Quincunx
inactive
Passed down by oral tradition is a creation story about how man burst forth from the ground, each with a resource of some sort (water, fire, soil, tagigite, etc.) to bring to the table. There is also an apocalyptic story about how the world will end with the roads splitting apart, lines of communication going dead, and everyone looking to leaders who crumble. The first story is taken only figuratively by a lot of people, due to scientists searching for a more plausible explanation as to how everyone came into being. The second is taken with various levels of literalism - some people believe it's a metaphor, some people believe it's a prophecy that will come true word-for-word, and others are skeptical of it entirely.
Religion is a very mild influence on life in Astrophel, public in some ways but mostly personal. There are shrines set up all over the city, talismans for love or luck, and sometimes sacred spaces set up in homes for gods or spirits. For the larger sects, there are organizations that have yearly festivals and public services. Most people in the city follow some sort of faith and some seek out converts, but would think imposing their religion through force doesn't make much sense, and see faith as a part of one's personal routine.
The exception to this was the Followers of Kara, whose deity was a goddess of the primordial darkness that the group says enveloped the world before tagigite was unearthed. Their practices celebrated the sacredness of the night, and eschewed the evils of high-tech modern living in an effort to return to a purer, more "natural" state. Despite aggressively trying to spread their ideals, they only amassed about fifty members. Their final act was to burn down to a brightly-lit arena. The end result of this was the fire spreading to nearby buildings before being contained, the Followers being imprisoned, and Astrophel gaining a true distrust for religious extremism. This occurred about fifteen years ago, but some still believe remnants of the Followers have escaped and practice in secret, perhaps preparing something else.
Regardless of which gods one prays to, each religion has developed an explanation for the surreal monsters that make their homes in the darker corners of the city. The things appear as bizarre jumbles of shapes and objects, living in regions of increasingly distorted reality. People affected by them sustain psychological damage - they lose the capacity to feel certain emotions for durations of time dependent on their exposure, or they forget personal memories, or their entire personality changes. Sometimes they disappear altogether. Different religions have different names for these creatures, but the most prevalent term is "Nadir".
There is another type of entity that exists across religions, called Midheavens. A Midheaven is a hero who possesses beautiful, terrifying magical power, almost always seen saving someone from a Nadir. They radiate intense emotions, use weapons forged from jewels and wood and other strange materials, and command the power of the constellations. In fact, each one seems associated with a particular emotion and constellation. Nobody has seen the same Midheaven twice, and people suspect they somehow pass out of existence without truly dying. People are terrified of Midheavens, their magic and feeling holding an alien purity and intensity, but hold them in higher regard than the Nadirs.
Science hasn't come to a consensus on a naturalistic explanation for Nadirs and Midheavens yet, and the non-religious dismiss them as either paranormal phenomena or crankery. Therefore, they don't "exist" within the realm of the strictly skeptical. The oldest residents of Astrophel remember people first talking about Nadirs, or even encountering themselves, when they were young adults, but Midheavens only appeared as recently as fifteen or twenty years ago.
Religion is a very mild influence on life in Astrophel, public in some ways but mostly personal. There are shrines set up all over the city, talismans for love or luck, and sometimes sacred spaces set up in homes for gods or spirits. For the larger sects, there are organizations that have yearly festivals and public services. Most people in the city follow some sort of faith and some seek out converts, but would think imposing their religion through force doesn't make much sense, and see faith as a part of one's personal routine.
The exception to this was the Followers of Kara, whose deity was a goddess of the primordial darkness that the group says enveloped the world before tagigite was unearthed. Their practices celebrated the sacredness of the night, and eschewed the evils of high-tech modern living in an effort to return to a purer, more "natural" state. Despite aggressively trying to spread their ideals, they only amassed about fifty members. Their final act was to burn down to a brightly-lit arena. The end result of this was the fire spreading to nearby buildings before being contained, the Followers being imprisoned, and Astrophel gaining a true distrust for religious extremism. This occurred about fifteen years ago, but some still believe remnants of the Followers have escaped and practice in secret, perhaps preparing something else.
Regardless of which gods one prays to, each religion has developed an explanation for the surreal monsters that make their homes in the darker corners of the city. The things appear as bizarre jumbles of shapes and objects, living in regions of increasingly distorted reality. People affected by them sustain psychological damage - they lose the capacity to feel certain emotions for durations of time dependent on their exposure, or they forget personal memories, or their entire personality changes. Sometimes they disappear altogether. Different religions have different names for these creatures, but the most prevalent term is "Nadir".
There is another type of entity that exists across religions, called Midheavens. A Midheaven is a hero who possesses beautiful, terrifying magical power, almost always seen saving someone from a Nadir. They radiate intense emotions, use weapons forged from jewels and wood and other strange materials, and command the power of the constellations. In fact, each one seems associated with a particular emotion and constellation. Nobody has seen the same Midheaven twice, and people suspect they somehow pass out of existence without truly dying. People are terrified of Midheavens, their magic and feeling holding an alien purity and intensity, but hold them in higher regard than the Nadirs.
Science hasn't come to a consensus on a naturalistic explanation for Nadirs and Midheavens yet, and the non-religious dismiss them as either paranormal phenomena or crankery. Therefore, they don't "exist" within the realm of the strictly skeptical. The oldest residents of Astrophel remember people first talking about Nadirs, or even encountering themselves, when they were young adults, but Midheavens only appeared as recently as fifteen or twenty years ago.
