Urchin Offering Altars

Down alleys and in the hidden spots of cities, you can find small altars or shrines with sacks, pots, and boxes of food, clothing, toys, and other goods. These are urchin offering altars, where goods are left not for the gods or exemplars or even tutelary spirits, but for their kin. Many of these altars start out as memorials to a lost urchin, with their family or burrow leaving dolls, toys and flowers at a spot where a fellow urchin died.

Though they often contribute to the idea that urchins are freeloaders and even thieves, the small altars littered across cities are an example of their generosity and caring for each other. When an urchin has had a good boon and has extra goods they and their family or even burrow do not need, they leave them at their offering altars with the intent that other urchins who are having a rough time can come and take what they need. For those that do not understand this anonymous gift-giving ritual, when they see an urchin taking from an altar they may come to the conclusion that the urchin is stealing - and the fact it is from a religious altar makes it even more shameful to them.

Urchins are one of the few people that honor all the gods: the Luminaeries and the Caelestine equally. They are not exceptionally pious people, they do not seem to have an organized religion, but they are spiritual and god-fearing people. Being so small, weather and the environment affects them even more than the big folk. Rather than scheduled ceremony and ritual, they seek to appease the gods regularly, and to them the best way to show it is to treat each others - at least other urchins - with kindness and compassion. They have small ritualistic gestures that are meant to show each god they are thinking of them at that time - a myriad of signals and tokens like throwing salt over the shoulder or tapping their spoon twice on the table before eating.

Denmother Eosta

Though they worship all the gods, they honor one in particular over the others: Eosta. The world of Eost itself and the element of earth are ruled by Eosta, the Earth-Queen. She is the provider: the mother, the cook, the nurse, the teacher. As the mother of mammals, she has domain over the rabbits and dogs they keep as domesticated animals.

Eosta, who the urchins call Denmother, is one of the four Caelestine, the gods of the four elements and the celestial body that manifests that element who include the elves’ patons Air-King Stel and Water-Queen Luna and the dwarven patron Fire-King Sol - they also honor Eosta. Each of the four Caelestine have dominion over many realms related to their element. Eosta’s minerals are stone, her plants are roots and fungi, her time is Dusk, her beasts are the mammals, and her storm aspect is ice: hail and snow.

Eosta, Goddess of earth, whom the urchins call Denmother.