The Goddess depicted in the form of the "Red Lady"
The Cult of the Goddess (known to foreigners as Eastern Aitahism), referred to in formerly Maninist regions as simply the Faith, is a Messianic religion based on the teachings of the Second Aitah who appeared on the Face of the Moon around the year 490 SR. Through both peaceful evangelism and military conquest, the Faith has spread rapidly through the East to challenge Maninism and Indagahor as the dominant religion of the region.
History[]
The dominant cultural influence of the Seshweay people always outpaced the growth of their political clout, and the case of their distinctive Aitahist religion was no different. In the years following the Nahari conquest, the Dual Empire faced a turbulent time religiously, as the Emperors converted from the Maninist faith that had been brought to the Face of the Moon by acolytes of the High Ward of Gallat to the Indagahor religion of their Nahari subjects. However, although the Indagahor religion originated as the faith of the Arta Xorti people which the House of Savirai now ruled, Indagahor became increasingly associated with the dominant Opulensi stranglehold on the Nakalani Sea, who the Savirai emperors repeatedly failed to evict out of the old Arta Xorti state of Zirais in a growing rivalry. Additionally, the Savirai house continued to retain much of their indigenous polytheist beliefs in their court ceremonial, particularly while at home on the Face of the Moon, while Maninism was fast becoming the dominant religion of the Savirai clans who enforced the authority of their liege in the northwest of the Empire. However, this spread of Maninism did not match a growth of prestige for the High Ward, who struggled to maintain his increasingly far-flung religious authority on the borderlands of his Faith. In conjunction with pre-Indagahor and pre-Maninist prophecies native to the region, the seeping of Seshweay influence into the East found a world ripe for religious revolution by 490 SR.
In 483 SR, a slave-child born in Vana on the shores of Her Tear had her obligations transferred, likely illegally, to the Maninist Temple of the Far Rim in the Savirai West. She had a miraculous power to heal, which she used outside the temple hierarchy, and preached a doctrine of mercy that often strayed outside the Faith's orthodoxy. Her disciples, convicted in their belief, began to call her Aitah, after the savior-goddess of the West who the Seshweay had once said would lead all men to their salvation. Tired of the local influence that the Ward of his clan and over-awed by Her brilliance, the local chief Avarai converted to the faith and seized the citadel of Gurach, the ancient seat and citadel of the Savirai emperors, igniting a civil war within the Empire known as the Aitahist Dawn. When the crown prince Qasaarai IV went north to flush out the religious rebellion and wipe out the heresy, Aitah convinced him to allow her passage to speak with his father at Hrn. In the Miracle at Hrn, Aitah convinced the old Emperor Qasaarai III to see the error of his sins and find the truth of the Light in her embrace; henceforth, the House of Savirai became followers of the goddess and the bearers of her flame.
While Qasaarai IV and the northern nomadic clans sworn to him immediately accepted the devotion of their liege as true, the religious upheaval would not end there. Seeing a chance to break away from a foreign emperor and a foreign faith in a time of strife, Nahari conspirators backed by Opulensi gold and silver led a palace coup in Hrn, seizing and perhaps killing the old Emperor. With the goddess Aitah now by his side, the new Emperor Qasaarai IV led a reconquest of the Empire, defeating and destroying both Indagahor and Maninist recalcitrants over the course of more than ten years, leading to a golden age of imperial strength and stability that would lead to the Savirai conquest and conversion of many of her neighbors; including the Occara, Khivani, and Tazari.
Meanwhile, Aitah continued to preach her divine word, meeting with the aspect of Aitah from the Seshweay west, and traveling farther afield, turning the Leunans and Tarenans at the borders of the Dual Empire to the brilliance of Her Light. She finally disappeared into the east about thirty years after he first appearance in the Maninist temple, and was last seen on the island of Auona, tending to the souls and ailments of the populace there.
