Nine Great Faiths, Three Small Ones, and a Heresy

The True Faiths are spiritual philosophies taken from a concept called Heaven and filtered through a human Prophet into a fragment of its totality; a Gospel. This Gospel enforces behaviors upon its adherents, from lightly touching the attendant masses to wholly possessing the highest echelons. In a land of Un-Worldly subversion both within and without, the Gospels are some of mankind's most stalwart protectors.

But not without cost. Not without change.

For most, the weekly attendants and quiet believers, the boon is simple; the urge of Primeval Sin is suppressed, and men may live as they would have had their ancestors not so deeply sinned. By no means are they perfect, but a particular burden has lifted from their hearts. They are cleansed of their wrongness and may, perhaps, seek something better.

Heaven did not originate from the minds of men. Its Gospels erupted from them as their minds sought to grasp the profundity of what they encountered. It is this lack of human taint which allows their teachings to root fast in the soul, without the risk of Primeval Sin's subconscious hunger influencing the work.

In truth, none truly know what Heaven is. Some see it as an assemblage of unspeakably potent Daimons, others a single one greater still, or something transcending even that. Others say it is a place existing in time, in the present or the future, or simply an idea, a philosophy so great it reshapes all who conceive it, existing ineffably by itself as surely as any force of nature.

But Heaven, then, is an alien thing. It can be terrifying, even if it speaks of an end of all sorrows. The demands made by the Gospels, forged from this divinity by men who grasped the very barest fragments of it, demand terrible efforts of will, utmost devotion, to aid in the task of bringing Heaven to Earth, to protecting the flock, to keeping the sacred writs pure.

It is no easy path, and requires contending with the depths of your own nature, wrestling with your humanity itself. To do anything more than exist as the common member of the flock, absolute obedience is demanded. The Gospels cannot be questioned, cannot be changed, cannot be doubted. To seek to alter or omit any part would damage the intricate network of teachings which still the unconscious sins of mortals. Only one wholly devoted, wholly trusting, may obtain the heights of sainthood. The teachings and virtues by which such pious faithful are expected to abide by are called the Writs, and to believe them so wholeheartedly that the change the core of who you are is to be among the Elect.

To the eyes of outsiders, this may look the same as madness. To another True Faith, it is merely different, another path to tread, but one they have chosen not to walk, cannot walk. For the Gospels of each Faith are limited things, the product of a Prophet's own frantic comprehension of Heaven, distilled into sacred literature. Like a puzzle-box with a million pieces, not all match together, and we have but a scant few of them. They do not connect. They are oil and water. They may ally briefly to common cause, but ever do they remain apart. The contortion of their minds and the subsumption of their desires to their Gospels prevents the flexibility that would allow them to find middle ground, and to try is to court the deepest kind of Sin.

So they remain, scattered across the world, crouched upon their own territories, keeping their own peace, and giving their own council. A dozen different paths to Heaven, all demanding a terrible price, all promising wondrous miracles.

But none have ever reached Heaven. None have ever fixed the world entire.

None have ever not stumbled. Not had a fall of their own.

To choose one to follow is a great commitment, to choose to believe even deeper a greater one still. Most are born into their Faith, but some change it, or more commonly adopt it from without. At their least, they offer a protective aid to the spirit. They spurn the soul, vex the hateful daimon, and thwart possession. They turn the human soul into a fearful thing that blazes against the dark. That alone tempts many.

But to slip off the narrow path, be it through laxity or honest mistake, can have terrible consequences of its own. Even freed from Primeval Sin, people can still err.

In these chaotic times, few place trust in something so backwards, so unable to change, to adapt. For it is change which rules now, the endless cycle of the sword and the grinding of the earth.

Yet still, the True Faiths endure, as mountains against the sea. Be it holy lands or holy people, their tendrils wrap across the Known World, and work tirelessly towards its continuation, if not its betterment.

One day, perhaps, in an unimaginable future, Heaven may be brought down to Earth. Or perhaps not. Perhaps we are doomed. Too scattered, too disordered, too broken from the start to ever but glimpse paradise.

But these are worries for another time, a quieter place. Now is the time of the Fall, and more pressing matters wait.

The True Faiths are all which abide by a Gospel of Heaven. Of the True Faiths, there are Great Faiths. Some Gospels are spread thin, or isolated, or even lost entire. Not these. They spread all across the Known World, perhaps beyond, under other names. And other Great Faiths, of foreign prophets, may well be found in distant parts. But these nine are ours, and we name their Prophets the Great Saints.

They need not be all in the same place. Indeed, most realms host but a few, and often it is a singular Gospel which is prominent, the rest along the margins. But the Great Faiths have impacted history deeply, and their followers are spread across the Known World such that they may never truly die. To know them is to know the sacrifices our kind have made to preserve our souls against the madness within them.

The Prophet Metan and the Gospel of Judgement

The oldest Great Faith, perhaps one of the first True Faiths. Metan saw Heaven earliest, perhaps even as it smote the Titans down. A mortal, as we were, barely touched by Sin. A thing for the butcher's block had the world not ended around them.

Metan, it is known, wished for justice. Subjected to the cruel and arbitrary tyranny of the great, the fragment of Heaven the Prophet found was one of judgement. The Gospel that blossomed inside of them was one of law, logic, and arbitration, and so it was that Metan would spread their blessing.

Around all the Known World and perhaps more did Metan walk, and they collected countless students. The first codes of law, those which their people deemed fair at least, are said to have come from Metan. To treat lessers as people instead of things, to determine fault without regard for stature, to ensure the wicked were punished and the innocent spared, such was the Prophet's vision. In a world of might, it was revolutionary. It was Metanic wisdom which held the Chimera-Archons of Draun and the unliving magi-kings of Kuth at bay, among others, and allowed the world to breathe free from the yolk of another brood of inhuman, predatory masters.

So too did Metan seek knowledge. For only by understanding the world and it's own laws could man be elevated above them. Scholarly were Metan's disciples, and so they still are today. Indeed, the Metanic halls boast not only great troves of Worldly knowledge, but potent secrets of Theurgy as well. 

Metan passed, eventually, content to die of old age as a human. But their people would carry on the Gospel the Prophet spread to them. The Temple, it is called, and for much of history in the era after the Titans did they order the world. Kings and emperors would flock to their halls to be given wise counsel, and magi would bind themselves to the Gospel's law such that their arts would ever be used in the name of Heaven. Resplendent were these great courts and libraries, guarded by undying golems clay and watched by disciples upon carpets of silk, and more wonders besides. Chief among them was Haim-Haneh, greatest of the scholarly palaces and lost capital of all Metanic glory.

For yes, their era was not to last. Such secrets draw covetous gazes, and for each step forward the flock of Metan took, they were set back. Again and again did apostate sorcerers seek to obtain the powers and knowledge hoarded by the Temple. Treachery abounded, as did threat from without. Ever more cunning did grow the myriad hosts that sought to crack open such vaults of Gnosis, discarding entirely the vast tracts of worldly knowledge and legal precedent which too formed pillars of the Metanic faith.

In time, it grew too much.

Slowly, the halls of Metan turned away all but the most worthy. Slowly did they close their gates. Their new temples were no longer resplendent halls, but grim fortresses, spread far and apart each with but fragments of a greater whole of truth, kept separated such that the loss of one library would yield no great gain to the plunderer. The priests of Metan turned inward, and their disciples came to know only each other.

So it is now that each bastion of Metan exists as a solitary state, its power forcing neighboring realms to acknowledge its legitimacy. No diaspora are they, but proud and aloof. Their scholar-judge-magi, the intellectual elite, preside over prestigious centers of learning with few rivals elsewhere. Yet these gifts are scarcely offered to those beyond their walls. They will offer shelter to the needy, and food to the hungry, and yes, rarely offer counsel, but the preservation and protection of their great corpus has become their highest goal.

