Lazhan religions

The **Lazhan religions** is a term used to describe the various religions originating from the traditional beliefs of the Lazhan people. More narrowly, it can refer to the five main Lazhan religions. Those being: Selenism, The Blue Dawn, Theianism, Elliksni, and Yvfenai. Some share common themes, deities, narratives; but most importantly, they are all fundamentally intertwined with Lazhan mythology, identity, culture and customs.

## History and divergence

### The Ancient System

At one point, it is believed that the Lazhan people shared one unified religious tradition that permeated all aspects of life. The exact details of this religion are unknown, and almost wholly inferred from inductive reasoning and evidence. An exact construction of the religion is impossible; to what degree the religion was centralized, what deities were worshiped, what rituals were performed, and so on. Some theories claim that the early Lazhan people were monotheistic, but more likely than not they were to some degree both animistic and polytheistic.

### Rise of Theianism and The Blue Dawn

As the Lazhan people expanded out from the initial Azurial River Valley, so too did their religion adapt to the various peoples and environments they were interacting with. Through this, the religions increasingly diverged until they could no longer be considered the same. It is believed that this is how Theianism in particular developed; with Lazhan settlers, through confluence with the various native beliefs, adapted their religion into something new, inextricably tied with the development of Tratudi civilization as a whole. This culminated into the legendary First Prophet founding the Theian religion, while those who remained in the Azurial river valley eventually developed into The Blue Dawn.

### Beginnings of Selenism

The second divergence began with the Exile and subsequent development of the Montsälviq people. In particular, the interactions the Lazhan settlers encountered with the Namdāi people influenced Selenism severely. In particular, disdain for the centralization of the Blue Dawn also contributed to the general relaxed and clement nature of Selenist theology and jurisprudence. Unlike the Blue Dawn or Theianism, there is no particular founder or prophet of the religion. Selenism's pluralist nature ultimately gave it its cosmopolitan identity. Identity, an important factor in lazhan religion, was found more so in the tradition of Selenism itself rather than the Montsalviq ethnicity. In this sense, Selenism grew to become more and more independent of the Montsalviq people as time progressed.

### The Elliksni dispute

An on-going discussion within Blue theological circles is to how exactly the Elliksni religion developed. The Elliksni people and language are definitively descended from the Lazhan people, although their religion is comparatively unorthodox, leading some to believe that perhaps the Elliksni religion is fundamentally derived from the pre-Lazhan inhabitants, whose religion was incorporated and reconfigured to work within a Lazhan framework. While others believe that the Elliksni religion is merely a very distinct interpretation of the Lazhan religion, who incorporated foreign elements to a greater degree than others did.

This dispute has often been used by Lazhan "purists" to deride the Elliksni religion as being false or of a foreign nature, while defenders of the Elliksni rebuke this, stating that religious syncretism is an important and welcomed facet of all of the Lazhan faiths, and that the distinction between the Elliksni and other Lazhan religions is unfair and unnecessary.

## Themes

Several unifying themes and narratives are present throughout the Lazhan faiths. The most notable theme being the relative prominence of (to be continued)