Church of The Crystal Children

### **Origin**

The Church of The Crystal Children is a religion originated thousands of years ago in the planet of Felida, and spread to a multitude of planets over the centuries.

### **Teachings**

The church is guided by the Book of Klad, a piece of literature written thousands of years ago after a collective vision between a group of 8 kind men gave them insight on the universe. The book teaches many things, including kindness, forgiveness, charity, tolerance and acceptance. It also talks about the origin of the universe, in which an all-powerful being named Klad sacrificed himself to create the galaxies, stars and planets in the event known as Great Explosion. The galaxies would be his fragments, and the stars are his cells. After the Great Explosion, intact fragments of Klad can be found in every planet and body of the galaxy. These are known as Soul Crystals. They are special stones that can be found abundantly and naturally glow. The book says that even though Klad is not in this plane of existence anymore, he can still communicate with his children through whispers, making up their intuition and instinct.

A way to get closer to Klad, as said in the book, is through carrying Soul Crystals with you and placing them in places of significance to you. This allows Klad to see more clearly and warn you through your intuition of any dangers lurking within.

The book also tells that all life is precious and significant, encouraging its followers to keep a diary with them recording their daily struggles and successes. All of these books are kept in the Great Library of Felida, and trace back to thousands of years before the Expansion.

### **History**

The church started small and localized in the north of Felida, with only one or two shrines in a small community. However, as the years passed, the religion started to grow exponentially. Eventually there were so many temples that the local priests decided there should be more organization. So as everything the Felidans do, they voted on a solution. Through this they decided the best way to keep order between the temples was to have a High Priest elected to organize and keep every temple priest in check. They elected the first High Priest, Jagos, and proceeded to practice acts of kindness and charity all over the northern regions. Once Jagos perished from old age, Razdan was voted to succeed him. Razdan however, had more radical ideas on the dissemination of Klad's teachings, inspiring a popular thought that grew over the years of a Holy Expedition heading south to spread his teachings. Eventually, he proposed the expedition to the other priests, learners and believers and a vast majority agreed on it. Within the next 50 years, the church would spread the word south of the planet, with vast caravans composed of knights, learners, believers and priests. Although they did much good, some other religions that existed in these regions got hostile towards them and started to raid their caravan and villages, leading to escalations with the knights. Many battles occured between hostile non-believers and holy knights. The church to this day explains it was in self defense, but many argue the contrary based on written evidence.

There was a major conflict between the church and the marauders, a faction of non-believers that believed in a god of "hate and advantage". For many years, the church fought against these marauders, and eventually led them and their religion to extinction. However, holy documents of the marauders show how the religion was not hateful at all, and how it was probably made up by the church to erradicate a possible competitor to their god.

After the expansion to space of the Felidan race, many more planets started to learn of the word of Klad. Now, a large portion of the galaxy believes and follows his word, although being one of the biggest of multiple religions across thousands of planets.