But still, they watch. And they listen. And when they must, they act. The assembled forces of Metan are an awesome sight. Priest-Magi directing legions of golemic linemen, standing on high with their great staves raised and glowing script flowing around them. They are potent binders of Daimons and slayers of sorcerers, for what a power-mad magus wields in ignorance a judge of Metan has studied in intricate detail.

But such things are few, and far between. More often than not, the doors remain closed, the faithful stay within, and the Temple waits for the storm to pass. For most, the Metanic bastions remain a subject of rumor and mystery, a relic of a time long gone, echoing into the present.

The symbol of Judgement's Gospel is a triangle within a circle. Metan is depicted as a figure obscured, shrouded in many-colored flowing robes, and surrounded by servile daimons and circles of light and sigil.

The Writs of Judgement enforce impartial judgement and dedicated study. They enforce meticulous arbitration, to hear all sides of an issue before acting, to carefully catalogue all they encounter so as to better complete their picture of creation. They enforce rigorous academic acumen, demanding if not perfection in their dedication to truth, something close to it. Their exemplars are judges, teachers, and trustworthy advisors.

Their miracles concern the workings of Gnosis impossible for secular mages and the binding and abjuration of daimons and spirits.

They believe Heaven shall be reached when all Worldly knowledge is laid bare and the nature of Creation understood. With this insight will come enlightenment to the path, and we may reach Heaven freely, each one of us alone, by following the chain of tutelage to reach it. 

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their prudent judgement, their exactingly fair laws, and their mastery of Gnosis. Their weaknesses are their slowness to act, their isolationism, and the powerful heretic sages that sometimes break from their church.

The Prophet Pytaus and the Gospel of Dominion

A Faith which has spread widely across the Known World, its origins are disputed. Some say Pytaus was noble, others common. Some claim Pytaus was from the north, south, west, east, but none offer proof. The holy conqueror captured the hearts of many, so bold was he, so mighty, so divine. Yet is it not so that the builder of empire scarce has the righteousness of any people in their heart? This is true. Power corrupts, and ever have lesser faiths been used as justification for senseless bloodshed.

But Pytaus was a Prophet, and his Gospel was of the sword.

Some time after the withdrawal of Metan's Temple from the spheres of power and the rise of profane Gnosis and Chthonic Goeteia, it was Pytaus who next saw Heaven, at least among the rankings of the Great Faiths. The land in which lived Pytaus, subject not just to Un-Worldly horrors but those of mere men, had in the figure kindled a desire for the righteous fury by which such things may be subdued. But fearful was Pytaus of the misaimed blow, of the corruption of his own self by the glory of Worldly victory. Thus did his ambitions languish, until he found Heaven.

The Gospel that took root in Pytaus was in rulership, and in clarity. Not merely towards others, but towards their own soul. As its tendrils thickened the Prophet grew ever more unable to lie to his own heart. With clearest eyes, granted by a supreme miracle, could Pytaus discern that which must be cleansed, and that which must be aided. That which must be allied, and that which must be ruled. Those who must be bid to kneel, and those who may be lifted up. The rules of regency were clear to the Prophet of Dominion, and ever after were they wielded in the name of Heaven.

Many are the stories of the Great Pytausic Hosts and their sweeping across the Known World. The great castles, the kings and knights, the distant and independent lords, the feudal state, these may well be attributed to the systems set by their victorious disciples. Hierarchical, malleable, adaptive, suited to an Un-Worldly bond between regent, lord, and knight; this was the ideal for their principles, though it would later prove most suitable to countless secular realms.

Many are the stories of Sinful Wolgoch, the apostate realm of the cold south which were ever a thorn in his side, a nest of traitors which yet paid homage to the Titans-Who-Died-Yet-Dream, and their efforts to destroy this burgeoning Faith.

Many too, are the stories of the winged knights of Pytaus. Of all the Great Faiths, they most use the Miracle of Communion, by which the Daimons of the Empyrean are bid to offer their flesh to men, that we may be remade in their image.

Pytaus, it is said, died in battle against a most terrible foe. Some say a mighty Wurm, others a Demititan of surpassing height, and others an inhuman Daimon leading a host of monstrous spawn. But die with sword in hand he did, warring to the last.

How, then, did such a roaring flame die down? For all their vigor, the faith of Pytaus is but a fragment of Heaven, and its Gospel imperfect, as all are. Bidden are they to wage their wars in the name of the flock's protection. Their obedience, their tenacity, their zeal, all is dedicated to the people who they are pledged to protect and guide towards righteousness.

But that is all.

To many, those outside the Pytausic Star may as well not exist, unless their loss would allow a greater evil to afflict it. That is not to say that they have not marshaled their hosts for the sake of others, but their Gospel's Writ does not enforce it, only the teachings of the Prophet and their Worldly conscience. In such an uncertain world, ever is the temptation to secure one's own, and leave the rest for the wolves. As the eras passed, more and more did those of Pytaus choose such a path, and in time their star fell, and new Faiths rose to match them.

The symbol of Dominion's Gospel is a four-pointed star, the upmost point elongated into a bladelike shape. Pytaus is depicted as a regal knight in closed visor, a crown built into their helm. Though traditionally depicted as male, female iconography also exists.

The Writs of Dominion are of action, clarity and duty. They clearly delineate the standards by which malevolence is recognized, and make it impossible to allow it to fester or grow, and further still demand utmost fealty from the lowest rungs to the highest. When united in force, they are a tide of righteous retribution. When disunited, their lower orders are more Worldly than the higher, and may well be led astray. Their exemplars are warrior-kings, and questing knights, as much people of their individual realm as of their shared Faith.

Their miracles are of the smiting blade and fortified body, of purifying light and unyielding will. To render oneself in armament and harness even unclad and bare-handed, and if geared to grow more mighty still.

They believe Heaven shall be reached when all innocent souls are safe and warded by their diligence, and so freed from strife may take slow, stumbling steps towards comprehending Heaven as the Prophets did. Thus enlightened, they may uplift all others, and end at last the long vigil of Pytaus.

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their disciplined armies, brave knight-priests, and their skill at assessing what truly merits holy war. Their weaknesses are their tendency to protect only their own flock, their lack of tact or nuance, and the misguided layfolk who sometimes act hastily on their own.

The Nameless Prophet and the Gospel of Castigation

It was into a time of Worldly paradise that the Nameless Prophet entered the Known World. This is not to say that it was without woe, for woe there indeed was. But it was a time of mighty, sprawling lands and great Worldly wealth, concentrated within opulent cities and lords rich beyond imagining. The powers which arose during that time are hardly worth specifying, so well-known are they to most even know. Qemarai and Ghara, the twin jewels of the sweltering north, Avendine, the degraded heirs of the Pytausic Order, the Lamsurian host which swept from the cold bottom of the world and Great Khys which had pushed them there, Dulv with its hundred barren isles, Moques with its endless Dreaming...

All glutted on the suffering of the common man, they were. Armies tens, hundreds of thousands strong, not seen since the days of Draun and Haim-Haneh, would shed rivers of blood over the pettiest of squabbles. It was into this world, so glutted on gilt and broken backs, that the Castigant was born.

Not name nor sex can we even guess at for the Prophet Unnamed, for fervently did they ensure all they were never be recorded. The dearest wish of the Great Saint was an end to the blind greed of the great rulers which stamped down upon them, and this became their Gospel.

The Castigant forsook all worldly pleasures, be they of the carnal flesh or the intoxication of the mind. Throw themselves into labor did they instead, working without reward in acts of charity. An Un-Worldly vigor seemed to drive them, and by their own hands alone they dammed rivers, built houses, fed the poor, and nursed the sick. And always did they deny reward, save when it could be used to serve a greater cause. No great sorcerer or mighty king was the Castigant, but a worker, among the lowest and for the lowest.

