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===Central Message=== | ===Central Message=== | ||
The central message of Estelley is that the world is flawed, but the Gods have a plan that will lead mortals to create a better future. In this way, it is often compared to [[Unionism]], whose vision for a virtuous and united people makes it often considered Estelley's younger, stronger successor. However, there are key differences beneath the veneer. Unlike Unionism which centralizes under the Emperor, Estelley is completely individual. It has nothing to say about the organization of society, nation-hood, or state-hood, but quite a bit to say about how to be a good person--at least, by the Elven definition. For every Estellian who dies and goes to the afterlife, Merjan ("The Eternal" in Elven), the virtues that they achieved in life add onto a great scale measured against the sins of the mortal world. When Merjan is more perfect than the mortal world is flawed, the Estelley Gods will fling open the gates of the afterlife and reality will be remade, eternally graceful. | The central message of Estelley is that the world is flawed, but the Gods have a plan that will lead mortals to create a better future. In this way, it is often compared to [[Unionism]], whose vision for a virtuous and united people makes it often considered Estelley's younger, stronger successor. However, there are key differences beneath the veneer. Unlike Unionism which centralizes under the Emperor, Estelley is completely individual. It has nothing to say about the organization of society, nation-hood, or state-hood, but quite a bit to say about how to be a good person--at least, by the Elven definition. For every Estellian who dies and goes to the afterlife, Merjan ("The Eternal" in Elven), the virtues that they achieved in life add onto a great scale measured against the sins of the mortal world. When Merjan is more perfect than the mortal world is flawed, the Estelley Gods will fling open the gates of the afterlife and reality will be remade, eternally graceful. | ||
===Eclipse Council=== | |||
When the Gods of Estelley faced the God-Kings and Queens of the Dewamenet Empire, they were horrified to guide their followers in a different way. Estelley became the only known religion that allows mortals to dictate the correct interpretation or application of the Dogma of the Gods. The Gods each have a guiding virtue, but how that virtue is applied to justify actions taken by mortals, is up to the Eclipse Council. Priests from all Estelley nations and societies share representation on this most holy body, and thus vote on how they think the words of the Gods should be applied to events of the mortal world. While the Eclipse Council cannot command the Gods, it can usurp their message and meanings, to pursue its own agenda. Since the beginnings of the Allorn Empire, the Eclipse Council was dominated by the Prince-Priests who weaponized the Gods to pursue political and often personally bigoted agendas. When the Allorn Empire collapsed, much of this toxic Allorn dominance waned, but the Eclipse Council also became deadlocked into a more neutral middle ground interpretation due to the large amount of nations. For more information on how this affected how Estelley was seen historically, see the Expanded lore on the Eclipse Council. | |||
===The Afterlife=== | ===The Afterlife=== | ||
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Cemaan is the Estelley Goddess of power, lineage and strong rule. Through the tumult of the Allorn Empire's long history, which saw Gods defect, disappear, die or work against her, she maintained an iron-clad and increasingly bitter grip on power. She is prayed to for the insight to command, to put others to their best purposes. Cemaan is usually depicted in the company of her Golden Host, a mysterious terracotta legion of Eidolon Demons answerable only to her who have appeared at pivotal moments in history to tip the scale in favor of Estelley worshipers. | Cemaan is the Estelley Goddess of power, lineage and strong rule. Through the tumult of the Allorn Empire's long history, which saw Gods defect, disappear, die or work against her, she maintained an iron-clad and increasingly bitter grip on power. She is prayed to for the insight to command, to put others to their best purposes. Cemaan is usually depicted in the company of her Golden Host, a mysterious terracotta legion of Eidolon Demons answerable only to her who have appeared at pivotal moments in history to tip the scale in favor of Estelley worshipers. | ||
Cemaan is clearly influenced by the Hollow. It is known that in the war with the Dewamenet Empire and their Khama Gods, she accepted a bargain with a Death God for the power to | Cemaan is clearly influenced by the Hollow. It is known that in the war with the Dewamenet Empire and their Khama Gods, she accepted a bargain with a Death God for the power to survive. In exchange, she killed the Khama Goddess Pahtia and almost killed her husband Khannar, who survived as an Undead through sheer rage and spite against her. Her Estelley followers, even, regard her with fear and worship her mostly through appeasement not to judge them as failing and revoke their free will to bend them to her command. That said, it is only through her cruel genius that Estelley survived the collapse of the Allorn Empire and crawled into reforms that saw it returned to good standing. Even the most resentful worshipers owe everything to her. | ||
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==Expanded Lore== | ==Expanded Lore== | ||
===Priesthood=== | ===Priesthood=== | ||
An Estelley priest is called an Ordvaan, which means Guide. It is the responsibility of an Ordvaan to preach and know all the Gods. | An Estelley priest is called an Ordvaan, which means Guide. It is the responsibility of an Ordvaan to preach and know all the Gods. Ordvaan are answerable to something called the Eclipse Council, a large conclave of Estelley priests who frequently meet in the Presenna Principality to rule on religious law. In places where the majority population is hostile to an Estelley minority, Ordvaan become community leaders, and in places where Magic is imperiled or outlawed, they also serve as Magic teachers. Because of the late Allorn aristocracy's large-scale corruption and deviation from Estelley virtue, many Estellians let them take this community-leader role. Estelley priests usually do not try to convert Ailor, but do try to convert Elves from the non-Estelley populations if they think they stand a chance of it working. Ordvaan can come from any Estelley cultural interpretation, like Freefolk, Teled, or Sihndar, all of whom share the same role and respect. | ||
