Courtism

Courtism is the name for a particular collective of shared religious practices within the country of Ischanor, generally overseen by the Courtist Church. Though the Courtist Church and Ischanism are commonly used as synonyms, the Church refers to the semi-political institution and temple hierarchy, whereas Ischanism refers to the specific beliefs of the religion's adherents. Some religions within the country of Ischanor, such as the Children of Diena, ostensibly share the same historical origin with shared deities and practices, but constitute a different organization outside of the Courtist Church and thus many consider them not to be properly Courtist, religiously speaking. 
Ischanism is the largest religion in Ischanor, but despite its size it bears little official power within the government of the country, which remains secular and is tolerant of all religions. 
== History and evolution ==
Ischanism's earliest known form comes from archaolinguistics and archaeology. The earliest physical sites of worship come from ancient Aysar earthen mounds, which were constructed in prehistoric times by hunter-gatherers and early farmers as sites to conduct rituals. It is thought that these earthen mounds served as the homes of either priests, or as houses of the gods themselves; archaeologists are still inconclusive about their nature as these structures predate written language. The only mound-type temple still in use today is the temple of Ungalubene, outside the Lachawakan settlement of Ogogrok, which currently is only used as a place of sacrifice and houses no permanent beings at all, carnal or spiritual.
There are a trinity of three gods whose names are inferred from the proto-Aysar language. They are *dʰridas the creator, *xurabuz the moon, and *xeljas the sun. *dʰridas is distantly related to the names of the creator god Aldreda. It is known that the creator god was originally genderless, as in the Children of Diena the creator (Diena herself) is interpreted as a female, while in "proper" Ischanism, Aldreda is physically genderless but is usually referred to with masculine pronouns. The three-god system was carried along with the Ischanic peoples, who also came to worship other deities. 
One of the oldest deities that may or may not be as old as this trinity is the earth goddess, known varyingly as Ilfeijas, Suzantha, or Ungalubene. Her original name is not known, as there are a multitude of different names for this goddess each with their own etymologies. Other gods also seemed to appear from local religions being absorbed into the institutions of the church, becoming added to the pantheon over time.
Numiē Iconthur, the second king of the Thondeum Suzerainity, assembled a Holy Council which began the first institutionalization of Courtist beliefs. This Holy Council eventually over time moved from the city of Thondeum to Celras, where the Courtist Church is officially located. 
== Deities ==
All of the gods have a number of names; for simplicity's sake, their names in this list are written in the Celrasi language, the native language of the host of the Church itself.
=== Primordial Gods ===
The gods that have been around for the entirety of the earth's existence are known as the Primordial Gods. They include Aldreda the original creator and "leader" of the gods, as well as the gods of the sun and moon. They are distinguished from the Realized Gods, who despite being gods, are the creations of humanity and their relationships with the world and each other.
==== Aldreda ====
The founder god, the first creator, whose essence was spread across all creation. From him, the other gods were fractured, though it is said he now "rests and lives beyond a veil that even the gods cannot pierce". He is considered responsible for the creation of the world and heavens, as well as the creation of early humanity (known as the Aldredan humans) and the other Primordial Gods. Aldreda is considered to be the "blinded god", having had his eye pierced with a hot iron by the gods and his corporeal body bound and killed. Despite this, his undying spiritual existence is understood to be present throughout the world. 
Also known variously as Oldrietha, as Thuleda in Lachawakan Ug, and corresponds to Diena in the Vědanican tradition. 
==== Xelia ====
Goddess of the sun, and one of the gods created directly by Aldreda. She warms the world bringing light and heat, but remains at distance from the world. This distance separates her from the Realized Gods. 
==== Xoraios  ====
God of the night sky; Xoraios is the name of the moon, and is another god created directly by Aldreda. Xoraios presides over the stars as well as the oceans, and all things obscure to human understanding. He is further said to direct the formation of community, as "dark of [his] night brings together towns, sparks curiosity, and teaches us to be wary" according to church documents. He is, through the ocean and tides, and stars used in navigation, the patron god of sailors.
=== Realized Gods ===
The Realized Gods are the gods whose realm was created by humans. This does not mean they are fake or made-up, but rather realized by emanations of humanity's interaction with itself and the world around them, hence their name. they can be further broken down into "Pre-Blinding" (Zaifos, Suzantha, Ruric, Loros, and Manos) and "Post-Blinding" gods (Dodin, Thugios, Macelanor, and many minor deities), as to when they were realized. Many of the latter Post-blinding gods were themselves Aldredan humans who ascended to godhood.
