The chief god of Viridia Segunda’s native Greenlings, Barometz was the patron of shepherds, agriculture and civilization, and according to myth was the first to domesticate the planet’s vast (and now feral) herds of sheep, toothflower, wolfvine, and meatblossom. Barometz was traditionally depicted as a giant with the head of a lamb, the roots of a tree, and the body of a many-tentacled creature of uncertain origin. Comparative xenomythology instructs us that the lamb-tree combination symbolizes the union of plant and animal central to Greenling culture. The tentacles are presumably a touch of whimsy.

Most of the rites of the Barometz cult have been lost with the last of its priests, but we remain aware of the annual Feast of Sample, in which Greenling elders collected minute sacrifices of sap and leaf from mature citizens and deposited them in sterile ceremonial flasks for eventual collection by the god. This practice continued well into the human settlement period, with human converts offering donations of blood and skin cells to the deity.

These converts eventually provoked the ire of the Arcturian Church, which had been losing worshipers in the wake of another rocketball-rigging scandal. Executive Prophet and CFO Emmanuel Grippe petitioned the Parliament of Worlds to expel the Greenlings from Viridia Segunda, arguing that the natives represented a spiritual threat to the integrity of their colonizers. Parliament agreed, elaborating that if Greenlings lacked the spiritual maturity to exploit their planet’s vast mineral wealth, they should make way for a population enlightened enough to do so.

Barometz worship was just one of many casualties of the ensuing conflict. Today the Sheeptree God survives mainly on the t-shirts of a handful of Greenling rights activists and in the etchings that cover the few remaining forest colossi.

—Recorder 3000-21