Religions

There are three primary religions in **Grienzland**, although all three purport to worship the same Living God. Most, however, identify far more strongly with their specific branch of Ortueism than with the overarching family of religions. There are a number of other religions as well, though these are far less commonly represented within the Fatherland as they are elsewhere in the world.

# Ortueism

> Main article: **Ortueism**
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Ortueism is the primary religion practiced in Grienzland under one of several branches. Its core tenet is that the Living God created everything upon **Anfang**, including all the **Races**, and assigned spirits to watch over Mankind.

After Humanity had fallen to depravity and savagery against each other and themselves, Ortues **sent His Son Ilhaduel** as Intercessor to bring the world back to Him. Ilhaduel lived a **perfect life** and taught the path to reconciliation with the Living God. After refusing to bow and pledge fealty to the wicked Cassumite King Revahem, He was tortured for three days and then Revahem **decapitated** Ilhaduel with his own sword.

The next day, Ilhaduel returned in restored glory and met with His followers, before confronting the mad king who had been attempting to root out and kill those faithful to the Son of the Living God. Ilhaduel took from Revahem the sword that had been used to slay Him, planting it in the ground where it grew into a tremendous tree of divine light. In front of that tree, with His voice gently amplified for all to hear, Ilhaduel gave one final sermon to all assembled, to spread the worship of Ortues, the origin of all life and holiness. He would return to His Father's side, and there would await each and every believer to welcome him into eternal reunion with the Living God. Then, He merged with the Tree of Life, which slowly lost its gleam as its leaves dispersed on the wind, carried to the four corners of Anfang, preparing the world to receive the message of Ilhaduel to restore the relationship with Ortues.

Beginning from that point, Ortueism spread across much of the world, especially **Uropa**, becoming the official religion of most Uropan nations until the political movement of the **Ascendancy of Man** began to denounce and replace it with the secular religion, the **Eminence of Man**.

# Other Religions

Besides the three branches of Ortueism there are several other religions in Uropa, but only three of them are particularly common: The Eminence of Man, Yhassuatism, and the Unnoticed Life. A fourth, Yuhdam, is far more common in the southeast, between Uropa and Wassia.

## The Eminence of Man

> Neither kings, nor priests, nor monsters shall impede the exaltation of Man.
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While Ortueism is by far the most popular religion in Grienzland, to the West the young religion known as the Eminence of Man is rapidly growing in strength. Although it has only existed since 1795, it has already been appointed as the national religion of the **Gallian Republic** as of 1872, and has a growing influence in the **Brettish Commonwealth** and the **Rossiyan Federation** as well. Recent attempts at making inroads in Grienzland was forcibly thwarted after the assassination of **Emperor Walter II** lead to the codification of his **Edict of Unification** as Imperial Decree.

The Eminence of Man is the secular religion that arose in the Gallian Republic as the state alternative to spiritual religions that had been traditionally practiced by their population. A direct descendant from the school of thought collated into the political movement of the **Ascendancy of Man**, the Eminence of Man is an effort to maintain ethical and philosophical continuity in the absence of anything supernatural, spiritual, or eternal. It preaches the inborn supremacy of Humanity and importance of Rationalism, and denounces what it calls the destructive influence of paranoid superstitions and irrational mythologies. Increasingly, the Eminence of Man has also brought into question the legitimacy of social classes and the "artificial nature of arbitrary divisions" between Humans.

The primary misdeed that the Eminence of Man denounces as evil is that of one Human claiming superiority over another. All are seen as equal within the masses of Humanity, and to strive for power is to seek to subjugate others. Preventing the freedoms of others is anathema within the Eminence of Man, as it limits the potential of Humanity to flourish.

In addition to denouncing those with institutional power, the Eminence of Man aggressively castigates what it calls "Monsters in Human disguise." Referred to by the Ascendancy of Man as "Pseudo-Humans," any **non-Human races** capable of taking on the form of a Human are seen as abominations worthy only of destruction. In the tenets of the Eminence of Man, a Non-Human beast assuming the shape of a Man is an act of great evil, a perversion of the divine Human form and an affront to the supremacy of mankind. This hatred initially manifested in the reinstitution of **Wolfen** Persecution Laws, and swiftly spread to **Fey Cats** as well. In time, it began to encompass most Non-Human races with humanoid anatomy, though still primarily focused on ones that originate in Uropa rather than other continents.