==== Zaifos ====
The god of knowledge and innovation, with the epithets of The Scholar, the Practitioner, the Dreamer, and the Smith. After the creation of reality by Aldreda only two gods- Xelia and Xoraios- are said to have existed, but through the thoughts and ideas of the first humans Zaifos became realized and was made manifest. For a time in the primordial past, it is said, humans lived alongside him and together ventured the path of discovery, but eventually left the physical realm after the Blinding of the Eye. Archaeological documents recovered from an ancient Zaifos cult heavily imply that Zaifos is responsible for humanity's control of fire, which was revealed to humanity in dreams. These ancient texts eventually became canonized after centuries of being lost.
==== Suzantha ====
The Goddess of nature, animals, and the natural, as well as of love, speech and communication. Known as the great Earth-Mother, by which the Ischanic name Ilfeijas and Lachawakan name Ungalubene generally come from; the latter is directly translated as "lady earth". Though according to the Poetics, Aldreda created the natural world, it is through the connection humans established with nature that Suzantha became the second of the Realized Gods. She is said to be both as beautiful and as ferocious as nature, and is wild and indomitable. 
Suzantha is said to be the foil, equal opposite, and wife of the god Zaifos. With his departure, it is said that she left with Zaifos but left behind different animals to do her bidding in the physical world- wild wolves to protect the wilderness, domestic dogs to defend and aid humans as she once did, and the coyote* to be her scouts and messengers to watch and communicate with humans. 
==== Ruric ====
Ruric, also spelled as Ruhric in some dialects, is a trickster god and was in ancient times the spiritual patron of the arts and culture. It is said that he worked with Zaifos the create the first instruments, and with Suzantha to create the many languages of the world. He is said to have once been pure, but after the Blinding learned to be cruel in his tricks and somber in his art. His followers are few in number, as he is considered dangerous to interact with due to his sinister motives and chaotic nature. 
==== Loros ====
Known by the epithet "Loros the Cold", and in some regional dialects as Grzegir. The god of commerce; the name Loros itself comes from the proto-Aysar root *leron-, meaning "to trade". Loros is the patron god of all trade and diplomacy, and is said to be of ambiguous standing due to his power over both charity and greed. Said to have been unchanged during the Blinding, Loros exists almost as a tool to be used for good or for evil, but with no morals himself. 
==== Manos ====
Manos "the last" was the last of the gods created prior to the Blinding, hence the name; he is the god of war, honor, power, and prosecutive justice. He was said to have grown powerful from humanity's proclivity for violence- much stronger than the other Realized Gods. He was in fact the god who held the hot iron with which the Blinding was done; after the blinding, he learned grief after seeing what he had done to the nations of the Aldredan Humans with his wars, and became a god of honor and justice as well as warfare after this rebirth.
==== Dodin ====
The god of decay, aging, rebirth, and lost souls; the first of the Post-blinding gods. As the destruction of the body of Aldreda was said to have introduced decay, aging, and death into the world, it brought many lingering souls left behind. Through these sorrowful ghosts came the god Dodin, manifested through their suffering. Through this, he freed the souls into the afterlife, and created the cycle of decay and renewal. The cycle of decay and renewal states that, if one lives justly, piously, and with virtue, they will ascend to Dodenor, the afterlife. If they do not, Dodin will harvest their souls, and they will be reborn to again attempt ascension into Dodenor. As God of these dead, physicians also pray to him near the recently deceased so that he might return their souls to them. Laypeople pray to Dodin as well, often in hopes that the ascensions of their loved ones’ spirits be swift or that he might grant them ascension into Dodenor.
==== Thugios ====
The God of heroism, brutality, and chaos. After the Blinding of the Eye, one of the Aldredan humans remained unaltered by the decay that consumed the earth. Thugios had been there since the beginning of mankind and had to remain. He didn’t hold a godly sympathy or a holy loyalty, and death was nothing to him. Once a simple, poor, bricklayer, Thugios held then the might of empires. After the Blinding, he also gained a new vision and was able to see the other gods that went to stay within the veil. He is said to have been the first great hero after the Blinding and was said to have held the might to conquer kingdoms with ease. His mere presence was golden, and having been around since mankind’s earliest creation, some transcripts date him to be at least 12 million years old, accounting for the difference in time passage in the Pre-Blinding epoch. It is said that he stands heads above the average man, and can out-drink any man as well. No crime against him goes without consequence, and he lives having never felt fear. Nothing was ever anything to him, and Thugios, God of Chaos has always been him. 