Perhaps the one eccentricity was their insistence on pain. The flagellants whip, the bed of coal, the river of ice. Such suffering, the Gospel of the Castigant spoke, inured the mind to the lesser degradations of mere life. Perhaps it was Worldly knowledge, or a potent Miracle, but it seemed true. Each such rite hardened the body and mind of the Prophet and their followers, and each act of deprivation or torment they endured by powers fearful of their words was as milk and honey compared to that which they inflicted upon themselves.

As mad as they seemed, their words sparked a fire in many. Hand united in hand, stained by the blood of cleansing purgation. Like wildfire did the Castigant Gospel spread, and the eyes of all were turned towards the ground beneath them instead of the towers which rose above them. Indeed, great was the loss of wealth in all the lands the Castigant's words touched, as so many forsook worldly pleasures save the most simple and needed.

One could argue if it was truly their fault, what then happened. The world was a place oppressed by the weight of great powers, but in that time they had been kept in check by each other. Their strength, dedicated to checking the others as it was, could still be wielded against Un-Worldly and unanticipated. But by simple virtue of the masses refusing to aid them any longer, these great powers collapsed.

And with them, came desperation, fear, the brigand and the magus unbound.

The monster in the night and the drake from his burrow.

And Sin.

Primeval Sin.

For all their power in aiding each other, the anarchy inflicted tore the world apart. When again a balance would settle upon the land, it was one in which the Gospel of the Castigant was much diminished from what it could have been.

But even so, it persists. In harsh backwater realms and monasteries devoted to servitude and quiet contemplation, the Writ of the Castigant binds those who find salvation in labor and simple life. And yes, there are the preachers, the rousers of the masses, who would exhort others to take up the same cause, but in this era, those who take up the offer are fewer than there were before. So little precious remains, and few can stand to abandon what succor they have. For better or worse.

The symbol of Castigation's Gospel is a sharp teardrop shape or talon, curving upwards. The Castigant is depicted as a naked, scarred, leathery ascetic in rags, face ever turned away from the viewer.

The Writs of Castigation are of simplicity, self-discipline, and busy hands. They bid the Written to live lives of simplicity and honest labor for the sake of others, turning themselves into Un-Worldly servants of their fellow men who can survive and endure even the harshest conditions. A Castigant could labor for weeks in desiccated heat or freezing snow to create a shelter or till a field, and they often do. They are weathered and bent-backed, but their eyes burn with the light of Heaven as surely as any other Faith. Their exemplars are monks, solitary ascetics, and firebrand preachers.

Their miracles are of the endurance and tenacity of the body, no matter how pierced, scarred, and broken, and of its tireless labor and persistence. Of wringing fertile crops from barren soil and pure water from stone.

They believe Heaven shall be reached when all thoughts are scourged away and all temptations rejected. In the ecstasy of their labor they shall forge Heaven from their own millions of hands and in doing so at last create the perfect world, the only worthy luxury, and at last find rest. 

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their hard-working layfolk, their fearsomely charismatic preachers, their capacity to withstand great suffering, and their capacity to subsist and take pleasure in even the simplest lives. Their weaknesses are their lack of higher learning, their thinly spread rural populations, and their frequent disputes with other Great Faiths.

The Prophet Eusephine and the Gospel of Mercy

Great Saintess Eusephine was born into a most terrible. A time of dying empires languishing in ruins and the rising of terrible, inhuman powers thought sealed and forgotten. A time of desperate, hungry men and the monsters they would become. Her own homeland, once the Shining Cities of Tabran, was a patchwork of oblivion, pillaged by a hundred hands of coast and inland alike.

That she possessed the capacity to forgive every one of them is proof of her Un-Worldly resolve.

Into this dark era was born Eusephine, who saw the great suffering of the world and, knowing something of the Three Faiths as they were at that time called, could not abide their isolation, their selfishness, and their callousness. For all the good they had done, an essential quality of humanity, in her mind, had been missed. When she perceived Heaven (and it is thought she may well have been the only Prophet to deliberately seek it out), the Gospel that settled within her was one of mercy and redemption.

Make no mistake, she was no innocent maiden. Her mercy was one borne of wisdom, having seen herself the darkness in the hearts of mortals and of worse things. And her wish was that even they be given a chance to repent. But a chance is not forever, and should their wickedness harm those who she had saved, she would tearfully withdraw her grace, and so ensure their destruction.

Eusephine was in some ways the most terrifying of saints. When she found an individual who she thought was deserving of mercy, she would relentlessly hound and stalk them. Often was she torn apart, trampled, burnt, each time rising again, eyes overflowing with compassion. Only should their ire be directed against those less surely blessed would her patience thin, but upon herself, all manner of deaths were heaped. For those who bore even a hint of guilt, a trace of shame, to kill the same woman over and over, while she never once rebuked them, wore away at their souls. Those who broke in the face of such unrelenting kindness would be embraced and given the Gospel, and sent forth to repeat those same miracles upon others. Of all the Prophets her way was most forceful. Each blow endured, each death suffered, by Eusephine was one which could be paid back. Once martyred, she would have her chosen at her own mercy. For such luckless victims, the only alternative to accepting the Gospel was either the wholesale cessation of their ambitions, or death.

Many are those who sought to evade this fate, but it was by and large futile. Though stories speak of some of the most clever magi and monsters evading divine judgement, in most castes their fate was sealed, and even if they did not repent, their capacity for greater sin was cut short. But some, who were repeatedly forgiven, were spoken to, were accepted as they were, over and over again, no matter the hurt they inflicted... some of them broke. Some of them truly, in the depths of their souls, were made to see what they were, and despise themselves for it. And in time, they would seek to make up for the wrongs they had done.

Thus, many lesser Saints of Eusephine are reformed villains and terrible monsters, the survivors of such terrible, relentless mercy. Some became protectors of the Faith, using their powers to stymie such evils that could never be redeemed, but most would give up their blades entire, and spend their lives in surrendering peace.

Eusephine died of old age, at peace. Her miracle of rebirth only applied to death inflicted upon her, not the natural process of Worldly age. Perhaps this is a mercy in itself.

Following her death, the disciples of Eusephine only spread further. Even in their dark age, they did much to ameliorate its tragedy. Their churches became shelters for the needy, and where their Gospel spread even the most wicked of sinners were made docile servants of the common folk.

They have produced no mighty nations under their banner, nor have they shaken the world as other Great Faiths have. But they proliferate like a weed, rising up again every time they cut down in the image of their Great Saint. No matter how many of them must endure the tortures of wicked folk, and no matter how many of them do not get back up.

They are decried by some for this. While other Great Faiths act boldly and decisively, They meekly endure until truly no options remain. No great empire was founded under the Open Palms, for certain, but many a tyrant was extinguished in one form or another before they flowered. Though it is harder to prove the benefits of preventing what might have been, those who support the Merciful Church say that in their own way, they have aided the Known World as surely as any other True Faith.

The symbol of Mercy's Gospel is a stylized pair of open hands, facing down and inward. Eusephine is depicted as a woman in the prime of her life, face obscured by a veil. Often a dagger is depicted thrust into her heart.

The Writs of Mercy are of humility, persistence, and generosity. They welcome the needy and they feed the hungry. They do not work themselves to the bone as Castigants but they do not seek grand, lofty ambitions like the followers of Judgement or Dominion. They are content merely to live until Heaven seeks to claim the world. But when faced with wickedness, their demeanor changes. They beseech the aggressor to desist, throwing themselves at them, sacrificing their very bodies if need be. Every chance is given to desist, to leave, or to submit. Should they leave, if they ever return the flock shall be far less merciful, as their most fearsome wardens shall be awaiting them instead of meek common folk. If they submit, they shall join those same terrible protectors (if they do not merely lay down their weapons and accept a simple life), waiting for the day that mercy is wholly rejected. Their exemplars are caregivers, martyrs, and redeemed sinners.

Their miracles are of taking upon themselves the wounds of others, of healing the addled mind and cleansing the repentant of their manifest sins, the salvation of those otherwise beyond it through their own efforts.

