EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
It's not technically a "D&D" setting, as I run Dungeon World, but it's pretty much the same.
Thus far, there are three and a half distinct, moderately well-described religious traditions known to the players.
Of course, they're...rather more personal now than the party originally expected, as one character (our Bard) has accidentally(?) fulfilled most of the prophecies regarding their prophesied destroyer-savior, the Lord of the Ravens. This has (in accordance with prophecy!) precipitated an all-out internecine war between the "Loyalists" (maintaining that the Bard is a false messiah, an outsider who will pervert and destroy their faith, led by the original head, the Grandmother of Shadows) and the "Rebels" (maintaining that the Bard is their true destroyer-savior, and thus build the faith stronger than ever), with a moderately large contingent of unaffiliated "Laypeople" who just want to keep practicing their basic rituals in peace. Muaz Rhozali's* Rebels were originally the smaller faction, but the Bard has taken multiple steps to bolster his claim (he wants to save them, and is on the cusp of finding a way to fulfill their doctrines without having them be murdererous assassins), which has caused some defections to the Rebel cause. If the Lay faction were to choose to support the Rebel cause as well, the Loyalists would be in a very difficult position--not unwinnable, but they would have to risk exposing this war-in-the-shadows in order to win, and the results definitely wouldn't be pretty.
Naturally, being a secretive murder-cult labelled a violent and dangerous heresy (all of which are...pretty much true!), the Raven-Shadows do not practice their faith publicly. They consider themselves still Safiqi, and just see other Safiqi as being sort of misguided, while the Safiqi see them as an active threat that must be eliminated posthaste. Or, rather, they did see them that way, but every time the Safiqi think they've wiped out the last Zil, new ones show up 3-8 generations later. The most recent conflict was very nearly successful, but the Zil managed to trick the Safiqi into killing just most of their forces (and all of their "leaders") while a tiny handful--possibly only one true, initiated person--escaped with documents and rituals to start again.
Incompletely understood traditions from other regions include some form of totemic worship in the Eastern Steppe and various much smaller religious traditions spread out across the Ten Thousand Isles of the Sapphire Sea that stretches between the Tarrakhuna (where the PCs are located) and Yuxia. The Jinnistani--at least the nobility of Jinnistan--seem to be agnostic or atheist, but not militant about it. They don't build temples with royal money, but they also don't stop people from worship either, so long as it's not dangerous. (Though they've never had a problem with Raven-Shadows; the cult's doctrines partly include protecting the mortal world from extraplanar influences, so they don't spread into the elemental otherworld where Jinnistan is located.)
*I give names to all my NPCs, but I remember this one extremely well because it sounds like an evil laugh. "Muaz...MUA-HA-HAZ!" He's a pretty decent guy though, despite being a high-ranking member of an assassin-cult. As is Cousin Rushdi, the gregarious dragonborn chef and "inhumer" who fills his apartment with poisonous plants.
Thus far, there are three and a half distinct, moderately well-described religious traditions known to the players.
- The Safiqi Priesthood. They...don't really have a "name" for their religion, it's just "the faith" to them. It's monotheistic, drawing inspiration from the IRL traditions of Islam and Judaism. "The One" is a pre-gender being (canonically "They/Them"), claimed to be the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator-of-all-things, perfect and unitary but infinite and thus impossible for ordinary mortals to fully understand in analytic terms. As a result, They are worshipped through various "facets" or "aspects," doctrinally understood to be only one small part of the whole, but each contributing to the infinite Being. Examples include the Unknown Knower (facet of stealth, academics, mystery, secrets), the Soothing Flame (guidance, healing, mercy, charity), the Stalwart Soldier (defense, family, endurance, camaraderie), the Resolute Seeker (courage, zeal, overcoming evil, bringing light to dark places), and the most prominent/"first among equals" facet, the Great Architect (leadership/rulership, design, foresight, wisdom). All aspects are theoretically equal, but the Great Architect is often used as a proxy for the One in general.
