Speed is the god of, yes, speed. From birth he was moving too fast to hear the real name he was given, and so god's name became the first mystery. Speed's dominion is not merely haste, but also insight, surprise, and mystery. They are a kind of wise trickster endowed with unreliable genius and a soaring spirit that cannot be tamed. Their tales demonstrate how he has more wit than sense, but his flashes of insight and resourcefulness always prevail.
"Still waters run deep."
- Mashaya proverb
The Alsuriean Solar Schism has lately given rise to two main sub-faiths: The Mashaya traditionally hold that god is embodied by the Alsuriea Nahr (Speed's River). In the Krokesteppe, Altonians vehemently believe the god of speed is the recently discovered second, smaller sun which gives rise to the steps of the sun. These schools of theological thought are most often called the Alsuriean (or potamic) and Altonian (or solar) sects. The potamics claim the solars are at best fools, and more likely liars who created the schism in order to consolidate the authority of their church to within their borders. Altonians are sure they have discovered the truth, and are sad to leave behind any who are too stubborn to look their god in the face. What is interesting is that Mashaya theologians used to commonly assert that Speed is a solar deity coequal with Karna, millennia ago. That line of thinking was quashed some time after the establishment of The Mashayan Dominion. Only in the last three centuries, the export of specialty tinted glass lenses allowed for others to make observations that confirmed the presence of a second sun.
Speed has two offspring in the common mythos (irrespective of schisms). Tarkus of the Hunt, and a daughter whose name is known only to witches. Children are warned not to speak of the Lady Chartreuse, for she can hear every ill spoken against her. These are possibly syncretisms of early tribal steppe belief, and both gods are associated with a red planet and a green one that share their appellations. Tarkus of the Hunt is a celestial body visible almost every new moon, and Lady Chartreuse has an infrequent orbit hotly debated by astronomers.
Though Speed worship has existed in other forms for thousands of years in various forms, 268 years ago astronomers discovered that the sun, widely accepted as the physical presence of Karna, was orbited by a second, much smaller sun so close that the naked eye cannot see it. The calendar currently most followed in the continent (The Rectified Procession) was created by the Cult of Karna starting at the year of this discovery in order to frame this discovery in the proper solar context and in light of The Reign of Eld and its special relationship with the divine. The Pendragon's Royal Court has its own set of bicameral theologians known as The Illuminated Seers of Alsur. They frame both solar deities (though not the potamic) as two parts of a larger whole.