Conceptional Religion (work in progress)

Basically the concept is to construct a religion that aims to be most successful in uniting as much followers as possible under a strong, unfaltering moral cause. Explaining life and answering many philosophical questions(thus partially killing philosophy) as merely a tool to get into the heavens where there is eternal bliss. This tool(life) can only be used(lived) by the right rules to succeed and enter the heavens. The faith leaves some openness for different personal ways of interpretation, however holds strongly to these moralities in what is good and what is evil. The faith does not acknowledge much of a middle way, you are either good and go to the heavens or you are evil and go to hell. It gives the followers a way to succeed in life, or to win so to say.(a common reason, drive in life) Although each man is born into a different caste we are all gods children and are all born in sins due to the deceit of one man, turning all of humanity against god, a faithful life and its moral rules. It is there for every mans (individual) responsibility to undo humanity from this 'curse' and also this religions main goal. Salvation!

suggested names for the religion: Sanctus Sanguis Bloodspeakers Beluaterranism

concept is discussed on the forums here: http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,688.0.html

The book of beginning - the first book

In the beginning of all beginnings before any thing like the world, time or humans existed, there where many gods who lived in blissful peace. They where all unique individuals but acted as one in the void. Until one day one of them started to create something of his own, while the gods did not need anything to be, they had thoughts which they shared. From these thoughts came poetry and an idea of form and expression. The other gods became furious as conflicts erupted around possession and heritage. Eventually the conflict erupted in a massively vicious fight, the gods fought and coloured the entire universe with the colour of there blood until the first creator stood victorious and proofed him self the strongest. He drank all the godly blood and absorb there divinity and power and became all powerful. Now he could finally limitlessly release his creativity and give it form and mater. Out of this creative purge he created the entire universe as we know it with a single swipe of his hands. Everything he created would be perfect, eternal and in a harmony of existence. All that he created was animated with the divinity it’s self, creating a balance which included the smallest stones and the greatest birds into an eternal circle of life and death, forever binding all in existence.

When he finished the sun the moon the stars the planets and the earth with it’s beautiful flora and fauna, he created the first two humans as a specie to his own example; a women and a man and he named her Amber and he named him Ewald. The humans where special above all other species for they have been blessed by the consciousness of god, the blood of the gods flowed directly threw there veins granting them the ability to stand above the other species as the pure children of god and understand and know all of gods creations and the blessing to act in complete harmony with the universe. Blessed with the divine consciousness of god, Amber and Ewald discovered love and beauty and from there beautiful romance, 6 children where born, 3 sons and 3 daughters and all went well until they grew and became the first to question there parents rule. After the age of 16, they went there own way and found there own families elsewhere in total isolation from there parents in far away forest's, where they reproduced with human like animals living in the dark woods, who shared the same physical features, without the blessing of the divine consciousness of god. These sons and daughters of Amber and Ewald where lost and there kind degenerated into mostly simple minded brutes. Some, who lived further in the Forrest degenerated them selves to the simplest of tools and lived from fruits alone. This Green, peasant or workers bloodline eventually formed the fundamental base of society as builders, farmers, millers, bakers, butchers and carpenters. Others who kept more of there divine human aspects, trained them selves in martial arts, wisdom and loyalty and served the purest descendants who started to rule the lands as lord and build farms, churches, schools and libraries, from this group came the red warriors bloodline, and the blue noble bloodline. Where the children of warriors defended the lands with the knowledge and expirience of soldiers and the nobles lead these soldiers to victory and governed the cities and towns with he blessing of the royal bloodline. Because fortunately, not all of the first born had cast them self from there parents. One of there daughters, by the name of Yanah remained conscious, respectful and obedient to her parents and conceived a pure child of divine blood. The child's name was Khan and so the first King of Kings was born. With the greatest wit and wisdom of the land, he created order among all men and ruled over it’s lands as a strong and wise King.