The Fourth Aitah[]
In time, a new Aitah emerged in the west. Aelona, a member of the Cyvekt royal house, fled a dispute among her family, landing in the care of Khatai I, who declared her to be the latest incarnation of the goddess. Taken into the Imperial household, Aelona would be a controversial figure among the more orthodox of the Cult, who regarded her as a northern barbarian, constantly drugged and repeatedly dragging her husband into poor decisions. After Khatai's assassination, she fled from Gurach for her life; her fall from grace immediately fueled the dispute over her divinity further, with many in the Dual Empire denying it entirely.
Canon[]
Lacking a defining religious text beyond the collected sayings of the goddess, the Cult of the Goddess has only one central tenet to its canon: accept Her as the universal savior, and the true and only path to salvation. Beyond this tenet, worship and perception of Aitah takes many different forms, although she is most commonly identified with the idea of perfect virtue that the Maninists associate with the Light, and the idea of mercy that descends from an ancestral tradition of the mother-goddess in Savirai culture. Because of the elasticity of the canon, the worship and even characteristics of the goddess may differ substantially, even though all proclaim Her as the Savior. This elasticity also notably smooths relations with Seshweay-centric Aitahism of the West, as both religions acknowledge each other's saviors as aspects of their own Savior and hence co-religionists rather than heretics.
In formerly Maninist territories, such as Tarena and the Peko River Valley, worship of Aitah is couched in terms of the Faith from which it spawned. Aitah is either the avatar of Manin, or his daughter, sent as divine to the Earth to restore it to the Light where the High Ward has failed. These strains of the religion teach that although mankind may be virtuous, the failings of the Wards prove that it is not through they as teachers that he may find the light. Instead, the universal strain of Aitahist teaching that salvation comes through personal connection with the Goddess alone is especially salient in formerly Maninist temples, where it is rendered as "It is from Her benevolence alone that one may find the Light."
In areas with a stronger polytheistic tradition, including the Savirai heartland around Her Tear, worship of Aitah takes on a more influences from a variety of traditional polythestic goddess-archetypes. Notable amongst these are the Waif, the Virgin, the Lover, and the Mother, which are all considered to be aspects of the goddess and her avatars on this Earth. The traditional Savirai reverence of the lunar-divinity has also led to Aitah's association with the red moon, which they identified as the celestial seat of the "Red Lady."
More recently, the Third Aitah's teachings have begun to be collected by the efforts of her various disciples. The most important of these, Irai Equilim, wandered among the villages of central Auona, where the Aitah spent her waning years, carefully recording the provenance of each individual anecdote or quote.
Hierarchy[]
Perhaps the greatest contrast between the Cult of the Goddess and the Faith is the complete resistance of the former to defined religious hierarchy. The Goddess had many noted disciples and followers during her time amongst mortals, most notably Tauras Equilim and Avarai, First amongst Nobles, and they evangelized heavily to turn the would-be Faithful toward Her Light and Her Virtue, but never claimed to speak with the absolute authority of Her Voice or Her Truth. Instead, Her priests are renowned for the humility of their devotion, only repeating what the Goddess was known to have advised and teaching Her adherents that they seek a connection with Her alone if they wanted to be truly guided by Her light. This is a strong contrast with the Wards of the old Faith, which claim to speak with true spiritual authority on how to best acheive the Light.
The closest thing, then, that the Goddess has to a mortal representative on earth is Her Flamebearer, a title she bestowed upon the Savirai Emperor. This title does not grant spiritual authority, but instead tasks him with defending Her Faithful, so that enemies of her Virtue could not threaten them and might one day be extinguished from the Earth. Because of the Cult's rejection of the Maninist concept of wards, it is exceedingly popular amongst the nobility where it exists, as they can forgo any temporal spiritual authority to claim that they act in direct holy communion with the Goddess herself.
Thus, Temples of the Goddess function with their original intended purpose as places for contemplative worship, and not a house of instruction or dictation for the Faithful. Acolytes and devotees of the Goddess staff the temples not to direct the Faithful, but help and guide them to find peace with Aitah.