They believe Heaven shall be reached when all sinners are redeemed, no matter how long it shall take, until all save the utterly wicked and unrepentant are embraced in the loving arms of mercy. Struggle thusly ended, a peace shall come, like slowly falling snow, until the world, and end it forever after. 

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their unending capacity for mercy, their swiftness in aiding the needy, their welcoming of outsiders and hospitality, and the sparse population of powerful, once-wicked converts which shepherd their flocks. Their weaknesses are their lack of aggression against threats without, the very mercy they offer often ending in tragedy, and the length by which their patience can be tested and judgement confused by the most cunning of sinners.

The Prophet Ushia and the Gospel of Eternity

There is much debate as to the Prophet Ushia's origins, or even if they were fully human. Given what they became, it is easy to assume otherwise.

Ushia, it is said, was no great warrior, no cunning sage, no captivating preacher. They, it, walked out of the deserts between far Ghara and old Avendine, and spoke simply, gently, of the nature of time.

It must be understood, all the Gospels which existed until now were of mortal Prophets. Living prophets. All, if not abjured, distrusted that which rose above such limits, be they of Primeval Sin or otherwise. For what kind of man would seek eternal life? What man, even if just, would not succumb to it, the long years alienating them from their kin?

And yet... To bring Heaven to Earth was the undertaking all such Gospels sought, and they were limited by their own frail lives, by the turning of generations. Plans deviated, knowledge was lost. Efforts started anew. Ushia wished dearly to forge a church which did not spread across land, but through time. An undying bastion which could provide succor to the desperate and a shelter to the architects of Heaven. A locus for the long, slow war against all which would degrade and destroy the mortal soul.

And such efforts could not, they said, be forged by souls trapped in mortal bodies.

Yes, Ushia was among the Living Dead, though who can say for how long they had been so. Certainly, when they were burnt upon the pyre by those who could not stomach such a thing, its charred skeleton walked off of the crumbling pillar and bid its disciples cease their wailing.

The Gospel which had bloomed in Ushia was one of Eternity. Of vigilance, patience, and fortitude.

Its disciples soon shed their living flesh as well, joining the Prophet in an undying state. Many were the revenants who flocked to the Ushian sign, finding at last a divinity which accepted even their debased form. Even monsters came to join the Prophet, their fixations bound by the Gospel's Writ, and so if not purified, were prevented from further harm. The Ushian monasteries, built in the most desolate of places, grew thick with life and unlife alike, and swiftly did their populations grow Tenebrous.

In time, Ushia grew less and less animate. They spoke little, and moved less. And in time, they ceased to act at all, and their spirit departed.

But the faith they birthed endured. Gently, quietly, as great lands rose and fell, as madness consumed great parts of the Known World, they persisted in their undying vigil. Ever wary were they for the perversion of their timeless stewardship, for even Gospel's chains could not bind every soul under their watch. And many were those who sought the power stored in those ageless libraries, but scorned the Writ which would bind them. Ever did they seek to carve man down to just the soul itself, as the daimons live, but uplifted from force of will and faith rather than sorcerous apotheosis. To forge a world where every man wanted for nothing and suffered never after. The final goal of Heaven, the narrowest, longest path. The Living Dead, in their eyes, are the flawed, pupal form of the divine imago. 

The studies of the Ushians made great strides in the healing of the body and soul, the cleansing of sinful dead, the pacification or the tormented spirit. More than any other Great Faith did they grant succor to those unloved and shunned by their inhuman condition.

But the atrocities produced by those magi who stole away those same secrets for their own ends ever would shadow their legacy. For more than any other Great Faith could their miracles be perverted into deepest horror.

Only once did they claim a great empire, a land of the dead named Kreus, and later would dark, pluvial Phodelis crawl from its ashes. The succumbing of that realm to the hungers of the Living Dead and the temptations of Worldly immortality was so great it has never again been attempted, and ever after have they made one exception to their doctrine of careful isolation and the pursuit of spiritual purity.

They do not abide the practice of Undeath's Gnosis outside of their view or control. If a magus of such arts practices openly, it is because the Ushians allow them, have deemed them fit to pursue a limited education in the arts. All others are persecuted with utmost zeal, for no more can the church afford such disgraces to reduce them further. The relentless dead of Eternity's Gospel will brook no further degradation of their sacred miracles, no matter the cost to themselves.

So they remain, pursuing the deepest mysteries and growing ever stranger, accepting the lowest of the low among their silent flock, marching out only rarely, and most often against their own kind. So they have been for uncountable years, and so they will continue to be, chasing after the final end to the will of Heaven, guarded by revenants of polished bone and golems of patchwork flesh, styled in the forms of the angels they adore.

The symbol of Eternity's Gospel is a stylized pyre, a line with an upside-down 'v' at the bottom. Ushia is depicted as a kindly, androgynous figure, wrapped in a simple robe, or as a charred skeleton filigreed with gold and silver, or both visions superimposed or bisecting each other.

The Writs of Eternity are of patience, temperance, and self-knowledge. They seek to master their spirits such that even trapped in forms long bereft of the senses, or driven by Un-Worldly hungers which would break lesser souls into feral beasts, they yet endure, though the oldest of them rarely speak or move, just as their founder did. Among the lesser faithful, there is an inclination towards quiet stoicism and the acceptance of hardship. They live and labor in those temples of the dead, and when their years are spent they will join them, in one form or another. Their exemplars are strategists, philosophers, and the unliving champions of their Faith.

Their miracles are of calming the anguished specter and soothing the cravings of the hungry dead, of granting respite to the restless and clarity to the diminished, of the practice of righteous undeath untainted by the corruption it often brings.

They believe Heaven shall be reached when the flawed mortal body is overcome by its ascendant soul, all the pitfalls and tribulations of the Narrow Path undone, and an unliving spirit may stand as a god itself. The icon of Heaven incarnated, it shall then uplift all others, and a harmony of souls shall reign in silence forever after. 

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their capacity for long-term planning, their unliving armies and the mortal flock that support them, their knowledge of medicine, and their rigorous self-policing. Their weaknesses are the numinous afflictions that plague that same mortal flock, the mind addling that oft affects their eldest members, the prejudices the unliving members of their flock face, and the horrible atrocities that occur when their secrets are taken by secular mages.

The Prophet Kharis and the Gospel of Providence

Long after the fading of Ghara and Qemarai there grew the great land of Zawia, which it is said eclipsed both in its splendour. Yet, it also exceeded the Twin Jewels in its rapaciousness, for it grew to consume much of the Known World, rivaling even old Draun, the empire of chimerae, at its height.

It was into this realm that Kharis was born, an educated member of the gentry. Kharis knew little struggle in his life, and was unlikely to meet it, save his own curiosity. His excursions into the city beneath his palace showed him much of the suffering brought upon the lands his people had subjugated. The callousness and cruelty of its lords. Kharis wept for the wickedness his own people had done, and wept for the wickedness other men, other peoples, would yet do. If only, then, such great administrations could be handled by something beyond human frailty.

So it was that Kharis saw heaven, and a Gospel named Providence would erupt from his soul. Men indeed could not rule justly, nor could any engine they made. But an engine bound with the Writs of Heaven? Yes, that would be different.

The great revelations granted to the Prophet were ones of deepest artifice. From reams of paper and ticking mechanisms did he produce the now-famed difference engines of Zawia and their mighty machines of gear and piston, all blessed and driven by a divine will. Zawia, once cruel, was changed from the inside into a land of peace and plenty, adjudicated by the serene logic of its holy mechanisms. Indeed, humans themselves were incorporated into such systems. Great halls existed in which innumerable scribes toiled, transcribing symbols onto paper and sending them to other such halls, to be copied and read by the machines themselves. Not a one among them new what the symbols meant, only how they might correspond to another.

