Tsarainese Religion

The Orthodox Faith of Ruki Aestrakhor

Orthodox Rukines hold themselves to be followers of the one true faith, servants of the one true (and only) god, who is known as Ruki (It is important to note that an Orthodox Rukine will never refer to their god as simply "Ruki", preferring "Ruki Aestrakhor" or some longer name. Although the religious texts of the Faith often refer to Him as y Ruki, and this is translated into English as "the God", it is a mark of disrespect not to accord Him at least one of His titles).

Aestrakhor means Skylord, and as the name suggests, Ruki Aestrakhor resides in the heavens, possessing the common attributes of other similar gods; like Ba'al, He is responsible for bringing rain, and like Zeus (and many other ancient Mediterranean gods) he wields thunderbolts. His other titles include aseiravda ("allseeing"), y Vdakhor ("the Lord of All"), and y Vda'atar ("The Allfather"). He is referred to in common Orthodox Rukine prayers using all of these, as Ruki Aestrakhor aseiradva, y Vdakhor, y Vda'atar.

The Orthodox Faith possesses several canonical religious texts, these being the Origin of All Things, the Laws, the Tshreighan ("end-storm"), and several hundred Books of the Arkhaeroni, one being written by each Arkhaeron (head priest) of the Orthodox Faith. The Books are important as they provide a method by which the Law may be re-interpreted to cope with social and political change; while this is not the concious intent of their writers - the Books are intended to inform the lay-person as to how to live a life in accordance with the Law at the present time - it is certainly one of the major attributes which allowed the Orthodox Faith to survive the Revolution and the religious opression of the Commonwealth.

The Origin of All Things begins before the creation of the world;

"Before all else there was the God. The God knew all, and the God was all. And the heart of the God was blood. And the breath of the God was salt. And the mind of the God was fire. And all was silent, silent save the mind of God!"

In it we see Ruki Aestrakhor create the Earth from His blood, give it seas with His breath, and create life from the power of His mind. He then goes on to create the twelve Kash'ha, somewhat similar to Archangels, to oversee the Earth for Him; and for a long time he leaves them to do so.

The Kash'ha range from draconic in form, as is Meralkhar (the Deathbringer, associated with the planet Jupiter), to entirely humanoid, as is Arikhen (the Huntress, associated with the planet Mars); most of the twelve range somewhere in between, like Kalazimorchan (who is thought by scholars to be a later addition to the faith). The Kash'ha create the Kash'ea to serve them in turn.

All is well until Kalazimorchan goes bad, and, usurping the perogative of his creator, creates Humanity, fueling them with a spark of the mind of Ruki Aestrakhor Himself. The Kash'ea of his dominion become the Kshiarkh (Great Demons), who go on to create the Kshi (Lesser Demons).

There is war in Heaven and on Earth as Kalazimorchan and his servants, including humanity, fight the Kash'ha and Kash'ea, until the world is nearly destroyed. Finally Ruki Aestrakhor intervenes, tearing the wing-membranes from Kalazimorchan's arms and imprisoning him with the Kshiarkh in Kel Akarant, the Burning City. Humanity He redeems - for they are after all animated with a spark of the God Himself - and teaches the Law; but many, seduced by the Kshi, fall into worship of the Lesser Demons and abandon the Law. The Faithful are enjoined to bring them back to the Law or kill them.

The Law itself begins by repeating this enjoinder, and going on to enumerate the many aspects of a good Rukine, including but not limited to fidelity, humility towards one's father and one's lord, charity to one's servants, and obesciance to the God. In short, it outlines how a Rukine should live.

The Tshreighan describes the prophecied end of the world. Fallen humans shall free Kalazimorchan and the Kshiarkh from Kel Akarant, and the battle shall begin again. This time, the eleven loyal Kash'ha will be destroyed, as shall the world; but Ruki Aestrakhor himself is undefeatable, and shall consume Kalazimorchan utterly.

The Books of the Arkhaeroni are commentaries upon and reinterpretations of the Law; the most recent, State-sponsored one, written by the predecessor of the current Arkhaeron, stresses especially humility, charity, and obesciance, all qualities desired by the State; it is considered in some circles to be a fake.