All went well until one day a deceitful man from noble blood spread a virus of hate amongst the lands against there beloved King. Lacking the divine conscious of god, people couldn't understand for them selves what or why King Khan was doing the things he did. All they saw, while poisoned by the words of this deceitful noble, was a weak old man trying to keep his family in power as a sovereign ruling power. So all castes joined behind this noble and King Khan was cast from his throne. He and his family banished as an effect of it. The noblemen ruled the land for only a short time, until the whole land became completely divided by it’s people. No one was able to rule as King without corrupting there minds and hearts and no one worshiped it’s king as they did before. During this time of transit, many stories where written, one with the most significant meaning to the faith. The story of Hero Han, the fearless zealous young warrior who had slain over a thousand men in the course of the 3 days of the initial revolt. He repeled attack after attack against the fearful and faithless soldiers and rumors went that by far most of the people he killed, where fleeing, showing the incredible power of faith over the faithless. While all the people had resented the faith in god and the heavens that await us, Hero Han kept his strong and eventually died in complete satisfaction by the sword of a rebel, of whom he killed a thousand times more, knowing that god would have reserved the greatest place in heaven for he with the strongest faith.

All it’s lands would be cursed for eternity and it’s humanity punished and punished into seemingly endless torture, weakened by greed, humanity would never be strong enough to lift the curse and defeat the evil they’ve created, until the holy Kingdom is restored and humanity united again. For the prophecy says that after many generations, the holy bloodline, by then split into two families will be reunited under a passionate love. From this holy marriage, the great and prosperous Kingdom will rise from the cursed ashes again. The time of salvation will be marked by a peak of chaos and destruction, where humanity is most divided and destroyed then ever. The earth shall be lifted from darkness, so beauty and order may once more be restored and things will be as they once where. This book of faith will be re dug from the ashes covered earth and god will speak once more threw it’s prophets. The mark of god will show in a holy marriage between King Khans pure decedents and they will be worshiped as gods by it’s people to bring order, law, unity and glory to the blessed promised lands of the one and only true god. And under these order of things, all people will live in prosperity and peace under a strong and glorious nation once again.

A place in the heavens among the saints awaits every pure and devoted soul who gave it’s life for the divine work, where they will stay in ultimate bliss for an eternity. The great souls of prophets, priests, heroes and saints watch over the world below in wisdom in some cases influence the course of action below to remind us of what path lays before us. There eternal mercy blesses even the wicked who pray. After the fall of Khan, this first sin marked a wave of chaos and sinful behaviour, and it’s overwhelming power of evil, blasted a huge gap in the earth, creating the abbys. A place of pure sin, misery and eternal agony, which draws, as a magnet the souls of the wicked. A great prophet of that time, High priest Aaron, received the word of god, granting him the gift of the tablet of sin, describing all the sinful behaviour since the fall of Khan to the cursed and blinded people, which unfortunately fell to deaf ears. The burning fires of hell house everything that stands for chaos and evil and is guarded and ruled by dark angels, who are the cursed souls of the first sinners. Dark angels are cursed in hell for an eternity and draw it’s power from lies and pure destruction. When the earth overflows with sins, the dark angels will become powerful enough, to pour from the abbys into the world to destroy all of mankind in it’s eternal flames. Salvation shall lift the curse and defeat the dark angels once and for all.

Magicka, the book of spell masters - the second book

During the enlightened period of Khans reign, among the most divine of humans where a selected few who where trained by an old women of the holy bloodline who came after Khan as his sister, her name was Enki. She held the knowledge of spell mastering as a family secret from the first to receive it's knowledge, Mother Amber her self and was the first to put it to use. She trained among the most gifted and most pure of blood to maintain and enrich the balance of the world and help humanity grow ever forward in understanding the complexity of gods creations. Spellmastering is in essence considered controlling the divinity that flows threw your blood to alter the divine creation it's self. Spellmasters where a great addition to society and worked to maintain gods beautiful creations. This lasted until the minds of humanity got corrupted by the evil one with greed and desires of ambitions outside there divine place in society. The lands got riped in chaos death and bloodshed, Khan was overthrown and many saints have lost there lifes. As the humans broke from there unity, so did the spell masters and as like the other humans, eventually lost there divinity and thus there spell mastering power over generations. Not all broke from the order of things however, some spellmasters remained loyal to there king and gave there life's in an epic confrontation to ascended to heaven where they since belong to the highest order of arch angels among the saints of the holy royal bloodline and even god himself.

