[Toldara] The Revivalists

This post is an expansion of the information originally posted in The Fractured Faith of Humanity.

Fair warning - this post is related to my campaign world Toldara but contains absolutely no game stats whatsoever.  I have always had all of these ideas in my head for expanding the information on the world and one way to do that is to detail some of the religious movements.  In real life, I am absolutely fascinated by religions and comparative religion in particular.  I thought I would combine my interest in real world comparative religions and my role-playing hobby in a series of posts.  This is a first pass but I also wanted to keep the information short to give a general idea of the particular faith in question.  I am sure that there will be additions - symbols, relics, etc. - to this material as time goes by and players interact with these groups.  Just to be clear, this is information for use in a fantasy role-playing game and any similarities between this information and real world groups or beliefs is entirely coincidental and unintentional.  I am just putting down information that seems to fit together for game purposes.

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The Revivalist Church

The Revivalists are a grass roots movement among the faith of humanity seeking a return to an early, more primitive form of their church.  This movement sprung up due to opposition to all the pageantry that has overtaken other forms of the church.  The main focus of their adherents is showing reverence and respect for THE ONE in contrast to formulaic rituals and gaudy ceremony of other faiths.  Their meetings are often held the houses of members if it is a small group or in an open spot outside large enough for the group.

General Membership

Membership is open to all that respect and revere THE ONE to the exclusion of all other gods and spiritual entities.  This faith does not have multiple tiers of membership such as priests, acolytes, etc. with varying levels of responsibility.  There is only one body of general membership among their believers.  It is difficult to get an estimated membership count because although this faith is large it has no central governing body.

Priests and Officials

The Revivalist Church has no priesthood level of membership.  In effect, all members of the faith are considered priests and priestesses of THE ONE.  All are free to speak to the members at any meetings or services.  That does not mean there is no structure to the organization.  A coordinator is elected every year for each local group.  This coordinator ensures that the other members are aware of all meetings and is responsible for passing along other information and coordinating efforts with other groups in other locations.

Other Information

The membership looks to their holy scriptures and the writings by renowned past members of their faith to guide them.  They believe that the other branches of the faith have corrupted the teachings of THE ONE by concentrating on ceremony, grandeur, money, or other areas other than reverence.  They do not encourage animosity to the members of these other branches but try to emphasize that it is not too late to correct their path.

The Revivalists adhere to a book of scripture called THE WORD OF ONE.  It is their belief that this book was recited to early members of the church by THE ONE.  Although there are several translations available, they only acknowledge the original version as authentic and strictly use it for reading and study. 

The Revivalists believe that they are rewarded for a life spent in faithful service and reverence to THE ONE by transitioning to a spiritual paradise plane upon death.  All who enter will have restored perfect bodies, live in harmony, and want for nothing.

Currently, there is much debate among the membership about the status of non-humans.  Many believe that THE ONE will reward all sincere followers of any race into paradise.  Others believe that non-humans will be admitted to paradise upon the basis of how well they satisfied the requirements of their own respective religion.  A small faction of the faith believes that just as non-humans are separate from humans in life then they will also be separate from humans in paradise.  Without a central governing body there is no official answer on this topic and Revivalists are left to study their scriptures for the answer. .  

[Toldara] The Fractured Faith of Humanity

Reading over the D&D Basic Rules has got my creative juices flowing.  I had a few ideas about religion in my campaign world of Toldara but I never got past a few notes here and there.  I tapped into that creativity and was able to jot down more than just a few simple notes.  This is just an initial attempt at detailing the most practiced human faith of Toldara but this is a good starting point for expanding at some point later in time.

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The faiths and religious movements of Toldara are just as varied as our modern world.  Even among members of different faiths there are often shared themes, doctrines, and other similarities.  The religion with the highest number of adherents when doctrinal differences are ignored is the Fractured Faith of humanity.  Even when each denomination is considered separately the number of followers is still rather large.

The Fractured Faith

The Fractured Faith began as one movement, The Faith, among the various areas of humanity in the First Age.  Towards the end of that age and on into the Second Age, The Faith began splintering due to regional differences and then various doctrinal differences began surfacing.  Eventually, these disagreements led to new factions to splinter off from the original church.  

Many of the religious paths share several similarities – holy books, holy sites, practices, holidays, etc. – but are separated by some prominent differences such as prophets, holy day, translations, and even more areas.  Nearly all of the various factions in the Fractured Faith are in complete agreement about the following subjects:

• A belief in one god responsible for the act of primary creation.
• The adherents often refer to this god as "The One" or "The Creator".
• They believe the name and nature of The One is incomprehensible.
• The One uses minor gods to interact with the mortals.
•  Approximately one-third of the minor gods were led in a rebellion by Grax to overthrow The One.

Some of the more prominent divisions in the Fractured Faith include:

The Church of All Paths: This faction believes that no single fragment of the old faith has all of the answers so they look to the teachings and beliefs of all the various factions of the Fractured Faith to guide their spirituality.

The Scripturists: This faction believes that only the words of the Holy Scriptures should be their guide in determining matters of the faith.  Simply put, only scripture can guide or lead to understanding of other passages; the words of men may be able to enhance but can never supersede the words of The One.

The Purists: This faction believes that only The One is worthy of worship or adoration and do not recognize the minor gods as anything other than something comparable to angels.

The Revivalists: This faction is an attempt to revive the early form of the religion in the modern era. 

The Revelationists: This faction believes that a prophet who receives revelation from The One guides their sect.  These teachings and revelations are gathered together and added to their Holy Scriptures as time passes. A new prophet is selected when the current prophet dies.  There has been several disagreements on who the selection of the new prophet at times.

Church of Grax: This is the movement that has sided with the rebellious minor gods and they work in direct opposition to the Fractured Faith.

Every human city has a temple or meeting place for one of these factions.  It is very common for the larger cities to have several of these sects represented in their community.  Some of the factions are peaceful towards each other while others are very nearly hostile when it comes to interacting with the others.  Obviously, the Church of Grax is in direct opposition to all of the other groups.

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01/10/2015 - Changed "The Combined Path" to "The Church of All Paths" and "The Orthodox Branch" to "The Revivalists".