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Tattooedpriestesses

The Tattooed Priestess (刺青ノ巫女 Shisei no Miko) is a woman who is chosen or volunteers to become a vessel for the pain and suffering of others, living and dead, in order to free them of their earthly attachments.




The Chosen Ones[]

Young women acquainted with significant pain and loss travel to the Kuze Shrine to volunteer for the position. They might be the victims of natural disasters, criminal loss, or other tragedies. Often, the women volunteer out of desperation (having no other means of supporting themselves) or desolation (they have lost the will to live) or a desire to ease the pain and suffering of others.

The women must not have any living relatives in order to be chosen as Priestesses, and travel to the shrine in a specialized Boat of Passing.

Reika Kuze, the last Tattooed Priestess, suffered the tremendous loss of her entire family and village in an avalanche, leading her to travel to the shrine and volunteer as a priestess.

Preparation[]

Once a maiden is chosen and adopted by the Kuze family, she concentrates all her emotions, pain, grief, sorrow and love into a mirror which is called 'The Mirror Of Loss'. She continues to use this form of meditation between tattoo sessions, to enable her to contain the pain she feels and control it.

Main Rituals[]

The Piercing of the Soul[]

Held during the winter months. The Piercing of the Soul is the main purpose for the Tattooed Priestesses. The blind Engravers pierce their own arms with the tattoo needles and gather Ink of the Soul from both corpses and living worshipers. The Engravers then use this ink to tattoo the Priestess with the Snake & Holly Tattoo pattern, inscribing the pain and loss of the living and the dead onto her skin, allowing her to become its vessel and freeing the living and the dead from their attachments, enabling them to move on. The Engravers are able to reach into the Rift to view the pain of the dead in the form of dreams. This ritual is repeated over time as mourners visit them temple during the winter, until the Priestess can bear no more pain, and has no more room left on her skin. When a priestess reaches her limit, she is ready to undergo the Rite of Commandment, and then be sent to the Other Side.

The Rite of Commandment[]

The Priestess must meditate with her Mirror of Loss in order for her to separate herself from her emotions and earthly ties. She forsakes her emotions and becomes completely cleansed via shattering the Mirror at the end of the Rite. Now freed of her own earthly ties, she is an empty vessel capable of carrying the emotional burden of others.

Impalement Ritual[]

The priestess is then lead to the Chamber of Thorns, which would be her final resting place. The Handmaidens sing a lullaby to the priestess as the impale her to keep her down, so she may never wake from her slumber.

Failures and Dangers[]

Care must be taken that a Tattooed Priestess is not engraved with more pain and suffering than she is capable of bearing. If a Priestess is pushed far past her limits, there is the danger that the Snake and Holly tattoos will reach her eyes. Should this happen, the maiden's eyes become Mirrors, and anyone who sees them will have the full weight of the pain she bears unleashed upon them and become contaminated and/or insane as they are drawn into the Rift, the dream-world barrier between the living and the dead. This disaster is called The Unleashing.

If a Tattooed priestess seems in danger of succumbing to pain and remorse, or there are fears the Impalement Ritual will be unable to hold her, The Tearing ritual is performed. The Tattooed Priestess is stripped of her sacred tattoos by being skinned. The body is sent to the Other Side in a boat while her skin is enshrined in the Tattoo Altar. The handmaidens sing their lullaby to the enshrined skin so that the pain of the tattoo may not leave the skin.

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