Saintly Saturday: Icon of the Mother of God of Cyprus

The first Sunday of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church is called The Triumph of Orthodoxy. On this day, the Orthodox Church celebrates the restoration of the icons to the Churches after Iconoclasm. [For those interested, I have written about this in another Saintly Saturday post]. In the liturgical texts of the following week, according to the Greek textual tradition, there is a story about an icon of the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary) in Cyprus. The style of this icon depicts the Theotokos sitting on a thrown with the Christ child on her lap with angels on either side. Today marks one of the days that this icon is commemorated.

According to the Greek Synaxarion, this icon adorned the gates of a Church dedicated to the Theotokos. A certain Arab was passing by and he decided to demonstrate his disdain and hatred of Christianity. So, he shot an arrow into the icon. The arrow struck the Virgin's knee, which immediately began to bleed. Overcome by fear, the Arab tried to flee for his home, but dropped dead before he got there.

This is not a unique phenomenon. Bleeding icons can be found all over the world. In fact, I have seen one myself. It reinforces the theological understanding of icons — through the grace of the Holy Spirit, icons manifest the personal presence of Christ and His saints.

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Bleeding Icons

These rare objects were once normal religious icons — simply paint on wood — positioned by the faithful in a place where the saint depicted might be a guardian. Many were at one time on gates, doors or over some kind of entrance. The story usually unfolds that during an attack, one of the invaders strikes the icon with a weapon as if to attack the person depicted in the icon. It then starts to bleed and the invaders run away in fear.

A Bleeding Icon has the ability to affect one of the following types of monsters:

1 Berserkers
2 Brigands
3 Bugbears
4 Dwarves (including Gnomes & Grey Dwarves)
5 Elves (including Drow)
6 Gnolls
7-8 Goblins
9-10 Hobgoblins
11 Kobolds
12 Lizardfolk
13 Locathahs
14 Morlocks
15-16 Orcs
17 Ogres
18 Pirates
19 Sahuagin
20 Troglodytes

The character wielding the Bleeding Icon has the ability to Turn this type of monster as a cleric of the same level Turns Undead. A result of 'D' on the Turn table indicates that the target dies of fright.

Saintly Saturday: St. Theophanes the Confessor

St. Theophanes the Confessor was an 8th-9th century monk who had once been married and been an imperial bodyguard. He died on the island of Samothrace. The title Confessor is given to saints who are imprisoned, tortured and/or sent into exile for the faith but are not martyred. St. Theophanes earned this title because he was exiled to Samothrace by the emperor Leo the Armenian.

The issue that caused this exile might seem trivial and strange — icons.

St. Theophanes was one of the defenders of the use of iconography by the Church. Leo the Armenian was an iconoclast (literally, a breaker of the icons). It is kind of amazing to think that a piece of wood with a painting on it could cause a bloody conflict that would last from 730 to 843.

The reason that iconoclasm became such a large controversy was because it became an issue over the nature of Christ. The iconoclasts not only argued that icons were idols and therefore banned according to the 10 commandments, but that mere wood and paint were not worthy of depicting the beauty, holiness and glory of Christ and His saints.

The iconodules (literally, lovers of icons) argued that if creation, in the form of wood and paint, were evil enough that they were incapable of depicting Christ and His saints, then it follows that iconoclasm calls into question the incarnation of Christ. By refusing the ability of Christians to depict the reality of God Incarnate who walked the earth, interacted with His creation, ate, drank and was touched, heard, and seen because wood and paint are not worthy of His image, they imply that the humanity — which is as much part of creation as wood and paint — is also not worthy of being united with Christ. If we cannot depict Christ, we cannot definitively defend the incarnation.

