Ancestral veneration cult

The Ancestral Veneration cult is the predominant religious system in the Mír region of the Iron Desert, originating in the state of Vht'shjenjé. It is the state religion of a number of states in the region, including its state of origin.
The cult is notably heterogeneous and constantly debates theological and philosophical concepts within itself. For some people, it is a polytheistic religion centered around the adoration of Ancestor-saints. For others, it is a nontheistic religion providing commentary on the nature of life and death. It does not have a single set of scripture; it instead has an enormous width of spiritual poetry serving as commentary around its central beliefs. In its early history this poetry was largely oral (serving to the immense importance of the poet class within Scorched society), though from the Bronze Age large volumes of written material is available as well, most notably the epic poem Akhnjajeshtvá. Some of this written material has been translated, mostly into Syannic and Yeharene languges.
The central two concepts of the cult is Bloodline and Tradition.
==Origins==
According to Vht'shjenjé chroniclers, the veneration of ancestors has been present among the Scorched people since prehistory but has continually been competing with other religious beliefs, mostly based around worship of non-anthropomorphic animal deities. It is said to have existed during the Second Generation but almost disappeared with the rise of the Mósharenja insect-worship which for a time was extremely prevalent in the Mír region.
The Thousand-Year War was largely a religious conflict between the Ancestral Veneration cult of the Vht'shjenjé and the Mósharenja insect-worship. With the defeat of the latter, their religion faded into obscurity and ancestor-worship became the most prominent religious belief.
==Concepts==
===Bloodline===
The concept of bloodline (also called Shárv) is of paramount importance to the cult. The continuation of the Shárv is considered to be first of its two central tenets.
====Reincarnation====
The concept of soul within the system is called Ráv, and is generally accepted to be inseparable from the Shárv. Thus, the soul of each living Scorched is maintained through the inherited bloodline and cannot be separated from it. The Ráv is collective in nature and is temporarily bestowed upon an individual at birth. The experiences and memories of every Scorched that has ever lived is maintained within the Shárv and thus every Scorched will reincarnate as the descendants of themselves.
===Tradition===
Tradition (also called Vshtjrtsárin) is the second of the two central tenets, and refers to maintaining the awareness of the ancestors and honouring them with the correct practices.
==Ancestor-Saints==
There are no deities per se within the Ancestral Veneration cult. The origin of the cosmos and life are not accredited to any sentient being and the question does not receive much attention within the discourse in general. Instead, emphasis is put on the rememberance and veneration of certain individuals who have distinguished themselves as key figures throughout Scorched history and prehistory. They are referred to as Ancestor-Saints.
===Three-Generation system===
The nature of the bloodline is divided into generations. A generation in this regard is not the passing upon the blood from parent to offspring but rather encompasses a much larger span of time. During the Bronze Age, Amauvala is believed to have had three generations.
The first generation of ancestors were the Antediluvians, those who lived in the ancient days before the great Cataclysm. The Antediluvians were vast in numbers as they lived extremely long life-spans and were almost impervious to disease, toxins or other ailments. They were an incredibly wise people, excellent engineers and scientists and lived in huge cities on the surface of the world. The Antediluvian ancestors that are worshipped are few in number and as their names are long forgotten they appear under many different names in different ancestor-worshipping cultures through the Iron Desert. However, almost all the tribes venerate these few ancestors with only slight variation, and thus they can be considered the closest thing to deities within the Ancestral veneration cult.
The second generation of ancestors were the Eshárenja Between the first and second generation there were centuries of silence in the Iron Desert, when the descendants of the Antediluvians were hidden beneath the Earth in slumber, hidden away from the Cataclysm. As they awoke, they were an ignorant and primitive people, having lost all the wisdom and power of their predecessors. They were a tormented people, as everything they had built was gone; as they had forgotten the wisdom of their blood, their livespans were short, they succumbed easily to wounds and suffered from diseases. However, they were an inventive and resilient people that went through endless toil and pain to build themselves a new world. They left the surface and lived among the Shadows of the underworld, a decision which forever changed them as a people. Ancestor-saints from this age are more numerous than the Antediluvians, they vary in different regions of the Iron Desert and are remembered for different deeds. Some of the Scorch are however venerated uniformly throughout most of the Iron Desert; an example of this is the mysterious Girl of the Valley, once a spiritual semi-deity that has since been incorporated into the cult as an ancestor-saint. 
The third generation is the age of the Shadowborn, so named as they are the descendants of the Fallen that left the world's surface and hid underground. This generation differs from the other as it mostly encompasses a period of written history, and thus many of the ancestor-saints in this category are well-documented and many living men and women today can trade their bloodlines back to these exalted people with great accuracy. As the voracity of the existence of the Antediluvians and the Fallen can be put in doubt, the Shadowborn are very real. A large number of the third-generation ancestor-saints are remembered and venerated for their contributions to the millennia-long War of the Bloods that saw the Ancestral veneration cult arise to prominence in the desert, or for great innovations or otherwise remarkable deeds.
It is also prophesised that the third generation will end, the Shadowborn people will cease to call themselves by this name and will become a new people.