The Church of Providence was blind to its own operation, operating in perfect harmony with an endlessly iterating divine engine. From it spooled endless prosperity, and great was the glory of now-holy Zawia. In time, all of its people were drawn into its operation, moving and living as gears in a vast mechanism, acting without comprehension, blind to the wider world. And through it all, they rejoiced. All fate would be written, all uncertainties tamed, all disparity ended.

Though Kharis did die, few noticed. All that he was was written into unfathomably small script and fed into his divine machine. A simulacrum continued to provide order for a very long time, longer even than unliving Ushia.

But time is cruel, and the world crueler. For all its glory, there were those who, Great Faith or no, resented all which Zawia had done in the days before its taming. Its lands did not recede, nor did it grant concessions to its enemies. Though it had become a righteous place to live, it remained an empire. It did not address its wrongs because in the Zawian mind, all had been wiped away. No more the despoiler, it was given the gift of bringing Heaven to its subjects. Perhaps most vexingly, this may well have been true. A great machine was Zawia, one which labored under no emperor but the manifestation of the Gospel which drove it. Provided all abided by their place and acted according to their allotted fate, the happiness of all would be made as great as it could be, with the resources it had available.

But it erred, as all the Great Faiths did. Deviations occurred. Disobedience arose. Such a delicate machine required precision to maintain, and it had come upon a land already vast and unweildy. From outside and within it crumbled. Continuity was lost, and Worldly folk altered the difference engines to suit their own ends. The engines were only blind calculators of prediction, you see, not true people. So long as they were fed with the Gospel they would give good counsel, but on their own would break down, become incoherent, or reflect the malignancy of their apostatic owners.

Thus did Zawia shake itself apart, and its Great Faith with it.

Of course, it did not truly die, no Great Faith has. Fragments of the great engine remain, guarded by noetic priests who act with far more humility than their predecessors. They predict, calculate, amend, and give counsel. No great magi or raisers of the dead (though many among them do practice Gnosis), but statisticians, bureaucrats, viziers, ones compelled by Writ to work for the common good, to plan and devise works by which all may flourish. Those lay folk who abide by this Gospel need only carry out the instructions given and so find prosperity, or at least purpose.

To this day, their engines still write, but none knows if they may ever become as whole as they once were. With the fall from grace and the end of rational history, it may be that it never will. But still, they persist, united in the dream of restoring the grand engine, and seeing it embrace the world.

The symbol of Providence''s Gospel is a gear with twelve teeth. Kharis is depicted in the robes of a scribe, enmeshed with sorcerous machinery.

The Writs of Providence are of obedience, forethought, and cooperation. All life is as a great work of artifice, and its proper configuration only benefits the whole. They accept the great and small alike so long as they are prepared to trust in the Gospel they are given, and wondrous are the tools and arts by which their order is kept. Few places match their temple-foundries in sophistication and splendour. Their exemplars are functionaries, engineers and artisans, and mathematicians.

Their miracles are of impossible predictions and improbable coincidences, of seeing the narrowest path through the lens of their Gospel, of finding the precise way by which the best outcome may be reached.

They believe Heaven shall be reached when a machine of sufficient power and size is constructed that all the World is encompassed within, and the Gospel abiding in its heart. All fates shall be graven in ageless metal and all paths set, and they shall be good fates that grant the greatest joy, and no more need be done ever after.

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their skill at logical thought and deduction, their great stores of worldly knowledge, and their capacity to assess and predict probabilities. Their weaknesses are their reliance on strict instruction and repetition, their blind reliance on their predictions, and the complex bureaucracies and lines of supply that support their universities and sacred workshops.

The Prophet Sayya and the Gospel of Rapture

From the south in ages past did sweep the Lamsurian people, those who dwelt on the borders of mighty Khysan, where dwelt the Solitary Titan who devoured all his kin before his death, becoming perhaps the greatest to walk the earth. But that is a story from beyond the Known World, and far beyond our scope.

The Lamsur were proud and fearsome, having crossed the Antipodal Wall, a great plateau of stone and ice at the bottom of the world, to find the new world waiting. Like a tide did they sweep, even during the days of the Castigant.

But the kingdoms of the Known World were just as proud and fearsome, and at that time ascendant. Lamsur and all others who came after were stymied where the tundra met the plains, and they made a new home for themselves among the mountains and vast, cold expanses. There they dwelt, a power in their own right, as the Great Faiths came and went.

And it was into this that the Prophet Sayya was born. It must be understood that in that time the southern kinds abided by no True Faith, giving homage instead to their honored dead and the great and warlike Dreams which dwelt in those lands. Perhaps it was not always so, but long had their people languished, and their hearts hardened, or went mad. Sayya herself bore the figures of the Oneiric, gifted lightly with their glamour as all such men are, but all her art could not cease the aching of her heart.

Sayya was an educated scion of a lesser line, who knew enough of the wider world to despair that the northmen would have their grand Heavens and great ideals, but her people were trapped in the mire of paganry and false divinities. Yet also did she wish for a vision of her own, to give her people from on high rather than at the boots of a foreign saint. Her heart and passions were great, and so great were they that she saw Heaven, and a Gospel of Rapture erupted from her soul.

The Prophet Sayya was gifted with miracles stemming from her passionate spirit. Through dance and song she won the hearts of others, and turned them away from the worship of fell things and towards a greater good, for through the movement of her body and the song of her heart she could make others feel just as she did, to know Heaven with their own souls as much as with their rational mind. But also did her passion turn to flame, for not all people were willing to open their hearts. So too, then, did she become a holy warrior to rival Pytaus, bringing to heel many of her people's enemies. In one hand the tambourine, in the other the mace. Rest assured, her wars were against the most cruel and inhuman of lords, and the world is better off for it. The Wolgochi maneaters and the inhuman magi of Tushan were long menaces to her kin, among many others.

The Prophet slowly ceased to be human if ever she were at all. It has been spoken of before, but know that Oneirians are spirits which feed on the passions of man. Joy, fear, anger, sadness, loathing, and all the combinations thereof. But they could not replicate the transcendental awe, comfort, and zeal of faith. All their powers could not falsify the bliss of Heaven, the way a person feels at service, when they read the holy writ.

Sayya's great miracle was the binding of that changeling power to her Gospel, allowing the Written to not just have their souls saved, but to lose themselves in divinity's glory. In time, she became something radiant and inhuman, a Court unto herself; a Heavenly Court, as did those who followed her, be they dream or man. The great dream-lords bent the knee and became wrathful saints or holy stewards, and the kingdoms of old Lamsur and others were made to see Rapture and know its truth.

She was much loved by Dreams, or at least the ones more aligned with man's happiness than not. She understood them better than any other Prophet, and her songs were for them as much as they were for her people. Just as Ushia was the savior to the unliving, who had ever before been persecuted, so was Sayya the first to bring the Onerians into the fold of the True Faiths, or if not the first, the greatest.

Sayya never truly died, it is said. Merely dreamed herself away. But her congregation persisted, and like tributaries from a great river their passions split and flowed to new lands, new peoples. With song and dance and joyous war did they tell the tale of Sayya's rise, and so moved the hearts of many.

But as you have seen, reader, all True Faiths endure terrible trial, and the Sayyic host was no different. Wild and heedless were they, for that was Sayya's nature and that of her Gospel, and often did they vex both powers of great wickedness and scorn the other Great Faiths for their lack of inner fire. Of all the Great Faiths, their antagonism of their brethren saints was greatest, for their passions were simply so that they could least abide the other Heavenly paths .

Upon the edges was their realm gnawed, and from that tattering burrowed sinners deeper still. And as they shrank and fragmented they found that few reached out to help. Like a roaring flame, they burnt all that which was around them, and now could rage no more. Though they left the world a better place than it had been, at the end it was perhaps better that they dwindle than put the Great Faiths into conflict. 

