Faiths

Religion in Gondwana

It is possible to chart the faiths and practices of humankind in Gondwana according to their basis and relation. The result is not a comprehensive list of all sects and denominations, as one would be impossible to compile for all their multitudes and constant change. But such a chart offers insight into the foundations held by all permutations of religion that there are.

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Light of an Orderly Cosmos

Rather than a religion, this highest order is a philosophical conviction. The light of order in the cosmos must be actively preserved, lest it all falls into darkness and entropy where neither life nor civilization can persist. This must be one united struggle, striving for convergence and complexity on a galactic scale.

Affirmation of the Light is the baseline of faith in Gondwana which every faction and society aligned with the Twin Civilizations of Humankind must necessarily follow. No society without the fundamental conviction that humankind must be unified to hold onto the light can be part of the Empire or Union. And any society claiming allegiance to the light without joining in their united struggle is not following it truly.

Demiurge and Egregor

The second order of faith is represented by the Two Gods of Humankind, the Demiurge and Egregor, largely signifying the divide between the Terran Empire and Mechanist Union.

Worship in the Mechanist Union

On the Union's side, the third order of the hierarchy of worship reaches already the individual worshipper. The Noosphere Unity which most mechanist Clades directly follow is considered a present aspect of the Nascent God. It is pursued in pragmatic terms, with traditions and symbolism of worship being directly integrated into practical day-to-day life.

Under some circumstances, individual supreme artificers or electric spirits are elevated to positions of idolization and attract followers across multiple clades. But even in those cases, the resulting worship is more akin to adopted doctrines of thought rather than culturally expressed.

Worship in the Terran Empire

In the Terran Empire, the hierarchy of worship in the third order is a rich tapestry centered around the two institutions sanctified directly by the One Celestial as avatar of the Egregor:

The Church of the Celestial Illumina and the Palatinates. While the Palatinates maintain their own rites of worship, they do not function as a church much outside their innermost society.

The Celestial Illumina, in comparison, branches off into a huge number of individual chapters locally centered on different regions of known space. The Church chapters can be roughly divided by the exact denominations they follow, which are most often differentiated by their interpretation of the Celestial's actions and will. In Gondwana, one major chapter of the Celestial Illumina is present, centered on the hallowed world Calhall.

This is typical, as many Illumina chapters exert a similar level of control over comparable regions. Even though there are no other major chapters of the Celestial Illumina in Gondwana, the spiritual authority of Calhall is by no means uncontested. On a similar level of power and importance, local religious sects adopted into the church Illumina play a major role in religious spheres.

In the case of Gondwana, the Demarchist faith has morphed into a rivaling sect of imperial faith. In time, adopted local faiths are typically absorbed into existing chapters or ultimately force a schism from which one or multiple new chapters arise.