Virtue Pantheon

The Virtue Pantheon was the state religion of the Bazrian Empire, heavily married into the authority and structures of its government. In a sense removed from this, it may be referred to as Virtue Worship.

Virtue Worship exalts good and lawful ideals as transcendent properties of mortal life. Over centuries, these ideals have been codified into a list of specific, named virtues, however one should not confuse these virtues as being discrete gods within the religion, but simply tools to help understand virtue as a whole. The list of virtues are as found here http://www.crystalinks.com/romanvirtues.html . Many clerics and other worshipers of Virtue may specialize in their understanding of certain virtues over others, but while it is natural to feel drawn to certain virtues over others, it is hubris to consider any greater than others.

## Important Concepts in Virtue

### Mortal Transcendence

Of all the planes of existence, only the chaos and evil of The Abyss is truly infinite. To most, this would make existence seem bent far in favor of darkness, but virtue worshipers believe that once existence was *only* darkness, and so that the light has grown infinitely since time began, and so in the eternity of the future, must be winning.

Virtue worshipers believe that mortals, because of their ephemeral nature, are freed from the weight of infinite entropy and endowed with the unique ability to die with an identity that can be understood, and so an identity that can be good. Thus, by dying having lived a life of virtue, mortals reshape reality into a thing of law and good.

Virtue worshipers do not believe in any divine source of goodliness or law, rather, they believe divine good and law are results of mortal virtue over the aeons. This is not to imply, however, that mortal virtue worshipers think they are more good than celestials or heaven. While mortals may be the only source of good, cosmic forces of good are the distilled embodiment of the good worked by ages of mortals past, and so do deserve praise and respect (though not worship).

### Absolutes and Hubris

Virtue Worshipers by large see philosophical or metaphysical absolutes as hubris. Because there is no cosmic source of good or law beyond mortals, and because mortals are flawed, there is no \*perfect\* form of good nor law. A mortal should never consider themselves or their understanding of virtue to be complete, because virtue is a force leading away from sin, an arrow extending from mortal hearts eternally into greater and greater light without end, not a destination. Even the celestials and heavens only reflect the greatest goods reached in mass thus far, not any end result of virtue.

Further, a mortal thinking oneself above participation in Mortal Transcendence is hubris. Virtue Worship exalts death, and views immortality as the ultimate hubris (indeed, some virtue scholars even believe elves must inherently be less virtuous than men for their lengthy natural lifespan). Conversely, seeking a premature death is seen as cowardice and weakness, as one should strive to accomplish the greatest virtue they can in the life naturally allotted to them (though this is not as bad as hubris, ultimately).

Hubris is the chief sin of Virtue Worship, to think oneself above ideals, to think oneself a model of what can be achieved, or to think oneself above dying.

## Relationships with other Religions

### Aesthetica

Virtue worship is concerned with worshiping things a mortal ought strive to be, so while "beautiful" is a valid, if perhaps trivial, quality to think desirable for oneself, worshiping beauty as a concept is foreign and blasphemous. The primary conflict is with virtue's rejecting of absolute philosophical/metaphyisical concepts not originating form mortal hearts, which contradicts immediately with Aesthetica's belief in a higher state of reality shining in to our own.

Still, since beauty is not a virtue, so Aesthetica's belief in it being an external force does not truly directly contradict with the beliefs of The Virtue Pantheon. The two religions have general maintained a high tolerance for eachother with a few historic exceptions of Baz asserting dominance over the mountains for primarily politically motivated purposes. Virtue worshipers see Aesthetes as a unsophisticated but unoffensive people, with a silly and overly simple ideology that produces a pleasing enough and uncontentious culture that likely results in a fair amount of virtue in the end anyway.