[ACCEPTED] Expansion of Tajara Religions

[Jboy2000000]

Type: Religion

Founding/Settlement Date: N/A

Region of Space: S'Rand'Marr and anywhere cats Tajarans can be found.

Controlled by (if not a faction): Father Walid Al'qat

Other Snapshot information: This is an expansion of the religion the wiki says is the main religion for the Tajaran people, the worship of the Suns. Beyond that there isn't much, so Ive made my own, and most of what Ive created has become what is standard as to what most, if not all, Tajaran players use, with very little change to what has already been said.

The Afterlife is called Messa's Forever, when someone of the faith dies, their soul becomes one with Messa, and are given unending splendor if they were good in life, and never ending burning if they were bad.

Long Description:

It is said that Tajarans first began to worship S'Rendarr and Messa when they first began to walk on two feet and speak the first languages of their species. When the first groups started to band together in religious sects, it's said they created the First Prayer, the most ancient prayer ever created in the faith of the Twin Gods and Sister Suns. It's spoken in a dead dialect, so old that even modern day translation technology can't turn it into Basic or Common, or any other language spoken today.

 

By day and light of S'Rendarr, we live and bask in her warmth, happy and content. By the warmth and light of Messa, we cease breath and fall to death. Only by the love and harmony of both the Twin Gods and Sister Suns do we live happily, and die the same. By the Twin Gods and Sister Suns, S'Rendarr and Messa, the faithful ask for your blessing, and to please extend it to the non-faithful who do no wrong, and cast no sin.

 

From there on, as the religion became standardized and evolved into one, large, proper religion, a religious head was appointed, a Father of the preachers and the truly devoted. The Father is chosen from the Brothers of the Suns, the preachers of the faith. There is a Holy City on the tallest mountain on Adhomai, called Sana Sahira, which roughly translates into the City of the Suns, currently held by the People's Republic of Adhomai, East of Al'Mari and West of Fort Hadii. The First Father of the Twin Gods was said to have made a direct link with the Goddesses, who gave him these laws that all of their faith should follow.

 

You shalt not harm another, faithful to the Suns or not. You shalt always show kindness to any and all. You shalt not covet the items of another faithful. You shalt not defile the body of one who now rests in Messa's Forever.

 

Since the day these were declared in Sana Sahira, they have been considered the Law of the Suns, essentially the Ten Commandments for those who follow the Twin Gods.

Devoted women of the faith can become Suns' Sisters, who take a vow of silence of silence, like the Goddesses themselves, and live in the Mosques devoted to the worship, tending to them in anyway needed, anything from cleaning to heavy manual labour repairing and replacing glass or furniture, to healing the Brothers, patrons and other Suns' Sisters. To cause harm to a Suns' Sister is said to be one of the most unholy things you can do in a place of worship, as they're meant to emulate the Goddesses themselves, silent, but strong and dependable. There have been cases where people were publicly murdered when they hurt or even insulted a Suns' Sister. The position of being a Suns' Sister in Sana Sahira is considered to be one of the greatest honours in the faith, on par with being the Father himself. Suns' Sisters have also be known to be allowed to leave their place of resident and go elsewhere, lending their aide to others in the name of the faith.

Like any religion, there are heresies of the main religion, namely there are worship of only one of the Goddesses instead of both. Those who follow S'Rendarr alone are closer to Christianity, seeing Messa as Christians see Satan, with a Heaven and Hell. Heaven is becoming one with S'Rendarr, and Hell is becoming one with Messa, burning in agony for eternity. Those who follow Messa alone are pretty much small cultist sects for edgy teenagers who praise death and pain in life.

Meanwhile, the main worship is like follows. S'Rendarr is the Goddess of Life, and all that is good in it. You pray to S'Rendarr when you want to ask for betterment, of yourself, others, or anything else. Messa is the Goddess of Death. You use her name either in anger and spite, or in plead. To curse one using Messa's name means you wish them pain and death. To pray to Messa is to ask for goodness in her Forever, to please her so she knows she can treat you well in the life after death.

[Mofo1995]

Hello! I will be reading this in more depth over the coming week, but it's currently on the sideline for another project. Just wanted to drop in and let you know this isn't forgotten or buried.

[Mofo1995]

Okay, I've read through all of this. As someone who really enjoys theology and mythology, I think it was a really good read and I am certainly interested in canonizing this application. Before I get to that though, there are a few things I want to hammer out with you. For the sake of simplicity I'm going to say "church" since this is clearly a very organized religion heavy on the clergy, and church refers to the holy ghost which is an institution rather than a building and blah blah blah. BUT I like the idea of their places of worship stylistically looking like mosques in architecture and even being called mosques.

 

2. What are the three factions relations with the church?
   
4. Which of the three factions does the church support, even if it does so subversively and non-unilaterally (as in, I'm sure many different arms of the church have different views, but is there any prevailing or more prominent one)?
   
6. What would the name of this organized religion be? Calling the institution a church might get confusing and cumbersome. Let's come up with a Tajaran word for it that isn't verbose and carries the same meaning as "church."
   
8. How does this institution feel about the Ma'ta'ke religion?

[Jboy2000000]

1. Sana Sahira, the holy city, is within the borders of the People's Republic, so they retain cordial relations with them so they don't come into any trouble with them using their land. I once thought the main religion of the NKA would be the God-King cults of yore, since those were a thing, or could be still are depending on how the lore changes given the current transfer of loreheadminship. Aside the point, since that is not the situation, I can only assume that in the NKA there is a significant number of worshipers of the Suns in their society, military and infrastructure, so they would need to not outright say anything bad about the church, so they don't disestablish themselves anymore than they already are. Last, the ALA, they inherently dislike the hierarchy as they keep their land in the Republic's borders, their main enemy in the civil war.

2. Short answer, no. The clergy of the faith keeps on the fence. On one hand, they need to keep relations with the PRA good. They can't outright insult the other factions and dwindle the faith of the people there, which would be a big deal.

3. How about the Parivara, meaning, the "Family," because they're called the Father, the Brothers, and the Sisters.

4. The religious structure as a whole would have little opinion on the faith of Ma'ta'ke, it's just another faith followed by others with similar believes. Im sure, however, that large amounts of people would dislike those who follow Ma'ta'ke, a mere Tajaran over the Goddesses.

[Mofo1995]

I like it! I'll see about condensing this and putting it on the religion section of the wiki. But if it proves to make the section too beefy, I might see about making an expanded religion page with more on Mata'ke worship too. I'll mark it as processing while I'm working on it and accepted when I'm done.

[Mofo1995]

It is done! You can now see it on the expanded religions section on the wiki, along with some other work I did to give the religion section a nice (but incomplete) face lift, and a new section in the culture section.