Imperial Culture and Roles of the Temples
I'll probably think of a better, more holistic way to organise this in future but for arranging my thoughts it'll do.
By sheer size and resouces, the Empire has cultivators in the four digits, but even so they get spread a bit thin. Any single temple tends to have one grandmaster, two to five masters, a dozen acolytes, and a few score initiates who may never awaken their brí. Imperial orthodoxy holds that the Patters are emanations of the Gods, with a few priests in some of the temples quietly holding that the Gods are the apotheosis of the Patterns.
The High Temple of Tinnidhe is the most overtly martial temple but fulfills a number of vital civic duties. Chief among them is firefighting - yes, if a priest isn't around you can form a bucket chain or call for an acolyte of the Bitter Wind, but cultivator from the Tinndhe temple can just come and extinguish fires with their buanna. Temples are also built with high towers where a signal fire can be lit. Mostly the temple loans warpriests to elite military units on campaign but there's less call for that these days. The temple also hosts weekly Fire Sermons at the grand hearths where they employ buanna to boost the loyalty of the citizenry.
The High Temple of the Bitter Wind handles water purification, assists in fisheries and coastal rescues, and maintains cold rooms for storing municipal food supplies. Supplicants might come for counsel against hardships, and the martial adherents are deployed to quell unrest. Since there a schismatic tendency in the temple who sanctify suffering as the catalyst for revolution, this can backfire.
The High Temple of Cumadóir has always been key to imperial function. The priests regularly walk the roads, using buanna to maintain them and major civic buildings. They also bless rooms full of labourers to improve performance, and shape materials by hand for more important purposes. Imperial officers, aristocrats, and members of the Imperial Family receive weapons and armour of impossible quality from the priest-smiths of the temple.
The High Temple of Rionnach is a bit of an outlier. In civic terms, they read the weather, gently nudge weather patterns to favour imperial provinces, and if necessary are called into battle when it's necessary to say 'fuck that guy in particular' with a lightning strike. Because Rionnach is a deity of both sacrifice and oneness, they're probably the most charitable temple while also embezzling donations from nobility and merchants who need a quick display of piety.
The High Temple of Beathunach blesses fields and livestock, including the maintainance of the famed Imperial cattle. They cleanse disease and offer healing to the citizenry. As intermediaries between the empire and Danu--herself intermediary for Beathunach--they wield a lot of political influence, especially in the southern empire.
The High Temple of Críochán handles burials, exorcisms, banishing of undead, and some legal matters where possible. If they can call a ghost to testify to a murder or settle an inheritance dispute, they do. When an imperial detachment is facing especially hard odds, a priest of Críochán is dispatched to raise the dead to fight again. They've also adopted some techniques from the Abysswalker sect, allowing them to travel across the continent in seconds, which is often used for pressing matters of security and intelligence.
The High Temple of Uaillín are the visible inquisitors, scholars, and propagandists. Mostly they preach self-improvement and ambition, but their buanna are useful for uncovering falsehoods and providing inspiration - ironically, less effectively for themselves. They illuminate for others and have to do the hard work on their own.
The High Temple of Ceadach is quite austere and little visited except for a couple of major holidays. This suits the priesthood. Ceadach is King of the Gods, and the Emperor is his mortal proxy; you show as much piety through respect to the Emperor as to the god himself. Ceadach also governs the Pattern of Ebon Night, which has suspiciously little theological value to the Empire or the average citizen. Since the sitting Emperor is expected to be a cultivator of the Night, heirs spend some time studying here. Temple acolytes are the spies and assassins of the Empire, the Emperors own hidden hand.
The High Temple of Ordúnach apply and enforce the geasa of the Empire. They can read Fate, and thus manipulate it. They are the more subtle intelligence and control arm of the Empire - supplicants come for divinations and receive advice that benefits the empire.
The High Temple of Meanmach serve as diplomats where they can go undetected as cultivators, propagandists where they cannot. They tend to the mental wellbeing of citizenry while also probing their thoughts for sedition, manage various festivals and celebrations, and sponsor approved artists while producing a certain amount of pro-imperial art themselves.
The High Temple of Aimsireach & Fairsín, the twin gods of Space and Time, handles navigation and cartography, logistics and history. Their more powerful priests can bend spend to travel vast distances more safely than other methods, but can't carry much with them.
The Bán Fianna are not a Temple per se - they are a small, elite cadre of Imperial soldiers who cultivate the Diamond Soul. A demanding and rarely sought path of ego dissolution, with buanna that negate other buanna. As such they are called to face powerful cultivators who oppose the empire, where they can deprive them of their powers and best them through honed martial skill.
The true home of Diamond Soul cultivation is the Abbey of the Empty Heart high in the Fin mountain range; an order of ascetics removed from the concerns of the world.