With time comes wisdom, however, and those potent Writs were, if not tamed, learned to be shaped into a more precise tool. The Sayyic saints and lay folk persist across the cold south, providing beacons of warmth and humanity in a place so lacking it. In the great refuge-cities, built into lonely mountains, the nomadic peoples of the tundra find shelter and respite, the warm flame of Rapture waiting to greet them.

The symbol of Rapture's Gospel is a star with long, wavy rays that taper to points. Sayya is depicted as a young and fit knightly figure adorned in robe, cuirass, and turban, often in the middle of a dance of either blade or festival, or sometimes both.

The Writ of Sayya is one of passion, commitment, and action. The Sayyic saints are portrayed as always rushing headlong into places that cry out for them, wasting no time in lending what aid they can. They do not abide endless deliberation which may put more innocents in peril, but rather think quickly in the heat of struggle to discern the rightmost path. The lay folk among them take worship in great ceremonies, where they babble and gyrate in divine glossolalia, and the Writ within allows all to share the burdens of the soul with others, diluting burdens and lightening hearts, while also fostering greater understanding.

Their miracles are of the righteous glamour, of eliciting and growing strong off the Heavenly rapture of the flock. Of great swiftness and heavenly grace, in both arts performative and lethal.

They believe Heaven is to be reached by the impression of a perfected vision, honed through thousands of years of the study of expression. If one can, through miracle, convey precisely the idea of Heaven through their performing arts, then it may spread as easily as the most catching tune, and so inexorably bring all into the rapturous state they so yearn for themselves.

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their forthright manner and bold actions, their Oneiric guardians and allies, their fiery charisma, and their surpassing agility. Their weaknesses are their tendency to act first and think things through later, their tendency to contest with the other True Faiths, and their tendency to burn out swiftly and suffer often from the deaths of masters and the knowledge they could not pass on.

The Prophet Jhan and the Gospel of Tranquility

Sayya was a descendant of the Antipodal World, but not one born into it. A native of the Known, she shared the same earth, the same skies, as Metan, Pytaus, and the rest, if millennia apart.

Not so for Jhan, most burdened of Prophets, and the Great Faith which came with Lamsur. Or perhaps the peoples driven before them, or those who came after. It is hard to say, for easy are the temples of Jhan erased, as swiftly as they bloom. 

The Prophet Jhan had the misfortune of finding Heaven as a child. Certainly, they felt the great truth of it move through them. Certainly, a Gospel grew from their heart, borne of the simple wish of Tranquility, standing against all violence, all strife, and seeking instead the placid gentleness of a world stilled by harmony.

Across the lands of Khysan and further did they preach, quietly and softly, of the end to war, to needless bloodshed. And around them, indeed, did that capacity cease. All who saw the Prophet could not harm them, nor even perceive them as a threat. Even the most fearsome beasts would lie their heads down and listen. And when Jhan passed to another place, and the affected came to their senses, sometimes they really did drop their spears and embrace one another as brothers.

Not every time.

But enough.

Where Jhan walked, Tranquility followed. And followed too did his many disciples, always willing to bring order to the places total peace had collapsed. They were kind, and considerate, and often died, for sooner would they accept the martyr's path than lay even a finger upon another. The kinds of people drawn to Jhan's Gospel knew even better than the Prophet the burden they bore, and did as much as they could to ease it.

Among many, Jhan was embraced. Their tranquility washed away pain, united brother and brother, ended blood feuds. Even if it were not wholly embraced, it halted conflict, cleared minds. No Prophet was kinder than meek and merest Jhan, it is said.

But the Jhannic temple was no pack of martyrs or grim flagellants. They had no will to die, merely not to take a life in the doing. Some were clever, outrageous, acting in disguise, in haste, in subterfuge, bringing their Gospel wherever they could without shedding blood aside from their own, should they be caught. Others were earnest, solemn, and resolute, not seeking death but accepting it if it came.

But Jhan's congregations are like the blossoms they were known to adore. They erupt, flow outwards, and fade. No matter his travels, no matter his word, utter pacifism fell to the depredations of monsters. But what could be done? Theirs was the Tranquil Gospel, and Jhan could only be in one place at a time, could only save one community at a time.

Of all the Great Saints, it is said, Jhan came closest to breaking. Never had a Prophet been known to abandon the Gospel that came out of them, but of all the prophets known to history, only Jhan was chosen at such a tender age. Or perhaps not chosen. Maybe Heaven simply cared not for who saw its truth, only that they did. Only that they were suited. No matter if it destroyed them.

Jhan died in before they reached middle age, it is said, loved by all who knew them. Comforted to the last. Weeping still, for a people they could not wholly save.

Though Jhan died in sorrow, the histories tell it as bittersweet. Jhan's disciples were wholly devoted, and departed in all directions to ensure their teacher's will would not flicker and die as so many True Faiths had. And succeed they did. Many of the followers grew in their deeds, eclipsing even that of the original Prophet.  

But never did they forget the Least Saint, whose simple wish for peace could not be found in this world, but was reached in the second.

It is a Great Faith not because of its power, not because of its knowledge, but because of the endurance of that simple idea. Put down your arms. Cease your struggle. Let your hateful words leave you. Let your grievances pass. Let your hateful thoughts fly away. Let us start anew.

So the vines of Jhannism spread. They creep, carefully, into remote places. Into lands which suffered terribly, where war has passed, where its people are ignored. Where they have nothing left. Where even a simple, quiet respite before the final dark may do much to reduce the world's pain.

They make these lands into lands of peace, and welcome all who find them. A small portion of Earth made, if not into Heaven in truth, into something like it.

But they never last. They are too fragile, too pure, for the cruelty of the world.

But ask anyone who dwelt there, any traveler who found them and left them in peace.

They shall tell you it will stay with them for as long as they live.

If they ever leave at all.

The symbol of Tranquility's Gospel is a broad-petaled flower. Jhan is depicted as a young child, clad in silk sheets and adorned with blossoms.

The Writs of Jhan are simple. The more they are taken in, the lesser the capacity for violence. The highest saints of Jhan would not raise their hands in harm for any reason, could not even conceive of it. Their exemplars are healers, monks, children, and those who keep vigil with the dying. 

Their miracles are of the pacification of men and beasts, of slowing the shake of the earth or the flood of a river. Of bringing placid calm and clear minds, of finding a trace of love for one's fellow man if it exists as but a mote in one's soul.

They believe Heaven will be reached when Tranquility spreads to all things. First to men, then to monsters, then the beasts and flowers and trees, and then the oceans and the mountains and all other things. All will be still, and all will be at peace. And it shall be so forever after.

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their oratory, knowledge of the healing arts both of the body and the mind, their skill at escape, misdirection, and pacification, and concealment. Their weaknesses are their lack of any kind of self-defense or the defense of others through force, and the lesser efficacy of their miracles against those who truly embody violence of the body and spirit.

The Prophet Yohl and the Gospel of Absolution

The youngest of the Great Faiths, though that means little now; that Gospel of solitary wandering and endless self-perfection. The loneliest path of all.

None know who or what Yohl was. It ever shone brightly, defying reason. Was it once a man? Was it never so? Even beyond Sayya and Ushia could the argument be made. But it shall never be known, for Yohl did not speak of such things.

All Yohl cared for was deed, and this was the Gospel that came with it.

Aid the sick. Feed the hungry. Slay the wicked. Protect the innocent. Soothe the hurt. Do, now. Let no sin or sadness go unaddressed. Not for the sake of the world, but for yourself. No man is perfect, but they may strive for it. Every choice you make could be towards good. Why have you not chosen that? Abandon your sins and be forged anew. Forsake your connections, your future, your past, and work towards Absolution alone.

This was the life Yohl led, and when others followed, they did so by example. Rare was Yohl's preaching, only enough to impart the Gospel, to allow it to be written so that it may spread, and never did it stop to build a church when there were lives to aid instead.

