Church of Ethax

Religion plays a vital role in the life of renaissance citizens, and Ethax is no exception. However, when your ancient pagan beliefs are actually real, it's difficult to get rid of them entirely. The Church of Ethax has come up with a strange way of reconciling their beliefs in the ancient gods with fervent Christianity. During the Hellenistic era, the Church worshipped Hephaestus (later Vulcan), the Greek God of forges, metal, and engineering. They considered him to be the patron of the arcane craft, and a role model for their own craftsmen. They also worshipped Zeus as the lord of storms, for the lightning which magnetised the lodestone.

Later, when Christianity arrived this view evolved somewhat. They dressed Vulcan up in reinterpretation and symbolism, and stripped him of his godhood. They now consider the archangel Jophiel (patron of artists in the Christian tradition) to be the Deity of the Arcane Craft. As a result of this Jophiel's importance is far more important in their tradition than in the conventional one, and most of the other archangels have been completely forgotten except by small factions of theological scholars. Since the Ethaxian church is extremely discreet about this, the Vatican leaves them alone, and only occasionally turns its nose up at them. They also believed, until it was disproved, that the arcane energy was a sort of magical substance/power controlled only by God. Eventually it was discovered that even humans could generate this energy in small amounts (see Bioelectric Experiment). After decades of trying to deny it, this revelation was retconned into the official canon.

The Church is not very rich (compared to the other organisations), and thus is somewhat limited in power. It still has immense cultural power and can sway the minds of believers. Furthermore, it is strong allies with the nobility and ruling clans; blasphemy against the official canon is still punishable by death. The church is still the primary commissioner of artworks to adorn their cathedrals, which gives them cultural capital, and being a priest is still quite a prestigious occupation. Priests of the Ethaxian church are usually quite broadly educated; they are expected to be well read in history, especially religious history, as well as heathen philosophy- but only in order to dispute it. Embracing these heathen philosophies (such as that of most of the Greeks) is punishable by variably death, exile, or excommunication. These laws are official policy which are embedded in the code of laws. Like most laws however, they serve partly as blackmail material; these laws are used to keep any heretics in the arcane guild on a tight leash.

The Church and the Arcane Guild are estranged, although they have reached a truce in recent years. The Guild still blames the Church (quite rightly) for their initial banishment, and the Church considers the guild responsible for their own declining prestige. A fact which has been forgotten is that the Arcane Guild (or at least its predecessor) was originally an outgrowth of the Church; a group of like-minded, upper-class priests who figured that experimentation and observation was the most appropriate way to better know the mind of God. Initially they were actively encouraged by the Church leadership, until they had an academic disagreement and a bit of a falling out. (see Bioelectric Experiment). Since the arcane guild has reformed and expanded, they have agreed to play nice with each other, after intense debates mediated by Primus- no ruler wants a dispute between the two pillars of their city, and so he appealed to them to reach an agreement. The Church issued a formal apology for the forced exile and updated that particular line of scripture, and in return the Arcane Guild designed and built a new Church near the center of the city, completely free of charge. There was a lot of symbolic reconciliation and speechifying, where Primus hailed them as the cultural and economic giants of the city and thanked them for being able to put aside their differences and all that.

As it stands, the Church is surprisingly progressive for its time. It respects the arcane guild, and is completely open to any scientific discovery which doesn't outright contradict its doctrine. This applies especially to technology which gives them more power. Their main quibble with the Arcane Guild is that of humanism vs theocracy; the Church believes that even human inventions originate from God (albeit indirectly), which the arcane guild politely disagrees with. However since this is an essentially academic disagreement, at least everyone manages to co-exist peacefully.