Religion: Human Belief Systems

Human Belief Systems

Church of the One

The vast majority of human beings believe in the precepts of and are members of the Church of the One: a generally peaceful ritualistic religion that parallels early Judeo-Christian faiths in some ways.

The mythology of the church (detailed in the Book of the One, supposedly written some four hundred years ago) can be outlined as follows:

At the beginning of time, there was a woman (whose name is generally not mentioned, but who is most often called “Mana” when she is called anything) who was alone in a small hut or cabin with nothing but her canvas and her painting supplies. She decided to paint the world (or universe, in some versions, though this does not square with later events). At first, she painted only the land.

Outside her hut (theology has speculated without success where her hut was located, since the world had not been created) a threatening presence known as the tiger lurked. The tiger broke into the hut and slashed the world-painting to pieces before leaving.

Mana repaired the painting using her only remaining color: blue. She used thin blue lines to repair the small tears, thus making rivers, but had to use bigger areas of blue for larger tears (seas and oceans).

After the tiger’s attack, Mana realized she was in danger. She began to paint a hunter, Vochek, to protect her. She was almost done with the painting when the tiger attacked again. She had to release her creation before she was finished—his eyes were all that remained. He managed to beat back the tiger with a titanic struggle. Mana could not paint him eyes, so she painted him a companion: Gor, the hunting dog.

Mana and Vochek were lovers only once, and afterward, Vochek told Mana he could not be her companion, as he was her creation. So Mana gave the fruit of her womb to the earth, breaking it into hundreds of pieces that made all life (the Book of the One is unclear on exactly how this happened).

Mana was sad, so she painted a monkey, Ooleon, to amuse her. He proved to be a nuisance, so she locked him in a golden cage, knowing full well he could open the cage at will.

She still wanted children of her own, so she painted two of them: One, a boy with flowing gold hair, and a girl with a silver countenance. She gave them each a brush and told them to paint what they wished. At first, they painted glorious mountains and deep gorges, verdant meadows and expansive deserts. But they soon grew evious of one another, and tried to show their mother that each one was superior. The boy collected all the gold and yellow paint he could to make a grand circle of blazing light, while the girl collected all the silver and while paint she could to create a ball of enigmatic mystery.

When Mana saw what they were doing, she saw they would always fight with one another, and that fighting would affect the world-painting. With a heavy heart, then, she took their brushes from them and took their creations. She used the boy’s as the sun and the girl’s as the moon.

Mana also painted two portraits: two lovers, and she stored them far apart. The Lovers could only gaze at one another until Gor and Ooleon waited until Mana and Vochek were asleep and dragged them towards each other. The paintings met and fell to the ground, the man on top of the woman, and their colors blended. When Mana awoke, she did not try to separate them, claiming that even her skill could not separate those joined in love.

The people on the world-painting learned from the painting of the lovers and began to multiply. Mana saw that this would result in an overrunning of the world, so she had to create death. She painted a golden kingdom and a king to rule it. From time to time she selected a creature from the world-painting and moved it to the kingdom of death. But the humans tried to leave the kingdom, so she walled off the kingdom and gave the keys to King Kelvon. He is charged with keeping the dead in his kingdom.

That’s the story of the Book of One. The modern human church has chosen to interpret the events in the Book as symbolic to a significant level. Their core belief is that all the characters save the Tiger are really just facets of the One. The seeming pantheon of gods is merely a literary device—all comes from One god/goddess (even gender is in question). The religion has developed to the point that while worship of the various manifestations of the One is tolerated and even sometimes seen as a quaint throwback to an earlier time, it is by no means seen as a sophisticated or correct belief pattern.

The religion stresses the concept of creation, mainly biological, but also in most any human endeavor. Priests and priestesses of the One are pledged to wed only other ordained priests and priestesses, and frequently go unmarried. Extramarital sex is frowned upon, as the belief is that only through marriage will the One bless a child with a soul. Children born out of wedlock are not considered true people in the most severe circles of church orthodoxy.

Ritual plays a major role in Oneness, as adherents believe that procedure is a way of becoming closer to the One and his/her own purpose. The symbolic belief is that there is a right and a wrong way to do things, and rituals help remind us of the differences.

Major Figures in Oneism:

Mana
The Tiger
Vochek
Gor
Ooleon
Son of Mana
Daughter of Mana
King Kelvon

Game Effects: religious humans (or other converts to Oneism) may take Discipline of Faith: Ritualism (see page 132) -5 points