Rays

The Rays are a subset of the Ocean's Friends, a group of mostly Tideriders who have carried on an alternate form of Ocean worship over the past thousand years. The name of the group comes from their role in their primary ritual. From different directions the Rays converge upon the focus, an object chosen to represent what they believe to be distorted thoughts and attitudes detrimental to a positive relationship with the ocean.

Culture

Like the rest of the Ocean's Friends, the Rays believe that the ocean is alive and longing for companionship. Beyond that, they believe that non-Friends who treat the ocean as inanimate or rely on superstition to appease it are creating barriers to that companionship. For the Rays, this makes it worth the effort it takes to track down the focus and symbolically dispose of such thinking.

Membership

The requirements aren't onerous, but they rarely align. To be a Ray, a sailor must have enough good esteem to be allowed to borrow one of the family fleet's auxiliary boats, and little enough work to do to be spared from duty for up to a quartermonth. For this reason Rays are more often men, because most Tiderider women have a greater responsibility to their bloodline and are expected not to leave the fleet except on family business.

Public Agenda

The Rays' objective is to find the designated focus, which is guarded by the Focus Holder. All Friends participate in the hunt by making inquiries and gathering information whenever they meet another boat or stop in port, but it is specifically the Rays who go searching. When they are certain they know who has the focus, they coordinate a meeting at a time and place they expect it to be. They confront the focus holder as a group and conduct the ceremony that ends the hunt.