The Church

The Church of Astrea is the first and seemingly only successful organized religion in the Five Realms, dedicated to praising the Sovereign and spreading His laws. The Church is known for its strictness and demands for all its followers to obey a very specific and nearly incomprehensible set of rules allegedly set by the Sovereign Himself, and it is also responsible for the teaching of magical prayers.

## Structure

The Church has a certain hierarchy within its membership, and titles are granted to its members based on their perceived level of faith in the Sovereign and effort to follow His commandments. A list of titles and their definition is provided below:

* **Seeker:** The most basic tier of membership within the Church. Almost all Astreans are seekers, and they have neither the authority over how the Church operates nor the right to learn magical prayers. However, seekers are allowed to use services that the Church offers, such as free healing, and are under the sworn protection of paladins. Seekers wear black-colored badges shaped like four-pointed stars to signify their membership, issued for free by the Church.
* **Paladin:** Paladins are seekers who decided to fight for the Church in addition to just following it, and are thus granted the privilege to learn some magical prayers taught by clerics. Paladins make up a majority of Astrea's military (with slaves sometimes used to fill the ranks if no other options are available), and are exempt from some of the Church's rules, such as the one that forbids killing. Paladins must protect the people of Astrea and the Church's members at any cost, and typically wear copper-colored badges shaped like four-points stars to signify their membership.
* **Cleric:** Clerics are Church members with a great level of faith, typically determined by an annual voluntary test held by the bishops and archbishops of every city. Clerics live in the Church's various cathedrals and dedicate their lives to the practice of magical prayers. They are not allowed to be married, and thus forbidden from sex and producing offspring as well, and are responsible for providing healing/teaching prayers to other members of the Church. Clerics wear silver badges shaped like four-pointed stars to signify their rank.
* **Bishop:** Bishops are clerics who've shown even greater faith and obedience compared to other clerics, or members of the Church who made some sort of significant contribution to Astrea as a whole. Each city, town, and suburb has a bishop, who serves as the religious authority in that region, commanding the local clerics and paladins and preaching any new updates and information to other members. Bishops wear golden four-pointed stars to signify their rank.
* **Archbishops:** Bishops of the major cities of Astrea are referred to as archbishops instead due to the simple fact that they have to do more work in places with bigger populations. Archbishops still wear golden stars to display their rank, except for the archbishop of the Capital, who has ultimate authority over all other members of the Church and wears a platinum badge.
* **Fiends:** Fiends are those who have deliberately failed to obey the Church's teachings, or committed some other heinous crime, and banished to the Forest of Fiends in Astrea as a result. They wear no stars and are to be rejected by other members of the Church regardless of previous relationships.

## The Sacred Tongue

The Sacred Tongue is a language that only bishops can understand, which the Sovereign uses to communicate with them in visions and dreams. Any attempts to teach or learn the Sacred Tongue without being a bishop or higher would inevitable fail, as those who learned the language would immediately forget it through some magical effect.

All prayers are written in the Sacred Tongue, and clerics recite them while casting magic without understanding for what they actually mean.

## The Sovereign's Laws

The Sovereign had issued many laws to the Church over the years, and Church members are commanded to follow them to the best of their abilities. These laws are by design difficult and requires sacrificing normalcy to obey under most circumstances. The more laws a Church member is able to obey, the more powerful their prayers become. Bishops are even notified by the Sovereign of seekers who have managed to obey a large number of laws, and recommended to promote them into clerics.

The Sovereign's Laws are too numerous to list, some of which are extremely specified and eccentric (such as a law saying that Church members should not pass gas during daylight hours unless they can do so silently), so only the first and most popular ten laws would be described below:

1. Those who live in this land (Astrea) must obey and teach these rules from now until the end.
2. Those who are not soldiers of war should not willfully kill.
3. Those who are not soldiers of war should not willfully die.
4. Those who can tell the truth should not lie.
5. Those who can beg should not steal.
6. Those who are not truly desperate should not beg.
7. Those who have plenty must give to beggars.
8. Those who can forgive should not hate.
9. Those who are hated should not return with more hatred.
10. Those who can help others should not stand idly by.

## The Forbidden Traits

After analyzing some of the Sovereign's vision, Church authorities designed and published a list of seven "forbidden" personality traits that are to be discouraged within members of the Church as to help them more easily obey the Sovereign's laws. These traits are as follows:

1. **Pride:** The tendency to believe that oneself is better than others.
2. **Envy:** The tendency to be jealous of others.
3. **Greed:** The tendency to want more than one could ever need.
4. **Gluttony:** The tendency to use and consume recklessly and wastefully.
5. **Lust:** The tendency to desire physical pleasure above all else, even against the wills of others.
6. **Wrath:** The tendency to choose violence even when peace and forgiveness are possible.
7. **Sloth:** The tendency to be apathetic and choose inaction over productivity.

Despite the fact that these traits were extrapolated from visions and not directly communicated to anyone by the Sovereign, they do seem to have some sort of supernatural relevance to the world as a whole, seeing as demons who embody these traits become more powerful than their peers.