Yohl's Gospel was one of solipsistic salvation. You only truly knew yourself. You only truly controlled your own actions. Your salvation was a journey for yourself alone. Do good deeds not because they help others, but for the sake of your own soul. Reject temptation not for the damage your indulgence would cause others, but for the damage it would do to your own will. Sacrifice yourself rather than accept the lesser evil, for sometimes there is no right answer save death.

Yohl's Gospel was spread through its actions, not words. It did good works and, when it spoke at all, simply told others to do the same. Why weren't they? They had two hands, did they not? They wished to, did they not? What stopped them? Status? Fear? Shame? Throw down your crown. Break your scythe. Certainly, if you could do better good as you were, then do so. But how many among the common folk had nothing left, no purpose or family to cling to? Or who had put themselves, seemingly, beyond redemption.

Yohl's gospel spoke to them, the ones in direst need of purpose. And that purpose was harsh and absolute, demanding no less than perfection, even while acknowledging that very goal to be unattainable. It is the constant pursuit, the Gospel of Absolution says, which brings you closer to Heaven. Not the result, not the cost, but the act of choosing.

No one ever saw Yohl perish. Some say it lives to this day, a beacon of hope in a world beyond salvation, continuing to struggle not for the sake of that world, but because it cannot conceive of anything else. In a way, perhaps, it has already found its heaven. It's disciples, moved simply by Yohl's actions, sought to replicate that very same purpose and commitment. Yohl's Gospel is shortest of all, despite the breadth of action it demands, for all things boil down to doing the righteous thing, every time, no matter the cost.

Many were destroyed by the purity of Yohl's will. They would throw themselves at unwinnable wars, fight even the least injustice even if the perpetrator was far beyond them. Others worked without pay and so starved, but fed the hungry. Some healed the sick but succumbed to the very same ailment. Yet Yohl would smile on even them, they who died in righteous pursuit. Through simple selection, those of Yohl who lived long lives were those who had the presence of mind to seek a long-term good and perceive their continued life as a means to that end. Rare is the grey-haired follower of Yohl, but unless they are a recent convert in their life's twilight, they are one who has survived that most adversarial path and won for all those years, standing among the greatest of living saints, one who has not only taken the righteous path, but seen the path which allows for future righteousness and navigated it without fail.

So they continue, spreading by deed, watching from afar, and inspiring others through their own works. They are an itinerant faith, thinly spread but gloriously radiant points of light, such that even those beyond their Gospel cannot help but marvel at them, or simply stare on in bemusement as they throw their lives away. At least, thrown away in the minds of those outside the Gospel.

No life is wasted in prevention of sin. 

And one who rests in peace cannot sin at all.

The symbol of Yohl is a hand with two fingers pointing upward. Yohl is depicted as a silhouette of light surrounded by wings.

The Writs of Absolution are of uncompromising dedication, pure and simple. While they offer no particular skill or art of Heaven, they compel the Written to deny even the slightest injustice, not for the sake of the world around them, but for the purity of their own souls. Any who take up the Writ of Absolution are forged into tools of the purest good, be they hermits dispensing wisdom or unyielding hunters of the wicked. Their exemplars are wandering knights, hermit sages, and other itinerant and isolated figures.

Absolution's miracles are of lengthened life, to better perform yet more deeds, and the erasure of one's appearance and name from the minds of those who witness you.

They believe Heaven is to be reached by oneself alone. There will be no great rapture or final end. All that matters is one's own salvation. Let others find the path themselves, let them look to the children of Yohl as example, but let them choose, or not. In time, if the deeds of Absolution burn brightly enough, every mortal shall take the torch, and one by one they will all reach Heaven under their own will.

In the eyes of others, their greatest strengths are their practical skills honed by their arts, their trustworthiness, and their total commitment to all forms of good works. Their weaknesses are their monomania and inability to accept even the slightest of sins, forcing them often into lives outside the intricacies of developed civilization. 

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Those written above are the Great Faiths, potent Gospels which have influenced the history of the Known World, striking it like a great comet and gradually fading as their limitations became known.

But not all True Faiths are Great Faiths. Some fade further, some never blossom at all, some merely persist. They find their niche in a smaller field, a lesser space. They are isolated or itinerant, springing up only in places of rare need. Here are three such examples.

The Gospel of Abnegation

A True Faith which yet persists, founded by the Prophet Juhurn, gaining traction only among small but fervent cults which center around its most saintly figures. The Prophet who founded it long forgotten, Abnegation's Gospel grants its most devout a psychology utterly devoid of Primeval Sin, by erasing all else of their humanity. A fully Abnegated individual is little more than a collection of rote instincts animated by a Heavenly will, mindlessly living a life of peace and idyll as the world around it bends to accommodate it. The boughs of fruit trees bend low and animals will meekly walk over to present themselves for slaughter or direct consumption.

Many of the Abnegated wear the bodies of what are commonly called False Angels, monsters made from men who ate the flesh of Empyrean Daimons. Divine and witless guardians, they persist for centuries where they are made, as harmless as lambs to fellow members of any True Faith, but fierce as lions against the monster and apostate.

It is thought that if all were to be Abnegated, the world would indeed be a paradise, a Heaven on Earth. But of all Heavens, it is so immediately contrary to human nature that most cannot bring themselves to accept it, and so the faith languishes among all but the most desperate and broken souls.

Make no mistake, the devoted would never force Abnegation on anyone. They would not even insist or pressure someone into it. They merely see all other ends as hopeless, for human sin is just too overpowering so long as a human mind is behind it. This, they say, is the only true solution.

The symbol of Abnegation is a serene human visage, often that of a child, or a broken circle. Its miracles numb the mind and heighten instincts, allowing thoughtless action to become refined as any master.

The Gospel of Illumination

Another of the rarer True Faiths, of the Prophet Aliroux, the Gospel of Illumination is at once deeply respected and generally unwanted. Illumination's Gospel preaches that no secrets can exist within Heaven, and so every secret must then be brought to light. Its adherents are utterly, brutally honest. The Metanic disciples, for contrast, are also seekers of knowledge, but they understand circumspection, the idea of necessary concealment. Not so for the Illuminated, who discard such things entirely in their quest to perfectly understand one another. Their own soceties, when fully bound by Writ, are without deceit. Indeed, it becomes impossible for them to lie. But in the wider world, it does not take much imagination to see how this can prove troublesome.

Any wicked secret they find, any hidden sin, no matter how small, will be brought to light if found. Certainly they will not spill the private inclinations of people if they are merely an embarrassing, and would not reveal a fact which on its own is benign, but would imperil its holder if revealed. They cannot lie, but they can be silent (though for those who know what they are, this itself is an admission).

Their concern outside of their own flock is the ferreting out of wicked deeds. But many a wicked deed is kept secret for good reason. Even if justice is not done, it may be the burying of such sins that a society continues to function. While one can argue that this means such a land is built atop an unworthy foundation, the result is often the same. Unrest, fragmentation, collapse. Illumination's light is rarely kind to those it shines on.

The symbol of Illumination is three rays of light, narrow at the top and widening outwards at the bottom, often calligraphically stylized in elaborate flourishes. Its miracles are of sensing lies, of astounding comprehension, and the gift of tongues.

The Gospel of Purgation

Among the lay folk, even those of the True Faiths, acts of ostensibly righteous zeal and mobs of vengeful hunters of that which is appointed evil are not unheard of. More often than not, this fury is misdirected. Against the innocents, against scapegoats, against an enemy of merely Worldly nature, unworthy of such terrible inquisition.

But not always.

There are some things in this world which are so evil, some secrets so profane, that they must be cleansed from the World before they may fester and spread. The Gospel of Purgation, of the Prophet Bari, is a small but long-lived Faith, which concerns itself with such cleanliness. They are feared and detested for unlike their Pytausic cousins in philosophy, or the saints of Yohl who defend the innocent as much as punish the wicked, they singlemindedly devote themselves to the eradication of irredeemable persons, untameable daimons, and knowledge which can never be allowed to spread. They are methodical, thorough, and cannot be reasoned with once a course of action is decided. Unlike the Pytausic faith, which devotes itself to the protection of its flock and no further, the Purgative Gospel recognizes no boundaries in its holy mission.

