There is little notice of the Persian god in the Roman world until the beginning of the 2nd century, but, from the year 136 ce onward, there are hundreds of dedicatory inscriptions to Mithra. This renewal of interest is not easily explained. The most plausible hypothesis seems to be that Roman Mithraism was practically a new creation, wrought by a religious genius who may have lived as late as c. 100 ce and who gave the old traditional Persian ceremonies a new Platonic interpretation that enabled Mithraism to become acceptable to the Roman world. According to Boyce, the earliest literary references to the mysteries are by the Latin poet Statius, about 80CE, and Plutarch (c.100CE). [22] [ar] Statius [ edit ] Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments, and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire. [c] Do you worship the mighty Gods of Sun, Storm and War? Are you, perhaps, a follower of the Great Ancestor Spirits? Or is it that you shun the Gods and follow a more mystical path, seeking enlightenment and perfection? Maybe you prefer the dark and dire potency of sorcery! In Mythras your beliefs shape your magic and your destiny, and through them access to the cosmic powers of the Runes themselves. David Ulansey finds it important that Porphyry "confirms ... that astral conceptions played an important role in Mithraism." [9] (p 18) Mithras Liturgy [ edit ]

According to M.J. Vermaseren and C.C. vanEssen, the Mithraic New Year and the birthday of Mithras was on 25 December. [v] [w] Bringing these two sources together gives us Mythras, a game concerned with myths, protectors, oaths, great deeds and wonderful stories: the perfect name for our game system. One of the most characteristic and poorly-understood features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline (lion-headed) or leontocephalus (lion-head). According to the 4thcentury Historia Augusta, the emperor Commodus participated in its mysteries [127] but it never became one of the state cults. [bd]In Sanskrit, mitra is an unusual name of the sun god, mostly known as "Surya" or "Aditya", however. [18]

CIMRM [35]2268 is a broken base or altar from Novae/Steklen in Moesia Inferior, dated 100CE, showing Cautes and Cautopates. The first important expansion of the mysteries in the Empire seems to have occurred relatively rapidly late in the reign of Antoninus Pius and under Marcus Aurelius(9). By that date, it is clear, the mysteries were fully institutionalised and capable of relatively stereotyped self-reproduction through the medium of an agreed, and highly complex, symbolic system reduced in iconography and architecture to a readable set of 'signs'. Yet we have good reason to believe that the establishment of at least some of those signs is to be dated at least as early as the Flavian period or in the very earliest years of the second century. Beyond that we cannot go..." [125] (pp150–151)Mosaic with a sword, a moon crescent, Hesperos/Phosphoros and a pruning knife, 2nd century AD. These were the symbols of the 5th level of cult initiation. Another possible piece of evidence is offered by five terracotta plaques with a tauroctone, found in Crimea and taken into the records of Mithraic monuments by Cumont and Vermaseren. If they are Mithraic, they are certainly the oldest known representations of Mithras tauroctone; the somewhat varying dates given by Russian archaeologists will set the beginning of the 1stcenturyCE as a terminus ad quem, which is also said to have been confirmed by the stratigraphic conditions." [80] (p 14) I've seriously considered busting out all of the class abilities into xp costing things and effectively making it possible to freely and granularly multiclass between classes, and only drive rank with skills. Access to abilities would be driven by rank, but you could be rank 1 in a class and go to rank 2 without getting everything. This would support the healing, as one could have a "class" with a healing ability (spell or otherwise) with 50% in a few skills. Setup a new Token and link it to the character or drag the character to the table top to make a token that is already linked.

Only male names appear in surviving inscribed membership lists. Historians including Cumont and Richard Gordon have concluded that the cult was for men only. [ab] [ac] Mongo the Mighty (PC character) : Mongo smashed and the puny opponent failed to parry. I want to hurt the opponent - what options do I have. The religion and its followers faced persecution in the 4th century from Christianization, and Mithraism came to an end at some point between its last decade and the 5th century. Ulansey states that "Mithraism declined with the rise to power of Christianity, until the beginning of the fifth century, when Christianity became strong enough to exterminate by force rival religions such as Mithraism." [be] Beyond these three Mithraea [in Syria and Palestine], there are only a handful of objects from Syria that may be identified with Mithraism. Archaeological evidence of Mithraism in Syria is therefore in marked contrast to the abundance of Mithraea and materials that have been located in the rest of the Roman Empire. Both the frequency and the quality of Mithraic materials is greater in the rest of the empire. Even on the western frontier in Britain, archaeology has produced rich Mithraic materials, such as those found at Walbrook.For the most part, mithraea tend to be small, externally undistinguished, and cheaply constructed; the cult generally preferring to create a new centre rather than expand an existing one. The mithraeum represented the cave to which Mithras carried and then killed the bull; and where stone vaulting could not be afforded, the effect would be imitated with lath and plaster. They are commonly located close to springs or streams; fresh water appears to have been required for some Mithraic rituals, and a basin is often incorporated into the structure. [4] (p 73) There is usually a narthex or ante-chamber at the entrance, and often other ancillary rooms for storage and the preparation of food. The extant mithraea present us with actual physical remains of the architectural structures of the sacred spaces of the Mithraic cult. Mithraeum is a modern coinage and mithraists referred to their sacred structures as speleum or antrum (cave), crypta (underground hallway or corridor), fanum (sacred or holy place), or even templum (a temple or a sacred space). [aa] One of my current projects is converting Al-Qadim kits, magic, and monsters to Classic Fantasy. Now THAT's going to be a golden voyage! The most important Mithraic ceremony was the sacrifice of the bull. Opinion is divided as to whether this ceremony was pre-Zoroastrian or not. Zarathustra denounced the sacrifice of the bull, so it seems likely that the ceremony was a part of the old Iranian paganism. This inference is corroborated by an Indian text in which Mitra reluctantly participates in the sacrifice of a god named Soma, who often appears in the shape of a white bull or of the moon. On the Roman monuments, Mithra reluctantly sacrifices the white bull, who is then transformed into the moon. This detailed parallel seems to prove that the sacrifice must have been pre-Zoroastrian. Contract and sacrifice are connected, since treaties in ancient times were sanctioned by a common meal. Fatigue may be a less obvious option but "under the hood" it is just a value 0-9 with 9 being Fresh and 0 being Dead. So if you link the bar to fatigue and set the value to 8 it would make the character Winded.