Back when I was posting on Grigbertz forum I laid out my own made up Pagan religion. I’m cutting and pasting a summery of it. Mostly because there’s a couple of stories I’d like to transcribe that reference this. Forgive the rough quality:

“Here I’ll try to summarize the Amara religion as best I can. Please keep in mind that it was never intended to be consistent or make sense. It started as a fantasy way to get around the fact that if a person is tied up in the real world and left that way for a long time it stops being fun for the captive even if they started out enjoying it. Muscle cramps, chafing, thirst, hunger, boredom, the need to constantly tended to, and the need to go the bathroom all limit the amount of time and the range of positions that real captives can pleasurably enjoy. Of course the idea of having sex constantly for hours or days on end is just as absurd as the idea of being left alone strenuously tied up pleasurably for a week constantly.

Having constant back pain myself also makes me accutely aware of the aweful pain overly prolonged restraint might cause. Since I want my captives to be happy no matter how long they are tied up or how strenuously, the idea of a class of mages/clerics that gain there power from shoeless restraint and don’t feel pain (unless it’s a good kind of pain) when they are tied up no matter what. I was reading Dennis Cramer’s “Mara” comics at the time, and was loving his drawings of his heroine. I had also encountered the name Amara in another comic book and liked it’s sound and that it meant in Greek, “of eternal beauty”.

This bounced around in my brain and became the idea of a submissive barefoot Pagan Goddess of Love that drew her strength and power from her restraint, and from the pleasure of every woman who got tied up barefoot and liked it, whether they worshiped her or not. Every female worshiper of Amara prays and worships by getting tied up while barefoot. Amara worshipers cannot be harmed in any way while restrained and barefoot. Not even by atom bombs, black holes, or British soccer games. They have no need to eat, breath, drink, or use a restroom. They do not get sick or age. They do not feel pain or discomfort while bound. They don’t get muscle cramps, and they are not hurt by excessively tight or harsh restraints including manacles and zip ties (circles of hard plastic that can be tightened, but not widened without releasing some kind of catch on it). They can also be suspended in ways that would hurt a non-Amara. They can be tickled though.

Amara priestesses have the same invulnerability and comfort while being tied up as all female worshipers, but they can also channel their arousal and love and gratitude into beneficial magic.Conceivably an Amara priestess can wield any kind of magic, but it is allways benificial. For the community this is usually healing and abundance (healthy crops, good luck) magic, sometimes protection.

Amarans can also use their magic to tie themselves up, although familiars and magic items can do this for them too. The one thing Amarans cannot do is untie themselves with magic. This would negate the source of their power. Particularly since Amaran priestesses need to be genuinely helpless to work their magic. If they could magical untie themselves they would not be genuinely helpless, and would have no magic power to begin with. Amara’s also cannot free other Amara’s magical for the same reason. If an Amara priestess forgets to specify when she is to be released while magical binding herself she will have to wait until freed by another or until a default amount of time passes (usually a week to a month).

In fantastic realms where Amara is openly worshiped she is honored with temples where female worshipers and priestesses both can enjoy blissfull restraint. The benevolent energy built up in the temple is radiated outward to bless the city/town. There is allways at least one captive priestess at the temple at all times. Often priestesses and worshipers will spend time tied up in public places scattered around the city/town, like market places, or parks. Publicly restrained ladies are all ways treated with deference and respect. Amara priestesses can also walk through or around the perimeter of a city with her hand bound behind her and a cord or chain linking her ankles and shortening her step. Nomadic Amaras will often set up one to four smooth stakes in the center of camp for the priestesses and female worshipers.

In non magical realms where Amara is not known she has no worshipers, but sometimes will have priestesses operating alone or in small covens. These Amara’s worship by themselves and among their own. They use their healing and luc magic subtly when they can to help someone. These Amarans also try to promote barefoot restraint as a beautifully experience among their friends whenthey can. Many become bondage models for artistic photographers. Actresses who are Amarans try to work loving restraint into their movies, and Amaran authors work the same into their books, and so forth.

Amaran covens will gather to tie each other up in different ways. Sometimes they role-play. Sometimes they play a card game where the loser (or winner) gets tied up, and then a spinner or dice decide the position, restraining materials (rope, scarves, tape, etc.), and the type of gag to be worn. Nobody is untied untill daybreak the next day. All Amaran priestesses have a familiar. The familiars main job is to make sure the priestess spends enough time tied up. How much time is “enough” is up to the familiar.Some familiars communicate with their mistresses, and set up a schedule. Other rascally familiars just tie up their Priestesses any old time they feel like it. Familiars also tend to things that the priestess cannot tend to because of her restraint like chores and schoolwork. Familiars are particularly assertive in keeping their mistresses tied up a lot in non magical realms where there is no cultural support for their restraint. Some even tie up their mistresses in public places like on the bus or at the movies, and cast a spell to cause other people to not notice or think nothing of a tied up lady in a restaurant.

Most familiars are invisible, but can look like anything, usually something cute.

Amaran priestesses also can travel (sometimes at will, sometimes not) to dream realms and other dimensions where they can experience weeks, years, decades,or even centuries tied up in a fantastic setting, and then return unaged to where they left without a second having passed (I don’t want to leave anyones family to be heartbroken because a lady disappears and doesn’t come back for 200 years).

The dream realms are primarily a way to pluck a character from one setting. to another. One thing I like to do is have a woman wake upeach day in a new place (maybe another planet) wearing different clothes, and tied up in a different way. She could go from being tied up on her bed in her underwear one day, to being chained to a rock nude the next, and end up dressed like a belly dancer tied up in a middle eastern harem the next, then in a fancy dress in a victorian bedroom, and then onto a pirate ship (ships with Amarans tied to the masts never sink).”