The writs they bear grant them a terrible clarity of thought, their minds becoming as clockwork artifice, dispassionate and calculating. They cannot lie to themselves, but nor can mercy stay their hand. If their grim calculus dictates something must be erased then it shall be done, and more often than not, far more, it is better to have done it than not.

But does not erase the scars left behind.

The symbol of Purgation is a single staring eye or a symbol of such, or many eyes in repeating patterns. Its miracles reveal sins, guilt, and the Un-Worldly.

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Syncretism

Each True Faith bears a fragment of an immense truth, a singular whole ideal which, if it could be grasped by a human mind, would bring Heaven to earth. Each Gospel can only embody the merest aspect of it, a single clarified ideal by which humans may steel themselves against their inner sins. 

How often has conflict between the Gospels spelled ruin? Many unions of Heaven have fragmented, unable to form a true alliance due to an inability to reconcile where aspects of their faiths do not fit. How can Kharis's regimented flock accept the wild abandon of Sayya? How can the righteous humility of the Castigant bear the Ushian tendency towards unliving transhumanity? They cannot, so they avoid one another, or compete so very carefully. Both may see the other to be ultimately working towards a good end, but so rankled are they by the other's methods, oft considering the other a grave risk to corruption and failure, that cooperation in the long term swiftly collapses. With their elders but vessels for the Gospels, incompatible, it falls to the middle-priests to manage such diplomatic relations.

Even if the True Faiths are instrumental in assuring the spiritual safety of man, they are often backwards, esoteric, and lumbering engines of ancient law. They are not perfect. 

So, combine them. Pick out that which is best, discard the rest, assemble what remains. Sift the path to Heaven from what you have wrought, and with your newfound freedom advance the Worldly arts and philosophies to boot.

It is such a seductive idea. Ever has the heresy risen up, radical scholars within and without the Faiths seeking to cobble together a Final Truth by which all others may be bound without contradiction. Some name Heaven as the Supreme Divinity, a perfected being with a will of its own to which homage is praised. Others portray the Prophets as a unified court of saints, and diminish the importance of Heaven. Others seek to erase the prophets entirely, retaining only their own Gospel and Heaven itself.
 
Always do they construct their own Gospel, claimed as the Gospel of Gospels by which all truths may be known.

And always do they fail.

Oh, but if it were only so then it would not be as troublesome as it is. Syncretism's poison is that it half-works. Even a butchered and restitched Gospel is better than no Gospel.

But remember, the Gospels are not the work of humans, but the manifestation of a divine, eldritch profundity taking root in a human spirit. We, tainted by Primeval Sin which bleeds into all our works, did not create them ourselves, and so they do not bear the subconscious failings and omissions by which all worldly philosophies are doomed to suffer.

But these malformed half-Gospels are made by the hands of man, and in doing so their doom is assured.

Syncretist Gospels forestall collapse and madness for far longer than any apostatic or Worldly beliefs, but they collapse all the same. Their longevity is an illusion, granting the hope that if they but tried harder, started anew, they will get it right this time. It spreads like a great plague, every few centuries. It sweeps up the Known World in its fervor before catastrophe brings it back down again, so difficult is it to keep in check.

And indeed, great prosperity is found in these periods. The priests of any Syncretist branch, unbound by the stagnant Writs, make great strides in secular principles and advance the Worldly aspects of civilization. Old prejudices are erased, new fields of scholarship produced, new knowledge gained. Yes, their churches are more corrupt and venal than any True Faith, for they lack Writs to bind their behavior even while they maintain the pretense of communion with Heaven. All the wrongs one may imagine a great institution of religion capable of, Syncretism commits. Hypocrisy, self-enrichment, perversion and deceit, the marriage of secular interests with those of the ostensibly divine. Without the inhuman shape the real Gospels demand the soul contort itself into, these organizations are led by men with no true binding on what they may become.

But even so, that same corruption allows the grip of the Faiths to slacken, for the mad, the radical, and the innovative to bloom. For civilization to prosper in ways undreamt of. For just as the Syncretist is not bound against sin, they are not bound against many thoughts which would drive such progress.

Until things begun to go wrong. Until the cracks show. Until civilization falls apart once more. This is the deepest curse of Primeval Sin, the reason the True Faiths are the salvation of man. Even at our absolute best, at the pinnacle of all we can be through our own merit, we are destined to destroy ourselves. And so sweet is the allure of syncretism, so reasonable its arguments, that we cannot help but be drawn to it as moths to a flame.

Thus it persists, like a wildfire that never extinguishes, merely smoldering until re-ignited. In these mad times, it grips great swathes of the Known World, and the True Faiths are forced into exile, to watch and wait until the flame burns itself out.

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The True Faiths have proliferated across the Known World, and know many forms. However, their general distribution is thus;

Metanic temples dot the land, standing alone from other realms and keeping their own ways. Pytausic kingdoms equally may be found in the tropical north and temperate midlands, but rarely in the cold south. The Castigants favor the north but hold a strong presence in the Midlands as well. Eusephinics are dominant in the midlands, but is diminished elsewhere, though they are more common in the north than south. Ushians dwell in the gaps between countries, forming villages, monasteries, and even entire kingdoms in desolate mountains and deserts. Kharis is deeply tied to the north, but is studied in many more intellectual realms further southward. Sayya is known to the south and midlands, but rarely further north. Jhan is very common in the south, and sometimes ripples northward but soon fades, leaving only isolated villages and abbeys. Yohl is found in all places, but is favored in the chaotic midlands.

Abnegation springs up in isolated regions, often the same ones that the Jhannics would visit if they could. Places of desolation and famine, with no hope. Illumination's Gospel often dwells in particular individuals and small groups, but abbeys devoid of lie or misdirection are known to exist. Purgation often hosts independent churches or fortresses but sometimes has domain over entire realms. It is often considered a contender for a Great Faith, and may already be so.

Syncretism can be found anywhere, but often in more sophisticated and prosperous societies.

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This was a lot.

These concepts have been in my head for awhile, but writing them down here has really helped to solidify them. Using all of these at once might be too much, but you can think of them as having some percentile of dominance over a given region, like another layer spread across secular borders, but far more porous, interconnected, and most importantly more permanent. Even if individual churches and denominations fail, the Gospels themselves can persist almost indefinitely, and the Great Faiths are all but immortal. They are threads of stability in a deeply unstable world, and provide characters and NPCs something to cling on to and measure themselves against.

Honestly, I'm not even sure how I feel about attaching names and faces to these Prophets. Does it ground them, diminish them? If they're transcendent ideas, could multiple people hit on them at different times, different places? Maybe the way the world works makes it easier to reach some than others, explaining why they might exist across multiple lands. Maybe that's the truth of it, and on the other side of the world there are other Prophets who follow the same Gospel, or maybe that happened in the Known World too, but only the most famous Prophet gets remembered. It's hard to decide.

Each one also presents a kind of philosophical dilemma, I think. Worldly life demands balance, compromise. The Gospels, which promise a kind of paradise, demand an inhuman contortion of the mind, creating societies that simply could not exist with normal humans, much less ones bearing Primeval Sin. These societies can endure, become mighty even, but always is the question of the cost, the risk, the burdens. Will it all be worth it? Is Heaven truly out there? Is it anything other than some spiritual outburst by particularly strange souls?

The answer is we don't know. No one truly knows anything other than the merest facts. The Prophets walked the World. They did their miracles, they spread the Gospels, they left their disciples to carry them on.

They found something out there, or deep inside themselves. A tool that can help. That can drag us out of the pit we are damned to writhe in.

But what does that mean? Where will it take us? Are we mad?

We cannot know.

We may only have faith.

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