===Eclipse Council History=== | |||
While very little original historical records remain it is undisputed fact that Elves, the first followers of Estelley, were subjugated under the Dewamenet (later Khama) Gods. The Dewamenet Gods ruled as God-Kings and Queens, being at once a divine ruler, but also a secular ruler who decided on state law, economics, education, and politics. This complete chokehold on Dewamenet society by their Gods, horrified the Estelley Gods, who believed that such heavy handed domination could never lead to a better future or a more perfect follower, because they would always be inhibited by the restraints of divine rule. The Gods thus agreed in more or less consensus, that they would allow mortals to guide the application of their virtues onto the mortal world. | |||
This worked very well early on (when examined by a modern lens), as the priests were genuinely invested in correctly interpreting the wills of the Gods, and avoiding the kind of divine state-politics that the Dewamenet engaged in. After all, many of the Estelley priests who were alive during the founding of the Allorn Empire, had personal century-spanning memories to that brutal Dewamenet-Allorn war (even if technically, the Allorn Empire was only founded after the Dewamenet war was over). As memory of this war distanced among the Elves however, the crucial flaw that the Estelley Gods had misunderstood about what made Dewamenet divine rule so corrosive reared its head. The Gods had predicted that it was the selfish whims and capricious nature of the Gods that caused the Dewamenet Empire to be so cruel to their people, but as the Allorn Empire grew in power, they came to realize that the flaw of their existence was Empire in itself. At this point however, they had committed to this design of the faith, and could not bring themselves to a consensus to back away from it. | |||
As the millennia passed, the Allorn priests accrued more and more political power, until the Eclipse Council was practically ran by Priest-Princes who plied their divine authority with the same secular authority as the Dewamenet Gods once had. They used their authority on the council to justice practically any act of cruelty, warfare, and even genocide imaginable. The Suvial Priests (being the only non-Allorn Elven nation in existence at the time) tried to push back against this level of priest-politics, but were outnumbered 9 to 1 on the Eclipse Council, and thus completely incapable of doing anything. It was the Eclipse Council that justified the purge of the non-Elven peoples subject to the Empire, it was the Eclipse Council that provided much of the pretext and approval over the Pearl Wars, and it was the Eclipse Council that expressed the necessity for the law and command of Estelley to be spread far and wide through the Elven fleets, to establish dominion over the whole known world. | |||
It is important to note that the Gods, while outsourcing much of the decisions on these aspects, are not entirely blameless in the outcomes. Agreements, promises, and covenants have great meaning in the context of Religion, that if broken, can cause Gods to lose all faith from their followers, and thus fade from existence. From that point of view, the Gods were often made to suffer the proclamations of the Eclipse Council, but people who are critical of their role during this Allorn-dominated period believe this does not represent the whole picture. Even if the Eclipse Council itself could not be undone due to the weight of the covenant, the Gods could have subtly acted, in their eyes, to alleviate the suffering done in their name, or to more cleverly proclaim their virtues so they could not be wilfully re-interpreted to justify cruelty. Why they did not, was never clearly established, as it is not a topic that the Gods would like to speak on (except Leyon, but nobody can understand his wind-chime speech). | |||
The influence and power of the Eclipse Council rapidly collapsed when the Allorn Empire disintegrated, due to the established rule that the Eclipse Council needed representation from all independent Elven states. The more states there were, the more diluted Allorn influence became, and so when the Allorn Empire became 20 nations, Allorn control was finished. The Priest-Princes (who were often also Archmages) lost much of their magical power and political influence, and many of their realms were overthrown. Other areas even became subject to other nations, like the rising Regalian Empire, meaning other geo-political interests gained a say in the Eclipse Council. In this upheaval, the once minor Suvial and Lathan priesthood led a charge to neuter much of the cruelty and violence from their faith, with the support of many other successor states like Amontaar, Bel Hammon, and the Minoor. | |||
This radical change heralded what is commonly known now as the Second Eclipse Council, one that has been fully purged of Allorn influence, though at the same time rather stagnant. Because of the extreme diversification of opinions within the Eclipse Council, no vote has succeeded in the past 150 years, meaning that the interpretation of the Estelley faith in a deadlocked non-Allorn but somewhat mellowed state is assured. To be a member of the Eclipse Council priesthood no longer carries with it the weight it used to, and most faithful disregard the proclamations of the Council nowadays, in favor of applying their own interpretation of the faith, so long as it runs more or less in line with the views set out by the Second Eclipse Council at the very beginning. The topic of guilt over the past, or where to move on into the future, are still ongoing topics, that as of yet have no real conclusion, other than the collective relief, that the days of Allorn Priest-Prince domination will never return. | |||
===Historical Conflicts=== | ===Historical Conflicts=== | ||
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Lady Sapphora is tall and broad, clad in golden raiment and with eyes joyful as the | Lady Sapphora is tall and broad, clad in golden raiment and with eyes joyful as the sun. | ||
Our Lady came down from the mountain Fyror, and found thereupon a shepherd. | Our Lady came down from the mountain Fyror, and found thereupon a shepherd. | ||