- The Kahina, made up of Druids and Shaman. They revere the natural world and the spirit world, the cycle of life and death, the land which giveth life and taketh it away--not surprising for a group formed primarily by people interested in merely surviving in the arid/desert lands outside the (then-)Genie Rajah-controlled cities. Their power is greatly diminished from their heyday, long ago, but most of them really don't care that much. That doesn't mean they don't get political, they totally do (my Druids are far less disconnected from worldly affairs than most D&D versions), but they mostly just go with the flow. There are even quite a few urban Kahina who help local communities; the party has met a "discreet herbalist" shaman in one of the ritzy parts of the de facto regional capital, for instance.
- The "Celestial Bureaucracy." This is the dominant faith that holds sway far away in Yuxia, the Jade Home. In some senses, it's kind of a hybridization of the two above, albeit arising from unrelated stock. The August Jade Emperor is the leader of the Celestial Bureaucracy, and has many, many layers of underlings below. These are (loosely) analogous to the spirits revered by the Kahina, while the Emperor Himself is sufficiently analogous to the One that the Safiqi genuinely believe they're one and the same, just understood differently. (This religious symmetry has greatly helped smooth diplomatic relations between the two regions.) The fact that the "spirits" are part of the same order of nature, however, and somehow under the command or rulership of a leader, would definitely disquiet the most orthodox Kahina, while the fact that the August Jade Emperor is gendered and framed as merely sitting at the peak of a pyramid of functionaries does not sit well with the (currently not very powerful) orthodox faction of Safiqi priests.
Of course, they're...rather more personal now than the party originally expected, as one character (our Bard) has accidentally(?) fulfilled most of the prophecies regarding their prophesied destroyer-savior, the Lord of the Ravens. This has (in accordance with prophecy!) precipitated an all-out internecine war between the "Loyalists" (maintaining that the Bard is a false messiah, an outsider who will pervert and destroy their faith, led by the original head, the Grandmother of Shadows) and the "Rebels" (maintaining that the Bard is their true destroyer-savior, and thus build the faith stronger than ever), with a moderately large contingent of unaffiliated "Laypeople" who just want to keep practicing their basic rituals in peace. Muaz Rhozali's* Rebels were originally the smaller faction, but the Bard has taken multiple steps to bolster his claim (he wants to save them, and is on the cusp of finding a way to fulfill their doctrines without having them be murdererous assassins), which has caused some defections to the Rebel cause. If the Lay faction were to choose to support the Rebel cause as well, the Loyalists would be in a very difficult position--not unwinnable, but they would have to risk exposing this war-in-the-shadows in order to win, and the results definitely wouldn't be pretty.
Naturally, being a secretive murder-cult labelled a violent and dangerous heresy (all of which are...pretty much true!), the Raven-Shadows do not practice their faith publicly. They consider themselves still Safiqi, and just see other Safiqi as being sort of misguided, while the Safiqi see them as an active threat that must be eliminated posthaste. Or, rather, they did see them that way, but every time the Safiqi think they've wiped out the last Zil, new ones show up 3-8 generations later. The most recent conflict was very nearly successful, but the Zil managed to trick the Safiqi into killing just most of their forces (and all of their "leaders") while a tiny handful--possibly only one true, initiated person--escaped with documents and rituals to start again.
Incompletely understood traditions from other regions include some form of totemic worship in the Eastern Steppe and various much smaller religious traditions spread out across the Ten Thousand Isles of the Sapphire Sea that stretches between the Tarrakhuna (where the PCs are located) and Yuxia. The Jinnistani--at least the nobility of Jinnistan--seem to be agnostic or atheist, but not militant about it. They don't build temples with royal money, but they also don't stop people from worship either, so long as it's not dangerous. (Though they've never had a problem with Raven-Shadows; the cult's doctrines partly include protecting the mortal world from extraplanar influences, so they don't spread into the elemental otherworld where Jinnistan is located.)
*I give names to all my NPCs, but I remember this one extremely well because it sounds like an evil laugh. "Muaz...MUA-HA-HAZ!" He's a pretty decent guy though, despite being a high-ranking member of an assassin-cult. As is Cousin Rushdi, the gregarious dragonborn chef and "inhumer" who fills his apartment with poisonous plants.
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