Orcrest | Heresies

Heresies

Overview

Not all religions are large and widely accepted. Many beliefs simmer in a populace, spoken in hushed tones or behind closed doors. Many others fall from the lips of intellectuals, madmen, or both. Each belief listed here is considered fringe thought, and expressing one could lead to mockery, exile, claims to insanity, or worse, depending on circumstances.

Each of these heresies is a forbidden path of belief or ideology, considered a direct affront to the established religious doctrines of the known world. These beliefs challenge divine authority, question creation itself, or delve into concepts considered dangerous to the fabric of faith. Adherents to these heresies often live on the fringes of society as social or legal outcasts, and the least they could expect when expressing their earnest belief is mockery.

This list is non-exhaustive, covering only the heresies most common in the region. As none of these have central religious authorities, each, in practice, varies greatly from heretic to heretic with the nominal same beliefs. As such, information listed here only speaks to the most common strain of each of the most common heresies, not delving into the intra-heretic discussions on the minutiae of their faith.

Worship

Keep it Secret: Heresies are never well received by the faithful of other religions, and so are typically worshipped in secret.
The Ties that Bind: Heretics typically band together into small cults or secret societies. Some take over entire small communities.
Outcasts Amongst Outcasts: Even within people typically considered outcasts, heretics are shunned.
Fervor is Truth: Heretics tend to hold to their beliefs with extreme faith, for if they didn't they would not be heretics in the first place.
A House Divided: Strangely, many heretics dislike other heretics of different sorts, though that varies by cult to cult.
Personalized Worship: Without central religious authorities or communal pressure, heretics tend to have widely varied interpretations of their faith, rather than adhering to a specific dogma.

Core Information

Symbol: Varies heresy to heresy, but a coin with a square hole is a common symbol for those open to alternative thought.

Internal Relations: Varies by heresy

External Relations: Heretics of all stripes are widely shunned in every society, even those typically filled with outlaws and scoundrels. Certain particularly egregious heresies are considered capital crimes in various civilizations.

To naught it shall return.

Lore

This heresy posits that creation is a mistake, and that the universe was birthed from an eternal void that seeks to reclaim all existence. Adherents deny the benevolence of any god, instead worshipping the inevitable collapse of all reality into nothingness. In embracing entropy, they seek to find solace in a fleeting and meaningless life.

Worshippers

Nihilistic and contemplative, adherents often speak in cryptic metaphors about oblivion.
Mostly found amongst mystics and philosophers, or those disillusioned with the struggles of their life.
Worshippers practice asceticism, rejecting material goods beyond what is necessary and focusing on their (hopefully imminent) dissolution into the Void.

Relations

Despite seeming mostly harmless on its surface, the Void heresy is treated as an extreme threat by most people. It is viewed as a philosophy that will steal the joy from your children and twist them into miserable shells of their former selves. In many places it is expressly illegal to profess these beliefs, and in many more they will see one promptly exiled.

Symbol

The Black Ring: A simple, hollow ring representing the Void's infinite reach.

A part of a greater whole.

Lore

The Godchild cult suggests that the world is itself a living entity, a divine child growing into godhood. Adherents believe that mortals are akin to cells within this greater being, tasked with nurturing its growth and building its strength. While some believe that means they should live as one with nature, others argue the opposite: a sword is stronger than iron ore, so developing the world into strong civilizations is the best one can do.

Worshippers

Optimistic and nurturing, adherents see their actions as contributing to a divine purpose.
They come in two primary flavours: those who are fervent environmentalists, and those who are fervent industrialists.
Often found amongst farmers, healers, craftsmen, and mystics.

Relations

Godchild cultists are seen as lunatics, but ones who are mostly harmless. As such, they are often allowed in settlements and simply viewed as the local madman, though this quickly changes if they appear in any significant number. One family is an oddity, two is seditious.

Symbol

The Growing Sprout: A sprout emerging from a circle, symbolizing the world’s growth into divinity.

Everyone in their place.

Lore

Patron cultists claim that each race has a singular patron god unique to them, and all other gods are either false or irrelevant. This belief is deeply divisive, often promoting racial superiority and segregated worship. As the patrons are separated by race, so too are the cults, with each having differing views on what the patrons of other races are for, and what blessings their patron endowed upon them.

Worshippers

Often nationalistic, exclusive, militant, and intolerant. They tend to be fiercely loyal to their patron god.
Often in isolated communities or racial groups who elevate their patron god above all others.
Found in every race, but most common among humans and elves.

Relations

Patron cultists tend to be openly hostile to those around them, and receive the same hostility in turn. Time and time again, a patron cult will rise in a rural community, grow in strength and number, until they launch a rebellion against their liegelords. Time and time again, these rebellions are crushed without mercy.

Symbol

The Ancestral Sigil: A unique design varying for each race, representing their divine connection.

What could be more divine?

Lore

Dragons, not gods, are the true rulers of creation, deposed by false idols raised by weak and treacherous mortal minds. These usurpers deserve nothing but scorn, and mortalkind should return to the old ways, the ways of fire and fury, of thunderous wings and deafening roars. Those who work to restore their ancient power will surely be rewarded, perhaps even by being given a place amongst them, ruling those who turned from the power of dragons.