==== Macelanor ====
The god of peace, order, proetection, and defensive justice. Macelanor was a king in the Pre-Blinding epoch; at the time, he was celebrated and loved by his people for how he managed to keep them safe and establish order and peace in a world ruled otherwise by war and violence. His people were even more thankful for his leadership after the Blinding took place, as all over the world chaos and war erupted, plagues and famine roamed the earth, except for the kingdom of Macelanor. He had managed to keep his lands mostly secure and stable. This impressive feat was even acknowledged by the gods who, after Macelanor died, offered him a position as a god himself. 
== Mythology ==
=== Cosmogony ===
The Divination of Life from the Poetics describes this creation and shows how it was through Aldreda that reality, the Primordial Gods, and the earthly beings were created. 
According to the poem, in the beginning Aldreda existed within an empty void devoid even of scale. He realized first light, with his "star-filled gaze", and then the earth, creating the mountains, seas, and plant life across it, before creating humans to populate the earth. It is said that then he created first the sun Xelia, and from a cooled piece of the sun the moon, Xoraios, to maintain light over the humans to create both day and night. 
From the first humans, sprang forth the first of the Realized Gods, who established many new things; knowledge, innovation, technology, and love, speech, family, and interaction with nature with Zeifos and Suzantha, the husband-wife pair of gods, each foil to the other. From this marriage of human innovation and the natural world, then came new gods. 
Trade and oration spawned the cold god Loros, who controlled these ways, and this also created exploitation, cheating, and trickery. From trickery and sheer buffoonery, came Ruric, the jester god, who indulged in both culture and drink. This god sought Zeifos to create instruments, and Suzantha to create the various languages of the world, with which the arts did develop; yet still, Ruric was chaotic and was said to sometimes even curse those who asked of his aid. From desires unfilled by trade or nature's providence, came those fulfilled by natural anger, the crafting of weapons, and the organization of that rage- those of war, and thus Manos spawned. Under Manos, still chivalry and prosecution came, and he was not malicious. 
Alrdreda then retired, as the other gods watched the world, and left the Aldredan humans and gods to their own devices. It is said that fire then came under control (though other sources explain that Zaifos was the one who guided humans to do this). The humans gradually started to become more corrupted by sin and evil, and wars and chaos broke out across the world. Manos waged brutal war across the land, and were it not for incidental acts of the other gods, his wards may well have extinguished humanity. Though there was war and violence, there was no decay; though the gods were worshiped and did many acts, they had no sympathy or emotion towards humanity until the Blinding. 
=== Blinding of the Eye ===
The Blinding of the Eye, or simply the Blinding, is the name for the great battle between the first of the Gods and Aldreda. 
Unlike the other gods, Aldreda held an emotional and caring attachment to the world. The other gods, lacking this emotion, came to attack Aldreda and bound his physical body. Manos, god of war, held a hot iron with which the act of blinding itself was done; he pierced Aldreda's eye with the iron, killing his corporeal form and introducing into the world death and decay. Yet with this death, the gods were filled with Aldreda's sympathetic wisdom, and many of the gods began to change.
The gods left the physical realm of the humans to their own realm. Ruric was broken, and began to sing sorrowful songs, and his trickery grew cruel. Manos, conversely, grew repentant, knowing of the horrors of war, and became honorable. Other gods, like Dodin became manifest from the aftermath of the great wars. Other important figures among the Aldredan humans, like Macelanor and Thugios, became known as heroes for their deeds, and became gods in their own right. But the gods no longer walked among man, instead residing in another plane where they watched from behind.
=== First Revival ===
The First Revival was a period succeeded by ubiquitous sin, demonry, and disease, where only those of Courtist faith were able to prevail through church doctrine, values, and regimen. The quelling of the daemons and plague through the clergy and church caused a great peak in interest into such matters, causing an enlightenment into the poetics and a revival of the Church.
== Religious Positions ==
=== Arcierio ===
The Arcierio serves as the chief religious figure of the Courtist Pantheon. The Arcierio serves for life and is elected from the current pool of Viracie. The Arcierio issues orders to the Clergy and maintains the faith in the nation, the spread of the faith, and the purity of the lands from sin and blasphemy.
=== Thevlosa ===
The Thevlosa is the highest seer of the Courtist church, second only to the Arcierio. The Thevlosa is usually the most knowledgeable, being former Arcierio. They are to be consulted on interpretations and discovered poetics, and any other controversial religious matters that need settling.
=== Viracie ===
The Viracie are directly anointed by the Arcierio and swear an oath of fealty to the faith and the clergy. Only the Arcierio can appoint the Viracie who serve as religious officials and devotees to a specific god, as well as defenders of the religion and as holy disciples of the faith as dictated by the Arcierio. The Viracie serve for life or until relieved of service by the Arcierio. Viracie report only to the Arcierio and receives orders from the Arcierio to serve for the betterment of the faith. Viracie can own land, run businesses, and have personal lives, but their ultimate allegiances must always lie with the faith. 