In accordance with the Law, Orthodox Rukines worship Ruki Aestrakhor through prayer and sacrifice; usually salt, representing the breath of the God, is cast into braziers, representing His thought, but the more devout may offer their own blood (in limited amounts - Ruki Aestrakhor does not condone human sacrifice, and it is taboo to offer the blood of another under any circumstances) to the braziers.

The especially devout may tattoo themselves with images of the Kash'ha or passages from the religious texts, but this is currently frowned upon by the priestly hierarchy.

The priestly hierarchy goes Arkhaeron - Aeron - Aren - Esaren. The Arkhaeron is the definitive head of the Faith, the most holy (although he is not considered infallible). Aeroni are roughly equal to Christian Bishops, being a step below the Arkhaeron and carrying out many of the same duties. Areni are somewhat lower, and Esareni are the lowest rank of ordained priests, corresponding to Christian Vicars.

The Orthodox Rukines believe in reincarnation; the world, being created by Ruki Aestrakhor, is a fundamentally good place, and those humans who obey the Law return again for another round. The Fallen join Kalazimorchan in Kel Akarant to burn until the Tshreighan arrives.

Opinion is divided on non-humans; conservative thought considers them Kshi and unredeemable, while the more progressive elements of the faith believe them to possess a spark of the Divine as humanity does, and thus be capable of living in concordance with the Law. Artificial sentience, however, is entirely evil, and the State has angered many Orthodox Rukines by naming some of it's genetically modified human breeds - the Rukine Knights and the Ea after religious terms. The current Arkhaeron, Vrel Tlesafr, has yet to voice an opinion on non-humans, although most would place him firmly within the conservative camp.

The True Faith of Ruki Aestrakhor and Arizhtal Izhtalkhar

While the True Faith has it's roots, ultimately, in the earliest versions of the Orthodox Faith, it was substantially modified by contact with Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the Persian Empire, and imported into Tsaraine by the Ktrazirha invasion of 450 AC.

The main difference between the True and Orthodox Faiths can be boiled down to "every fire casts a shadow". In the True Faith, this is Arizhtal Izhtalkhar (High-Shadow Shadowlord, in the Ktrazirha dialect of Sekhel), the dark mirror of Ruki Aestrakhor; the True Faith is much more dualistic than the Orthodox Faith.

The True Faith possesses substantially different versions of the Origin of All Things and Tshreighan, although their version of the Laws is much the same. In the True Faith's version, Ruki Aestrakhor was the first being in the universe, before all else, but his existence immediately caused the surrounding nothingness to coalesce into Arizhtal Izhtalkhar. Ruki Aestrakhor created the Earth to block Arizhtal from his sight, and Arizhtal made modifications to it, creating darkness, disease, drought, and other evils.

(It should be noted, however, that Arizhtal, while in eternal opposition to Ruki Aestrakhor, is not regarded by the True Faith as fundamentally evil - rather, the two gods have a basic disagreement over what reality should be).

The True Faith lacks the Orthodox hierarchy of Kash'ha, Kash'ea, Kshi'arkh and Kshi; instead, Ruki Aestrakhor created humanity Himself, and Arizhtal changed them to better suit his own ideals, creating the fundamental rift between "good" and "evil".

The battle between "good" and "evil" is ongoing, not postponed; but, like the Orthodox Faith, the True Faith holds that the world will end in cataclysmic conflict, as Ruki Aestrakhor, Arizhtal Izhtalkhar, and the humans aligned on either side will battle it out, and destroy the world in the process, after which the next world will be made by Arizhtal and modified by Ruki Aestrakhor. Some modern theologians have drawn parallels between this and nuclear war, and several prominent Tsarainese works of post-apocalyptic fiction have drawn upon the mythology of the True Faith.

As practiced in the modern world, the True Faith is substantially more moderate than the Orthodox Faith, as it holds that things in opposition to the Laws are not necessarily evil. Mirroring it's simplified cosmology, the priestly hierarchy is almost nonexistent, and much more democratic - trainee priests are apprenticed to fully trained ones, who are regarded as equal, and who decide the position of the True Faith in a democratic council. However, the True Faith lacks the Books of the Arkhaeroni as a self-corrective measure, and it's strict following of the original Laws is regarded by many outside the True Faith as outmoded.