## Yhassuatism

As much a system of history, philosophy, and culture as it is religion, Yhassuatism is the worldview of the nomadic Cassumite people who originated out of what is the modern day Osmaniyan Empire. Difficult for outsiders to understand or analyze, it is divided up among many different written and oral components. As such, it has been described as the most fluid and changing of religions, and devoted practitioners invest countless hours studying and reading and debating the tenets and finer points of Yhassuatism over many years, if not their entire lives.

Claimed to be the originator of the cosmological history currently held by Ortueism, Yhassuatism has little in common with the religion it is said to have preceded. Even the monotheistic notion of a singular, all-powerful deity as presented in Ortueism is debatably absent from Yhassuatism, which posits in many instances the inherent divinity distributed throughout the souls of the Cassumite people themselves and their mother, Sarupa.

## The Unnoticed Life

Not much is known to the people of the Fatherland about this fatalistic religion of the Rossiyan Federation except that it puts an evil goddess in charge of the world. Responsible for the deadly blizzards of Winter, the Dark Tyrant has nothing but hate for fire and heat and light and day. The majority of the religious rituals and teachings revolve around how best to avoid her attention and how not to rouse her from her brooding meditation. The harshness of the Winter is said to be determined by how well she is appeased during the year; not enough worship and sacrifices and she'll wake early, dimming the sun as her power grows.

### The Holy Winnowing

Taking refuge in the attraction of extremes, the Holy Winnowing seeks to bring about the awakening of the Dark Tyrant through excessive indulgence in gluttony, lechery, and all other forms of debauchery. The official stance is that through rousing the Dark Tyrant, mankind can enter a period of harsh cleansing, and the brutal Winter will strengthen the moral character of those who remain. They speak of being ushered into the halls of the Living God after surviving the Winter, but only rarely — most of their teachings focus on forcing the ire of the Dark Tyrant.

Previously a secretive mystic school, the Holy Winnowing is technically an offshoot of **Austericism**, purporting to provide a synthesis between the Unnoticed Life and Ortueism. For most of its history however, its practices were harshly denounced by the Austeric Church of Rossiya as a cult promoting heresy, and supported its historic suppression by past Itors, until Itor Mikhail welcomed the mystic **Nicolai Rubashkin** into the Federal Council.

## Yuhdam

Outside of Ortueism, the most practiced religion in Anfang is that of the desert-dwelling Alqarfic peoples. Practitioners of Yuhdam are known as Alhamqaa and their holy book, the Akadhib, can only be written in their own language of Alqarfic. As a result, little is known by those not devoted to the study of their religion, but there are several established facts.

Yuhdam began six centuries after the life of Ilhaduel, started by a failed businessman in Deglarus named Maqit ibn Abihi. His dealings brought him into trouble with the local ruling families, and he was chased out of his town and into the mountains where he hid in a cave. There, he claimed to have been approached by a terrifying divine messenger, who told him about a new god, a one true god, named Buhtan. He spread his message to other dispossessed desert nomads, who flocked to him as a rallying point around which to invade the town he had been exiled from, which he burned in a show of loyal conquest for his new god. From there, the downtrodden Alqarfic began to follow him, spreading his message by the curved sword across the country and eventually even taking it to mainland Eastern Wassia where it currently has great influence in the Osmaniyan Empire.

The actual beliefs of the religion are difficult to state with any certainty. While Alhamqaa will sometimes claim that Buhtan is just their name for the same deity that is Ortues, the two share very little in common. One of the reasons for this is that Maqit ibn Abihi was illiterate, and had only heard sermons by Ortueist missionaries prior to claiming he had been personally given a new revelation. The Akadhib ("Recitations" in Alqarfic) which is the collection of Maqit's own sermons contains perplexing contradictions which are said to offer incredible enlightenment for any scholar who can unravel the incongruities.

One thing that is known for sure, is that Maqit claimed that Ilhaduel was not the Son of the Living God, and is therefore not the Intercessor to bring man back to His Father. Instead, salvation is earned only through total subservience to Maqit ibn Abihi – and in his absence, to whatever warlord can claim to be his successor – and following a strict set of practices and rites.