Dukoraan Religion

The **Dukoraan Religion**, often times referred to as **Dukorism**, is a religion native to the Selten Galaxy. Similar to Aoshtai's Rhyanism, and the less renown yet still important Tyvus Sorism in its beliefs, it directs admiration and some semblance of fear to **Dukoris**, the alleged twin sisters otherwise known as Selten's galactic souls. Dukoraan fables and folklore often speaks of "Dukoris' Path", which incorporates what could be considered the two most evident behavior of life, order and chaos. However, unlike Rhyanism, the Dukoraan Religion has not reached outside of its own galaxy and while it is fairly spread out in the Tattered Realm, there is no great chance of anything more.

Considered an imperialists religion due to the way it had originally been spread in Selten, many find the old sects and tenets to still be actively used even far past the Adresaas Republic, which was the ultimate force that subjugated young cultures to be indoctrinated into following their religious values. It became the dominant religion of the galaxy sometime after the fall of the great Aoshanti Empire that had forced many to fall under Rhyas grace. Polytheistic in nature, there are two obvious gods with their own prophetic selection of values. The job of the Dukoraan religion is to take both paths of the gods and merge it into one singular spoken truth.

## Essential Tenets

Dukoraan Religion is very galactic in its nature. Though it has gone through significant changes since the fall of the Adresaas Republic, which enforced the belief of a chosen people that the Dukoris Sisters personally see as superior to everyone else. Like most things in life, the underlying belief in current times is that the equality through life's good and bad moments no matter the species or the womb is something all must share and that no one can escape. The following doctrines are essential to all Dukoraan Religions:

1. **Universal Balance:** Belief that through the Dukoraan path you shall see chaos and order on both sides of the one road. Held to heart that the universal truth is that there is only two indisputable facts, life cannot undo chaos just as chaos can not undo order. Life is unpredictable and order and chaos is infinite and everywhere.
2. **Two Sisters:** It is unmistakably important for the Dukoraan sisters to be included in any denominations of the Dukoraan Religion, as it is one of the main divine points of it. The belief that each sister holds one of the two universal truths; **Chaos** and **Order**, is nonnegotiable.
3. **Living Retribution:** The belief that no final damnation awaits a mortal that walks down the Dukoraan path, instead the belief that retribution is distributed throughout life and its many trials is the only true way for sinners to learn.
4. **Reincarnation:** One of the more lenient of tenets, reincarnation has played a significant role in the shaping of the religion, as many find the idea to go along perfectly with order and chaos. Reincarnation is random and not always done in the way a mortal once wanted, and order plays a part in making sure no recollection of past lives comes to fruition, as it would mean chaos had seeped into fresh meat.
5. **Picky Preaching:** The practice that any preacher, priest, or druid must have suffered some sort of life altering tragedy in their life. They must also be polite and able to bite back their tongue, they must carry the scars of Chaos on their backs and keep Order with a smile.
6. **Denomination Equality:** Like many other galactic religions, while there are a good number of Essential Tenets, it is necessary to allow for great variation and interpretation in Dukorism. It is considered a necessity to allow diversity because without it, the religion shall stagnate to one culture and eventually wither and die, allowing vast cultural interpretation is the only way for the religion to continue its thoughtful teachings.

## Denominations

### Ancient Imperial Dukorism

    **Ancient Imperial Dukorism**, sometimes referred specifically as **Ladeitrix's Path**, is a long forgotten old denomination of the Dukoris path. Barely anyone still practices this denomination as it has come to be seen as a sect that wherever it went, violence followed shortly after. It was first introduced by **Sir Ladeitrix Minsta Thalganna**, the man who brought Imperialism to the Adresaas Republic, along with violent and selective genocide. No longer do the tenets of this practice continue, as to many modern nations it was very singular and supremacist in its machinations:

1. **Mandatum Agatropium:** Belief that the Agatropian people of the Adresaas Republic were the true prophets of the Dukoraan Religion, and the only one capable of actually understanding the set pathway of Dukoris.
2. **Supremacy of the Druids Order:** Belief in the supremacy of Druids and their overarching Order. Otherwise known as the Dukoraan Order, they were the direct ear of the sisters, to interpret how individuals would walk their paths and offer guidance.
3. **Paths Transcendence:** Belief that the Dukoris Path transcends all religions, and it is the only truthful way forward in life. It also means all had to adhere to the belief that the sisters of chaos and order knew what life was about, and that their word was final.
4. **Racial Hierarchy Unbreakable:** Belief that the unbreakable truth is that the path dictates rigid and strict racial hierarchies are the way to a safe transition of life and death at the end of the path. And at its center, the Agatrops who undeniably hear the sisters get to take the leap before everyone else into the sisters loving embraces.
5. **Druids Order is Hierarchical:** Belief that just like races and superiority, the Druids order is a hierarchy, with the Druid with the most influence, untaintable loyalty to the state and Dukoris sit at the top. The belief also dictated that only Agatrops could sit atop the hierarchy of the Order.
6. **Master Druidism:** Following the rigid Druid Hierarchy sat the Master Druid, a powerful figure of the order that was at one point the only one able to ordain emperors or kings in empirical nations that followed the religion. During the peak of the Adresaas Republic, only an Agatrop coming from that specific empire could become a master druid.
7. **Salvation through Power:** The Ancients believed that the word of Dukoris was told through the powerful, therefor they led the hordes to salvation, and that a blessed leaders word is final. It was considered that those who went against the powerfuls words were unable to make it to salvation, as they were unwilling to listen to the truths of the Dukoraan path.
8. **Religiosity Justifies War:** Belief that war is always justified with the inherent reason being to further the word of the sisters, as well as conquering others so that they may be converted to the true path. However, all wars that reach a certain horrific death count must be blessed by the Master Druid, to keep soldier morale up as they commit controversial atrocities.

### Menrevean Dukorism

    **Menrevean Dukorism**, sometimes referred to as simply **Menreveism**, is an organized branch of Dukorism derived from the teachings of the Lunsari prophet Menrevea. It is the state religion of the Serene Dominion of Lunsariat.

1. **Clerical Hierarchy.** The Menrevean clergy, known as the *Marii* in the Lunsari language, operate in a rigid hierarchy of clerical ranks. Ordained priests must be of either the Lunsari or Aoshanti races, reflecting the current Menrevean position that only two demigods have ever existed.
2. **Two Demigods.** Unlike many other branches of Dukorism, Menreveanism recognizes only two demigods, each paired to a different sister as their divine parent: Priphon the Conqueror and Menrevea himself, posthumously. Pre-Menrevean claims of demigods are generally seen as mere prophets and saints, and post-Menrevea claims are almost universally considered heretical. Menrevea asserted that other races would be "found" by the sisters in due time, but Menrevean clerical authorities have yet to recognize any such instances and denounce actively seeking any out, due to the historical consequences of the final tenet.
3. **College of Priests.** Menrevean spiritual authority is vested in a council of high priests, a body known as the High Alumnathe.
4. **Landed Clergy.** In following Menrevea's practices during his life, the Alumnathe seeks out grants of territory, stations, or significant planetary land from sovereign states with large Menrevean populations. Direct ownership and "governance" by the Alumnathe is scene as necessary to consecrate a holy site for pilgrimage.
5. **Rhyan Syncretism.** Menrevean teachings dictate that the Dukoris are the celestial offspring of Rhya, who is portrayed as a now-distant primordial deity in the Menrevean creation myth, while active veneration is directed at the Dukoris and their children.
6. **Grand Tombs.** Menrevean death customs typically include grand and elaborate family tombs which imitate domestic architecture, as they are believed to be the homes of the deceased in the afterlife. These sites must be sanctified by a Menrevean priest in order to transcend the border with the next world.
7. **Divine Pain.** Based on the records of Menrevea's life and subsequent assertions about Priphon the Conqueror, early Menrevean sects concluded that future children of the sisters would only be revealed in moments of intense physical strife and pain. The most repressive Menrevean polities of history would subject the unfound races to randomized tithes of their members, applying excruciating painful rituals to them to test for demigodhood.