The Sche'dayach Wandering

In contrast to the monotheism of the Orthodox Faith and dualism of the True Faith, the only surviving example of pre-Tsakh religion in Tsaraine is shamanistic and animistic, with no religious hierarchy to speak of.

It's fundamental tenets are that the world is inhabited by a myriad of sentient beings (of which humans are minor examples), who are neither good nor evil but neutral or amoral in relation to humanity. Such things as rocks, clouds, trees - indeed, the entirety of the natural world - are ensouled, and can influence events for good or ill if not properly appeased.

Appeasement is the duty of the shaman, an individual of spiritual authority who has been trained by a senior shaman (or in some cases, self-appointed and self-trained). They utilise fasting and meditation to enter a trance state, and speak to spirits while entranced (formerly entheogenic drugs were used, but for the past hundred years or so the Commonwealth/Second Dominion/Ascendancy has cracked down harshly upon this).

The Wandering takes it's name from this ritual trance-journey.

While the Rukine faiths have been marginally tolerated, the Wandering has for most of it's history been systematically opressed; the Orthodox of the First Dominion converted or executed the majority of the pre-conquest population, after which Wandering congregations ("Circles") were driven underground, and survived mainly among the rural population.

The peasantry paid lip service to the Orthodox Faith, incorporating Ruki Aestrakhor, the Kash'ha, Kash'ea and so forth into the framework of the religion, as well as adopting a variant of the creation myth (previously, the Wandering had not much concerned itself with why things were, beyond the direct buisness of dealing with spirits).

After the Revolution and the overthrow of the Orthodox Faith, some Circles stripped away these additions, while others kept them; as with the other religions, belief declined inversely proportional to the rise of scientific enquiry.

Despite the re-legalisation of religion, most believers remain circumspect in their beliefs, the exception being what could be termed the Tsarainese "New Age" movement, whose members are often blatant in their faith.

The Katai Archipelago

As a distant archipelago in the eastern ocean, the local religion of the Katai Archipelago (E Anlabj in the native tongue) arose in near-total isolation over the past several thousand years. Religious attendance has declined since the Tsarainese takeover, largely due to the blatant disregard for native rights with which the Tsarainese turned the archipelago to their own purposes.

Prior to foreign contact, the believers held that the world had arisen from the cracking of a cosmic egg, in which the white of the egg became the sea, the yolk the land, and the shell the sky.

The first man, Mjau, arose from the confluence of these three elements, and set about creating living things; plants from land, fish from sea, and birds from sky. Finally he created women, and his descendants spread out across the archipelago, forming various geographical features as they went; Mjau's semidivine grandson, Slao, was held responsible for the creation of dogs (Slao is a trickster and culture hero, akin to the Amerind Coyote or Polynesian Maui).

The religion is thus akin to the Wandering in that it has no gods; events were instead held to be caused by the ghosts of ancestors, the proper appeasement of whom was very important. The Amrasen constructed long barrows, in the form of a single extensive passageway with alcoves off the sides in which the dead were placed. An ancestor improperly buried, or whose remains were disturbed, became a ghost, and could visit great wrath upon malefactors.

Despite this dire threat, raiding parties from different tribes often had the express purpose of desecrating enemy barrows, to destroy any benefits the enemy's ancestors might be bestowing; their own ancestors, it was held, would be capable of protecting the raiders.

Priests, or tjasn, were usually related to the tribal chieftain, but seldom held both roles at once; the priest's sons were castrated (his daughters enjoying no particular status either way). Tales abounded of priests who hid their sons, to the eventual terrible punishment meted out by the ancestors.

Belief in the local religion was dealt a great blow by the Tsarainese, who deposed the chieftains and their priests, and set about flattening sacred landmarks in the name of agricultural production. The influx of Tsarainese agriculturalists - primarily atheists or Orthodox Rukines - reduced the Amrasen, and their religion, to a minority in their own homeland.

Minority Religions

Less prominent religions include Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and various syncretic or "New Age" sects.

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