The Imperial Church

The High Church, which teaches a doctrine based upon reincarnation and karma, extends across the Realms, although its northern, eastern, and western branches each espouse a slightly different variation of the core faith, and there are countless minor sects and heresies.

The Church does not have any of its own Dragons, but its leaders communicate directly with the Trinity. In this way their ultimate loyalty is not diluted by the creation of ties to lesser Dragons.

The Church has three major Orders, each associated with one of the primary elements that makes up the visible world: Air, Water, and Earth. Each Order has priests, monastics, and lay followers. [Each Order may be thought of somewhat like the orders of the Catholic Church: Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans, each following the same faith but with an different emphasis on how to interpret it.]

The Order of the Eternal Sky (Bluesashes) promotes logic, observation, and rational behavior as the best ways to comprehend the world and live within it while pursuing the correct path toward enlightenment. Its primary missions include education, exploration, and the reforming of corruption.

The Order of the Endless Sea (Greencaps) emphasizes intuition, empathy, egalitarianism, adaptability to unexpected circumstances, and surrendering to fate as the keys to success and spiritual growth. In some ways it is similar to strains of Taoist thought, with an added emphasis on social justice.

The Order of Unbreakable Stone (Graycloaks) teaches stoicism, patience, endurance, obedience, and force of will as the pillars of right behavior and thought. It is strongly focused on stamping out heresy

In broad terms, the Order of Stone is strongest in Cortado, the Order of the Sky is strongest in
Tilan, and the Order of the Sea is strongest in Samar, but each Order can be found in every Realm. Gormundero is associated with the Order of the Sea, Fahfenihr with the Order of Stone, and Tiamata with the Order of the Sky.

The Order of the Flame is a small and secretive group. They are used whenever the Trinity feels that a region is in need of purification through religious fervor or when the Trinity secretly wants to foment revolution for reasons that mere mortals cannot fathom.

The various Guilds have their own confraternities associated with various elemental principles. The Noble Houses are noted for having their own secret Mystery cults that have arcane rituals and multiple levels of initiation.

A Few Notes on Religion

While reading the Oxford University Press book Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction, by Daniel Keown, I came across a reference to the work of religious studies scholar Ninian Smart.
Smart came up with a scheme for studying religion that addressed the elements that he felt all religions shared, so that differing religions could be studied without trying to define precisely what religion itself was.

This is Smart's Seven Dimensions model of religion in brief:

1. Doctrinal (The systematic formulation of religious teachings in an intellectually coherent form.)
2. Mythological or Narrative (Stories that work on several levels. Sometimes narratives fit together into a fairly complete and systematic interpretation of the universe and humanity's place in it.)
3. Ethical (Rules about proper and improper human behavior, often regarded as revelations from supernatural sources.)
4. Ritual (Forms and orders of ceremonies, private and/or public)
5. Experiential or Emotional (The sensations of dread, guilt, awe, mystery, devotion, liberation, ecstasy, inner peace, bliss associated by believers with their faith)
6. Social and Institutional (The public, social means by which the belief system is shared and attitudes practiced by a group. Often includes rules for identifying community membership and participation.)
7. Material (Ordinary objects or places that symbolize or manifest the sacred or supernatural.)

So, for example, the doctrinal aspect of Catholicism would include the catechism and papal bulls of the Church, the mythology would include the Bible and the lives of the various saints, the ethical aspect would include rules such as the Ten Commandments, the ritual would be the holy sacraments, the experiential would be sensations such as rapture and guilt, the institution would be the Church itself and the social dimension the public community of worshippers, and the material aspect would be the physical churches, cathedrals, crosses, candles, and the Eucharist itself.

As I’m thinking about the religions in my Illyria setting, I’m happy to have stumbled across this framework, which seems like an interesting way of organizing the material.