Worshippers

Secretive, typically operating in small cult cells to avoid persecution.
Rebellious and awe-inspired, adherents revere the ancient dragons as beings of unmatched wisdom and strength.
Common among outlaw societies, and particularly common among kobolds, where it is a heresy almost universally believed.

Relations

Though not as widely reviled as atheism, the Dragon Cult has the dubious honour of the heresy that has been warred against the most. Aer Arnad had several large campaigns to mobilize against dragon cultists, and it is still a capital crime to hold these beliefs within its borders. Similarly, many other kingdoms have waged war against the cult, and much of the distrust that kobolds face is based in religious, rather than racial animosity.

Symbol

The Draconic Spiral: A coiled dragon encircling a flame, representing power and rebirth.

And what might the ant think of us?

Lore

Atheism rejects the divinity of gods entirely, asserting that the world operates on natural laws without divine interference. Some of what others call gods may exist, and may create phenomenon in the world, but so too do many other powerful individuals, most of whom it would be laughable to call a deity. What separates a so-called-god from a sorcerer of supreme power? Primisists, a subset of atheists, argue instead that all gods are merely evolved concepts born from humanity's fears and aspirations, ones given shape as form by the collective thoughts of thousands of mortal minds.

Worshippers

Adherents are often rational, skeptic, and carry a fierce belief in spiritual autonomy.
Found mostly amongst scholars, inventors, and philosophers who seek to discover the natural laws of the world.
Often collect themselves into secret societies to exchange ideas and protect themselves from persecution.

Relations

As any strain of Atheism challenges every established faith, it is the most universally condemned heresy. Atheists rarely, if ever, find settlements where they can be open about their belief without fear of reprisal, and those settlements rarely last long once word reaches the wider world around them. Even those considered scum - brigands, thieves, murderers, and blackguards of every stripe - will spit on one without faith.

Symbol

The Open Eye: Representing awareness, reason, and the search for truth beyond the divine.

A life well lived is a godly life.

Lore

While orthodox Ranatoran belief holds Ranator as a god beyond mortal reckoning, this heresy claims that Ranator’s scripture is incomplete. It asserts that mortals must interpret Ranator’s will and contribute to the divine testament through their actions and thoughts. Adherents seek self-enlightenment, and believe in bettering themselves they better Ranator - seeing each soul as a sliver of a greater whole.

Worshippers

Often bold, challenging dogmatic Ranatorans with reinterpretations of scripture.
Scholars and reformists within Ranatoran circles are the most common, though lay people often take to this heresy as well.
Worshippers often write and share their own Testaments, adding to what they believe is an evolving scripture.

Relations

While Ranatorans hold this heresy in the greatest of contempt, those outside of the Ranatoran faith often do not even realize this heresy exists. Most from other religions, unless well educated in theology, regard those who believe in the Testament as simply Ranatorans with slightly strange ideas.

Symbol

The Open Book: A blank book representing the unfulfilled testament and the potential of mortals to shape divinity.

A god can not be splintered any more than an ocean can.

Lore

Born from the Children of Sault, this heresy rejects the splintered duality of Saultum and Saultas, instead believing Sault, as the sun, is the sole divine force, and could not ever have been splintered. What others view as Saultas is instead a reflection of Sault's light, and holds no divine power in its own right. Those who believe in this heresy view the night as a time of impurity, and as such hold all religious rituals in the daytime, under the watchful gaze of the sun.

Worshippers

Bright and zealous, adherents are often single-minded in their devotion to the sun as the ultimate source of all life.
Common amongst farmers, warriors, and leaders who associate power and success with the sun's strength.
Adherents practice rigorous sun-centric rituals, including nighttime fasts and prayers at dawn.

Relations

Amongst the Children of Sault, they are viewed as dangerous lunatics on the cusp of incurring the wrath of the gods - people to be run out of town and avoided at all cost. Outside of the Children, Single Sun heretics are seen as particularly pious (and thus particularly dangerous) members of the Children.

Symbol

The Solar Disk: A blazing circle of gold, ringed in rays, representing the sun's undivided supremacy.

Choosing is for suckers, why not have them all?

Lore

The All-God heresy posits that every religion is right to some degree, and that all gods commonly worshipped exist unto themselves, though not necessarily in the way their worshippers think. Unlike many other schisms, the All-God heresy arises naturally in most every religion, in scattered numbers. The belief is one often reached independently as people unfamiliar with other religions begin to learn about them. Strangely, in metropolitan areas with multiple common religions it is vanishingly rare, instead appearing most often in people who were well into adulthood before they encountered another religion.

Worshippers

Adherents come in two primary flavours: Those who have had a spiritual experience (often aided by mind-altering substances), and those with a constant need to be more correct than anyone else in the room.
As each adherent tends to come to their beliefs independently, each has a different outlook regarding the inherent contradictions of the various religions they hold as true.

Relations

Nigh everyone hates All-God heretics, and nigh every society shuns them. Less because the heresy is viewed as dangerous, and more because its adherents are seen as insufferable. Someone espousing these beliefs in a crowded tavern could be expected to receive a chorus of abuse, thrown drink, and prompt removal from the premise, though they are often allowed to still live in settlements.

Symbol

The Circle: A plain circle, representing the whole of all creation.