Work In Progress The Twice-Coiled Path

[Muphinz]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To create a faith for the Bedlariim
• Image Credit: [X]
• Canon: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Links: WIP

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Religion Name: The Twice-Coiled Path
• Religion Type: Monolatrist
• Influence: Interplanetary
• Influence Area: Former worlds of the Bedlariim Empire
• Symbol: Two serpents coiled together attempting to devour one another
• Description: The Twice-Coiled Path is the ethnoreligion of the Bedlariim. It serves primarily as tool to teach and enforce the practices of the Bedlariim, practices which have been developed over centuries to allow them to survive on their homeworld of Ahk-Ourobha. This has, in an interesting twist, conflacted survival instincts and knowledge with virtue while condemning lazyness, ignorance, and other behaviors which prove dangerous on Ahk-Ourobha as sinful such as the wasting of water. The Twice-Coiled Path also seeks to answer the major questions of the world like any other faith. Why do we exist? Why does evil exist? What happens when we die? What is the force? Yet many who practice the faith hold these questions as inconsequential. While important metaphysically, the average Bedlariim hold leisure time as a rich commodity and thus often do not have time to ponder these questions.

SOCIAL INFORMATION

• Founder: Unknown, if there was a founder they are so distant in the past they have been forgotten by the Bedlariim.
• Membership: All Bedlariim are born into the faith and are believed to be incapable of leaving it. Outsiders may join, but it requires months if not years of tests and lessons to teach the outsider the ways of the Bedlariim. Members are expected to be able to speak Bedlariim and survive on Ahk-Ourobha's extreme wilderness.
• Sacred:
  • The Twice-Coiled Path holds that the Thahbalahn are sacred beasts, the largest shards of the All-Maker who were gifted to the Bedlariim to serve as guides and guardians.
  • The faith further holds that Dust is sacred and is the refined essence of the All-Maker, the purest form of the Inactive Aspect which can further awaken the other aspects within a person. Many followers of the Twice-Coiled Path believe it to be sacriligeous to consume Dust recreationally or in a non-religious setting. More radical members are known to attack and kill those who use Dust inappropriately.
• Dogma: The Twice-Coiled Path lacks any specific holy book but rather relies on the teachings, parables, and knowledge of holy men and women known as Mulobha(s). Each Mulobha belongs to the Priesthood, which is both a religious, philosophical, and scholastic institution. It is the Priesthood's duty to comb through current knowledge for inconsistencies while exploring new truths to fit into the great puzzle of the universe. This search for knowledge is considered one of the two great tasks given by the All-Maker: "You must survive" and "You must comprehend." which were spoken to the first-men and were the last and only thing said by the All-Maker.
  
  The Priesthood is made up for more than just the elite Mulobhas. The vast majority of its priests are known as Muftabha(s) who act as scholars, functionaries, and judges. They lack the authority to decide on religious truth but instead spread and enforce the knowledge of the Mulobhas. A Muftabha is a position one is practically born into as it is a somewhat common practice for every family to give up their second child to The Priesthood. These children are raised within monestaries to be Muftabha, a process which takes over two decades to memorize the many teachings of the Mulobhas, be taught proper etiquette, and learn important oratory skills.

The Teachings of the Mulobha Imaad el-Bashara​

"Many ask: 'Why did the All-Maker cause us to suffer?'. I tell them, and you, that the All-Maker deigned us to suffer because suffering leads to defiance, and defiance leads to thought. Through thought we fulfill the All-Maker's second decree: To Comprehend. Yet thought alone is not enough, thought without action is empty.

"Many ask: 'Why did the All-Maker create evil?'. I tell them, and you, that the All-Maker created evil because evil forces us to action. To stay still or give in is to surrender to evil and die as is the All-Maker's will. Yet action without thought is empty, as it is through speed and ignorance that evil kills."

"Many ask: 'Where do thought and action lead?'. I tell them, and you, that thought and action lead to creation. It is through creation we fulfill the All-Maker's first decree: To Survive. For it is through the sweat of our brow and the knowledge of our mind we create the tools necessary to live."

"Many ask: 'Why do we honor the All-Maker's decrees?'. I tell them, and you, that the All-Maker is our ancestor and is it not the duty of progeny to honor the ancestors? It is only by honoring the ancestors we have survived, and is not the All-Maker our first and most revered ancestor? Yes, every lineage of parents must lead to the All-Maker's creation of the first-men as there is no other point of origin."

The Teachings of the Mulobha Umaima el-Mahdi​

"Many ask: 'What are the universal aspects?' I tell them, and you, that the universal aspects are the building blocks of the universe. The three aspects are: The Proactive Aspect is our intelligence, that which allows thinking beings to make decisions and choose their own fate and which only sapient creatures are blessed with. The Reactive Aspect which are our instincts, that which allows us and other living creatures to intuit survival without thought and continue to survive. Finally is The Inactive Aspect, which is the material all things are made of, including our bodies."

"Many ask: 'Where did the universe come from?' I tell them, and you, that the All-Maker gave their substance to create the universe. The All-Maker split their vast Proactive Aspect into slivers we know as souls. The All-Maker split their vast Reactive Aspect to create what we know as the universal laws of the galaxy such as gravity and heat, to assure the continued survival of their split essence. And the All-Maker split their vast Inactive Aspect to create the material of the universe: atoms and molecules."

(WIP, more teachings will come)

• Reputation: In current days the faith of The Twice-Coiled Path is viewed as a strange religion held in a collection of backwater worlds, but to others the scars of the Bedlariim Empire remain. Many remember the days of the faith being enforced on the subjects of the Bedlariim Empire and its ruthless expansionist vision. The holy wars fought under the banner of the twin-serpents were brutal, bloody, and horrific to see. While those tendencies have laid dormant for centuries many claim that it will only take a spark to reignite the bloody expansion of this faith.

MEMBERS

• Bedlariim
• Those who have been adopted by the Bedlariim

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

The faith of the Twice-Coiled Path is an ancient religion far pre-dating any texts on or about Ahk-Ourobha, and has been integrated fully into the lives of the Bedlariim. Some alien communities have come to be integrated into the faith and are thus considered Bedlariim. This ability to integrate outsiders was extremely helpful at the dawn of the Bedlariim Empire with many populations of conquered worlds coming to be integrated as Bedlariim.