=== Flamene ===
Flamene are appointed by the Arcierio or by certain Viracie. They are priests to a specific god, and serve to keep their god happy, preach their message, and read omens related to their god. The Flamene serve for life and must take orders from the Arcierio regarding how to maintain belief in their towns through sermons, blessings, and public events. In order to become a Flamene, one of the Xieri must prove themselves to the faith and the Arcierio and receive their initiation. 
=== Vilaores ===
Vilaores are appointed religious officials that are assigned to a specific Ischanic Diocese. They are not assigned to a specific god, and may hold their own land. They manage local clergy within their jurisdiction, which is determined by the Arcerio. They also conduct general priestly duties, including analysis of religious text and holding sermons.
=== Hendoa ===
Hendoa serve as the chief priest of a specific settlement. They are the highest authority in that settlement. They manage the local temples, create and manage written records, and uphold local rituals. They are appointed by Arcierio or the local Vilaores.
=== Xiere ===
The Xiere serve as the faith’s serving order of priests, encompassing every other religious role. Every Viracie and Flamene must first serve as a member of the Xiere and prove their devotion to the faith before then ascending to higher clerical duties.
== Sects ==
Many individuals and countries worship the Courtist Pantheon in a variety of ways. There are few "wrong" ways to practice the religion; many often focus on a primary patron deity of their nation, home town, or one personally important in their life. The Courtist Church itself only declares heresy when a sect only worships one specific god, or otherwise denies the existence or reverence of all but one god. Still, there are a few particular sects that make note among others.
=== Cult of Ungalubene ===
Practiced almost exclusively among the Lachawakans of the Sek Anque wetlands in Lovvres, this is a particularly dedicated group of worshipers of Suzantha, who is known as Ungalubene in their native tongue. They believe in a particularly strong devotion to her, and regard the sanctity of nature as so holy that the practice of agriculture itself is considered sinful and wrong. They reject urbanism and many non-natural materials such as refined metals, and live simple lives as hunter-gatherers. They were previously widespread in ancient times, but many of these societies were wiped out by settled tribes and nations; the Lachawakans only remain as a small number of survivors that held out in a place where few desired to live. They do not reject the other gods, but have a specific interpretation of them and their will that differentiates from mainline Courtist practice.
=== Doscite Confession ===
Named after Doscie Harpennyck, this sect rejects the authority of the other gods with a primary focus towards the worship of Aldreda in particular. After the fall of Thondeum, many ethnic Herlundians began to distance themselves from the reformed Thondean church in favor of the old church, which was regarded as more pure by the Herlundians. Thus started a sect to attempt to rinse the Courtist Church of supposed Thondean mysticist impurities, which only became more radicalized during Herlundian independence from Onquior, with the most radical calling for the rejecting of the Church, its teachings and scriptures in favor of a true reevaluation. These heterodox theories, on the periphery of the Ischanic world, eventually became consolidated under one Doscie Harpennyck. It is since the majority sect within the Herlundy today, but much like the Cult of Ungalubene, shares little sway outside of Lovvres.
=== Kþhavnū Folk Faiths ===
Named after the Kþhavnū peoples, also known as the Old Taeli, the Kþhavnū Folk Faiths are a group of animistic sects of Ischanism followed mostly by the aforementioned Kþhavnū. The Folk Faiths differentiate themselves from traditional Ischanism through a belief in spirits and natural forces such as order and chaos. Two main "gods" present themselves to the followers of the Faith, Tvhlkri'v and Vlhekro'v (the Great Chaos and the Great Order). A variety of other minor deities show up throughout many different Kþhavnū cults, often referred to as Leviathans. They are the equivalent of the Courtist Church's Realized gods. Considered to be sired from both Chaos and Order, they are considered to be the most humanlike, though often less worshipped than Tvhlkri'v and Vlhekro'v.
Being a collection of religions, rather than a solidified faith, the Folk Faiths tend to vary on their descriptions of demigods, known as Tvhlkri'z and Vlhekro'z. A defining feature of the Faiths is the belief in minor spirits, the children are pure, unrefined Chaos and Order, unrestrained by solely earthly bodies. They would be classified as demons to the Courtist Church, though many cults revere and respect even the Tvhlkri'z (children of Chaos). One such group is the family of Þvhażna, a noble house dedicated to the worship of Tvhlkri'v and the Tvhlkri'z. These various spirits do not inhabit mortal bodies, acting as ethereal creatures untethered to any specific plane. The Kþhavnū often model masks in the like of these creatures, referred to as God Masks. They are saved solely for important rituals. (More on Kþhavnū mask culture later)
Category:Ischanor