The first Sunday of Lent in the Orthodox Church is the celebration of the return of the icons to the Churches. On this day the Gospel Reading is from the end of the first chapter of John. The last verse (51) is actually a difficult thing to translate. Usually, it is translated thusly:

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Here is a more literal translation:

Truly, truly I say to you: you will see heaven — the one that has opened — and the angels of God — the ones ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

Note the subtle difference in tense. Nathaniel cannot see what already is, but with faith he will. For Orthodox Christians, icons are one of the means by which we see what already is.

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Miracle Working Icons

These items appear to be normal paintings on wood varying in size from about an inch a side to a couple of feet a side; however, when used in prayer to ask the saint depicted for intercession, the icons will reveal their miraculous nature. There are several types, roll a d12:

1-3 Myrrh flowing. These icons will produce a flow of myrrh. When used to anoint the wounded, this myrrh will function in the same manner as a staff of healing.
4-6 Protection. These icons produce the effect of a Protection from Evil 10r. spell.
7-9 Healing. Once per day, these icons can produce the effect of a Cure Disease spell.
10-11 Prophesying. These icons will prophesy for the faithful. Once per day they can be asked a yes or no question with the same results as if an Augury spell had been cast.
12 Spell Casting. These icons will allow the user to cast Cleric spells. These spells are determined randomly: 1d3 spells per day. Each spell will be of 1d3 levels.

Saintly Saturday: St. Sebastian

Today is the Feast of St. Sebastian and those who were martyred with him. Until I started looking into writing this post, I had no idea that I was already familiar with St. Sebastian. I wouldn't be surprised if most people were like me because St. Sebastian is the subject of dozens if not hundreds of paintings and homages. For example:

Yeah, he's that guy who was shot by arrows. Ironically, the arrows didn't kill him — those were healed by St. Irene. Eventually he was clubbed to death.

St. Sebastian is a military saint. He served as a captain of the Praetorian Guard under Diocletian and Maximian. When Diocletian realized he was a Christian, he had him bound to a stake and riddled with arrows. After being left for dead and healed by Irene, he went on to publicly berate the Emperor. He was rewarded for his effort with martyrdom.

Given my relationship with St. Sebastian through art, my own background as a graphic designer and Mr. Raggi's recent rant about art, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on what I feel is an essential part of the hobby: art.

The visual medium is extremely powerful. Note how the very early drawings of monsters have affected the way they have been perceived within our hobby for decades afterwards. In my own case, the Japanese/Asia flavored Hobgoblins in MMI had a profound influence on the way the I perceived the culture, behavior and background of these humanoids in my games.

This power can be both positive and negative. For example, take the painting of St. Sebastian above. As a child I found it grotesque and shocking (I still do — especially when compared to this). Instead of leading me toward God and His saints, it became a false friend that led me down a deep dark hole away from the Church.

This view-point stems from an Orthodox theology of beauty. We do not just pray and worship with our mouths and our minds. We worship with our whole being — including the eyes. Beauty becomes a means of prayer. This is why Orthodox Christianity has such a rich tradition of iconography — these beautiful paintings are part of our prayer life.

To put it in mundane terms, the purpose of art is to inspire, not to shock or titillate. Indeed, those things that do shock and titillate often act like a drug — what shocks and titillates today won't tomorrow or the next day. As time progresses, in order to shock or titillate we must seek out ever more grotesque and ever more depraved images. They lead us down dark and nasty holes.

To put it in context of RPGs, take a look at the comments for this question posed by James over at Grognardia. Note how overwhelmingly people point to such things as this when they think of D&D:

This, despite the plethora of grotesque and titillating images that have been with the hobby since its beginning.

Please note: I am not saying that Mr. Raggi (or anyone else, for that matter) shouldn't be allowed to illustrate their gaming material with the grotesque and risqué. Indeed, I would argue that we are capable of using anything for good — it just so happens that some things are much harder to use in this manner than others. I would much rather have an axe than a sword if I were building a house, for example.

I am saying that art that inspires (like all the covers people pointed to in response to James' post) will have a much longer lasting and positive affect upon our hobby and those who play it than the grotesque and risqué.