During the Apocalypse the realm of the abyss was born out of the emptiness of divinity and swallowed the empty souls of the sinners into it's burning agony of existence. Amongst these souls where the fallen spellmasters who used there powers against the almighty god and King Khan, who now rule as Kings over the plains of the abbys and are called the dark angels. By losing there divinity, they lost there powers of spellmastering but found a new way to gain it by extracting divinity from an external source. They consumed and used the divine energy from other living things by destroying them, and so they managed to regain there powers. The cursed abbys itself off course held not a single drop of divinity as it was born into existence by the sudden vacuum of divinity its self and thus they had to draw there powers from the plains of our world or the very heavens to power them selves. Only from our world could this darkness be unleashed and eventually it did.

Caused by a secret order, hidden for generations in secrecy a powerful magical door was summoned to the underworld and when it opened, helll came pouring out. The earth was swept by dark angels and tormented souls in an endless state of destruction to keep draining the magical power that allowed them to exist here. For now they entered the plains of earth, not only did they need to destroy to cast there powers, they also needed to destroy to remain in existence. A dark cycle of total destruction was unleashed by these deformed beings appearing in endless forms of horribly fearsome creatures.

From the fall of the spellmasters, not only the sinners kept it's secret hidden, also various sacred men held these secrets, but not to destroy but rather to protect. As soon as the door opened between the abbys and the human plains, the order steped out of the secrecy into the public to defend the very life it's self, in this world. But as any other man since the fall of Khan, the members of this order lost most of there divinity in the chaos and thus relied for a large part on external extraction which is by it's self a destructive power. Even members of this order became corrupted by these powers and only the strongest of heart and the most zealous followers remained pure and accended to the heavens them selves as saints. The white order, or the order of the light as they themselves often called it, extracted its powers not from destruction of life like the dark angels did but from the voluntary sacrifice of human blood. The divinity within the individual order members was to weak to defeat the dark angels but from the pool of there combined divinity, enough power could be gathered to stop the powers of darkness and blast them back to the Abbys, where they cam from. In one final epic confrontation the original spell masters, who kept with Khan thil there very death, descended down from the heavens into ours. Touched by god it's self they came down into human bodies as vassals and by there presence alone obliterated the extracted powers by the pure infinite divinity out of which these saints exist. During there presence, none of the extracted magic had any influence any more, the dark angels where vanished back into the Abbys and there doorway shut. The secret orders disappeared back into secrecy, and the powers of divinity where turned into myths again and so the balance of magic was once more restored for as long as there secrets remained hidden.

Tablet (of the 6 commands) of Aaron - the third book

A clay tablet engraved by prophet Aaron was made after all literature was burned to remind the apocalyptic world after the fall of Khan of the god they abandoned and the effects of it. His tablet described 6 basic rules in life as the first pillar on which to build the post apocalyptic church. The first step towards the second coming of the Holy Kingdom. He leaves it for the reader to interpret it on his/her own way, however remains absolutely clear on a certain set of main issues.

1. There is only one divinity and his name is god. Thou shall not worship nor acknowledge any other divinity.
2. Thou shalt serve the almighty threw his authority on earth, the King and acknowledge no authority above him.
3. Thou shall not murder, steal, curse or lend money from or to any brother or sister of faith.
4. Thou shalt respect the order of life and atorn the code of the caste your born in and live the life your destined to live by the will of god with all your dedication.
5. Thou shalt only reproduce thy self threw a holly marriage, a bond only to be broken by death between man and wife of the same caste.
6. thou shalt not serve or accept a sinner or any community or institution ruled by a sinner or sinners.

On the back of the tablet he engraved a order of society, the order of castes. As how society used to be, before the apocalypse.

The order of Society under god:

1. The divine bloodline - The holy family, the King and his family, who rule the society by the will of god.
2. The Blue caste - Men born from a noble family, this is the smallest caste and also has some sub castes, but with with much less difference between sub caste then the green caste. These are the most pure of men and rule the lands of the King under his divine reign.
3. The Red caste - the sons and daughters of soldiers that serve armies of nobles
4. The Green caste - the children from families that work the fields or in there shops to make a living and serve the higher castes. The green caste is by far the biggest caste, who produces and grows everything a society needs.
This caste has many sub-castes for each profession. Occasionally new ones are made up. 5. The bastard/black/dirt caste - children born from unmarried families or from mixed families.

