Bishlai

Controls the flames of the world.

**Bishlai** He looks like a firey ball with a group of plates of steel making his face one of these plates are made by Yslalchiv to symbolise their companionship he also has a damaged eye from an ancient battle between gods.

## Faith

### Followers

His followers are often powerful swordsman that worship his eternal flame and have cremation as a burial method that sends the people’s souls to serve him.

His patron people are the Igrans. Bishlai creates the Igrans to worship him but due to their interactions with so many other religions many have lost their religion and are aetheists, within this due to wars and internal conflicts between the Igran royalty and leaders who believe in Bishlai there has been lots of conflict between the aetheists and the Bishlai believers, as a result different people reinterpret the rules and religion of Bishlai to their own ideals.

A people group, or at least what was a people group where you can find Bishlai worshipers today is across the steppe and asian alpines. The ungoverned decedents of mixed Gurkic blood who wander and attempt to thrive across the northern wastes. The Gurks were originally just a side-project, as Bishlai and a lot of the mortal world was focused on the happenings across Igras, so Gurks never truly formed a connection with Bishlai, instead worshiping their sloths. This culture got out of hand as the Gurks conquered the northern hemisphere, So Bishlai struck down their Khanates. Today, most of the creole descendants of Gurks with significant Gurkic heritage (10-20%) Live in the west in The Federation, Illyanka, or Illpabia, heeding Irekiaz's words and finding solace with Ysalchiv.

but still in the east, those of Gurkic heritage who still inhabit the eastern alpines where the gurkic peoples came from, have corrected their mistakes and found Bishlai. The Bishlai worshipping "old Gurks" (named by themselves even though they are about as Gurkic as the western Gurks) do not wield the same cultural power as the the western new Gurks because they never became settled peoples, in towns and farms,. The new Gurks who influence Synsi and Alygrian society as a fluid but thriving minority, have a much higher population than those remaining nomadic in the alpine and steppe regions, but the old Gurks are loyal to Bishlai, and form the god's eyes and ears north of Bangyarka, pleasing him greatly with what he salvaged.

### General Beliefs

#### Rules

They believe that children must never break the laws of their religion and the rules put up by the parents and to give them strict punishment and little reward.

They believe in excessive cleanliness and not to touch animals while they are alive considering them to be dirty, so they don’t have any pets.

They are fine with drugs and alcohol but find it a sinful act to have more than 2 of the drug or alcohol within 4 days

#### Servants to Bishlai

They believe that they are the servants to Bishlai to submit to Bishlai and follow every word Bishlai sends, rather then scripture they convey the messages of Bishlai from word, Bishlai sends prophets and messages to the monarch of igras and Bishlais champion to spread around amongst the faith, within this there has been many words and info that has been turned and bent to the own beliefs of the monarch or champion, such as making slavery permissible.

#### Monks

The monks are like their religious leaders, they live in a commune with everything they need, they train in martial arts and most importantly of all sword fighting, these monks also theorize about the religion presenting new ideas and religious ideals to solve cultural and political problems until they get a message from Bishlai, and only monks can become a prophet.

## Religious Practices

### Clothing & Appearance

Within the religion all men must wear a peice of cloth coloured either, green, maroon, red, or black around their mouth and only to take it off when eating or praying to Bishlai, making kissing a heretical act. Women must wear a thin coat covering their chest and back with a triangle down the middle ending at the belly button, this is so that when they become pregnant people will notice easier, aswell as women are taught to do excercise regularly so that they don’t get fat, being fat or overweight is a sin in the religion and since women live at home they can get fat easily because of their diet, women are not allowed to go into public showing too much skin, they are allowed to show their hair and face but nothing else.

### Rituals

#### Fruit

Fruit is a religious food and is put into everything and at their worship they get givin a bowl of assorted fruit to eat while praying to Bishlai, they also pray on prayer mats and go to a tall tower like building called a caslai or a al-csaslai that is coloured in dark brown and red to represent hot coals and fire

#### Mass

They smoke a variety of woods and even spices during prayer and celebrate by singing to make the prayer a memorable and enjoyable sensory experience allowing them to relax and to enjoy their time since the religion is so strict the mass is presented as a time where they are less burdened by their religion allowing for men to not wear their mask and for women to wear less restraining clothes and for children to get sweet fruit and to interact and play with other children, since they are usually house bound

This mass is performed twice a week, once on Wednesday afternoon, and on Sunday, on Sunday mass they have the “monks” come into teach them sword tactics or to do special dances and tricks with their sword depending on if the monks are busy or not

#### Prayer

Every family must have a totem of Bishlai they pray to in the morning and afternoon and sacrifice meat and other burnable things to, by burning the meat or wood the smoke gets sucked into the totem absorbed by Bishlai.

When they pray they recieve blessings, when praying to a totem they get short term and long term benefits, short term: they get a more wiser and religious view when decision making, they feel happier for a little while- long term: they have more stamina to do things (this lasts like 8 hours) and better sleep (lasts 3 hours)

They can prayer on the spot, this gives them better stamina for 30 minutes and anything they consume within that moment is absorbed partly by Bishlai

#### Fasting

Once every year at anytime they fast, but in a different way, they make a prayer that allows for Bishlai to absorb everything they drink and eat for an entire day till 5 in the afternoon

## Alliances

Bishlai is the right hand man of Yslalchiv

Yslalchiv and **Bishlai** have a ancient bond between their people and them themselves (add more on Bishlai's relationships with other gods)