent and charted one of the first maps of the known world.