Religious Rituals and Traditions

The birth of Khan, comercial celibration, people buy presents for family members and go to theatrical plays about his birth, the celibration contains a holiday of one week. Women primarily focus on worshiping Yanah idols during this week, the mother of the Great Khan.

The fall of Khan, the whole mythology is played out on a street theater act.

A royal blood becomes 16, everybody stops working that day and many go to the public inuaguration by the high priests of the church.

The winter solstice, soldiers and peasant celibration day, where people celibrate the end of winter by many massive bon fires.

The summer solstice, peasant and soldiers celibration where people thank god for the many hours of light and pray for a mercyful winter to come, temples are well visited.

Genesis day, where the gods victory amonsgt the others is celibrated in a large martial arts festival, theres also a parade for the red, soldiers bloodline and the military plus the king and his family, this is also new years celibration, from this day the new year starts, it’s just before winter solstice. bon fires are also lit on this day.

Day of the Heroes, people visit the graves of fallen heroes which are worshiped that day and remembered in a military ceremony and theatrical plays where grand battles are renacted in the open, sometimes over a tousand actors join the enactment. Of which the most popular plays is that of Hero Han against over a thousand enemies. It’s espeicaly an important day for the soldiers caste and the soldiers caste amongst nobles(those born from a hero).

Day of enlightment, Celibration day for knowledge, wisedom, literature, music and arts. Royal compititions are held for special anual rewards and titles amongst writers and artists in an official ceremony. Only nobles are nominated for these competitions.

Marriage and birth rituals are very important which during the marriage between the two lost families is remembered or prayn for(which ever may be the case in course of time), or, in the case of birth, the birth Amber and Ewalds children is remembered.

Each caste also have there specific rites during any of these rituals. with the most extreme example of warrior castes, making sure the baby is strong enough before even 'accepting' it as there son or daughter. Rituals and holy days may also vary from the different saints worshiped. Some celebrations might only be held in a certain province for a local saint whom they reenact his deeds or death or eat his or her favorite cheese (for example).

On Saints

A special place in heavens and in the hearts of humanity on earth are granted for Saints, those with zealously undoubtful faith. Those who would die without fear, those who'd contribute everything and there whole life to the religious cause. These men are so powerful in there faith that they will sit among there fellow kind as saints in the heavens to watch over the earth and thus keep in emotional/mental touch with humanity. They seldom interfere with humanities own path. For many there enlightenment causes the inability to understand there reasoning let alone the reasoning of god. Miracles, lightnings and the such are indeed caused by them(God and his Saints), but never can humanity understand the reasoning behind it until they ascent towards the heavens. Saints are seen as an inspiration, an idol, an example to live up to, to be just as faithful. The faiths life restricts every castes extremely to the life of that particular caste, but for every caste it is possible to become one of these saints. It is not so important how great your effects are as how much courage, effort and strength of faith you put in your mission in the eyes of god.

Commonly worshiped saints vary from temple to temple and nation from nation, even each family has it's own family saint to worship. This is an active process mostly affected by history and culture. There are however several 'main' historical saints/angels who's stories are covered in the book of faith, whom are listed below:

Ewald - first man to walk the earth and worship god, founded the first family and made humanity possible
Amber - First Women to walk the earth and worship god, founded the first family and made humanity possible
Yanah - the obedient and respectful child that conceived a child of the pure and holy bloodline, it's child was Khan, the first and only King.
Khan - The first king, the one who founded civilization and who showed the world what faith can bring humanity, he ruled for many decades until people started to forget the state of nature, without Khans rule and a deceitful man incited a revolt to overthrow him, thanks to several heroic soldiers, Khan survived with the holy bloodline.
Enki - first spellmaster(spellmistress), founder of the spellmasters.
Hero Han - the greatest hero in history of man kind, showed unwavering faith in the defense of his King, killed a thousand before he was slain him self, the fight took 3 days.
Prophet Aaron - the great prophet that showed the post revolution world there sins and there effects and made a very important tablet describing the sins of the world. What should have been a refreshing lesson fell to deaf ears and humanity only fell into a deeper tragedy. A clear example of where one of the greatest saints ever, never really achieved anything during his life on earth showing that it is actually the effort, the unwavering faith that is what counts.