Undughu religion
Undughu religion was the family of religious beliefs and factional practices associated with the Undughu civilisation. As with factional and Undughu culture in general, these were not always clearly distinguished or defined as part of a single system or tradition.
Beliefs
Theology
Undughu hierology mainly discussed three elements: diyin, yéʼī, and yōłgaī ('white-shells'), in descending order of importance. These three categories were not clearly distinguished, and their exact attributes varied by region and time period, but generally diyin was an animistic, omnipresent 'divine nature', yéʼī was a superior force and power, and yōłgaī was the form or appearance of the divine. Entities characterised as or possessing only one of the three were revered in an animistic and localised fashion, while major objects of worship approaching universal importance combined them.
Gods and spirits took on anthropomorphic forms, and were often depicted (but not fundamentally ascribed) with human personalities. Spirits only became benevolent or malevolent with respect to the worshipping subject's own conduct and interests. Diyin was also part of the human nature or something potentially achievable by men according to some traditions, but generally the super-natures distinguished god from man. While beliefs about diyin becoming accessed by individuals as an extraordinary power were common, apotheosis or true 'possession' of it was rare and exceptional. Divine incarnation was initially only controversially ascribed to the Undughu Emperor, but appeared with increasing frequency and variety in later practices; notably an innovation developed that devotees of a deity could become its yōłgaī.
The recognition, or even creation, of new divinities was quite liberal, though they also often came with redefining the entire pantheon in ways closely tied to the claims of particular movements. Besides the imperial cult the most notable example of this was the hynahs, fictional characters from the literary cycles of the Torrent of Vocation, who were elevated into yōłgaī avatars for a revolutionary, philosophical idea of diyin as an abstract, ideal principle, an unknowable supreme God, or a deified author. After the 11th century, hynahs were being worshipped in shrines with dignities comparable to older gods (though many had been adapted into hynahs themselves), as well as being widely appealed to by champion warbands. Foreign deities, such as the Chotarian pantheon, the Ascended of Siriash, and into the early modern era even the transcended of Vaestism, were also incorporated into Undughu beliefs.
Cosmology
Undughu beliefs also included the existence of entire parallel worlds and realms of which there was an innumerable number, and similar to the pantheon not clearly ordered. Some were akin to natural environments, and others were extreme in climate and composition. Most of them were ambiguous in character: for example, there was no single realm of the dead, only worlds with populations who came from deaths in others. Many were inhabited by spirits and creatures with their own societies and intrigues akin to humans. Wisdom made it possible to travel between them, and disappearances in Undughu society were widely ascribed to exit to these worlds.
Belief in any cosmic order is difficult to ascertain prior to the Undughu Empire. There was no creation myth for all worlds or the multiverse as a whole. Judgements about the propriety of personas in dealing with gods and nature formed some basis for a kind of religious morality. Under the Empire, the influence of Chotarian Ishtinist philosophies, or eser, created an idea of harmony and order based on ṣer, a hierarchical pantheon culminating in Opto, and claims to unlocking the nature of the Undughu religious universe through disclosure.
Practices
The rite and its correct performance — as a faction — was at the centre of Undughu religion. Most dealings with the gods were opportunistic propitiations for favour, or exorcisms expelling them from where they were not wanted. This general form of worship, which could be both reverent and contemptuous of the gods in question, was a matter of possessing spiritual knowledge and capability to correctly perform rites and sing prayers or spells. Institutional and defined rituals, as well as festivals, were established with respect to long-standing phenomena or other supernatural facts, which increased the importance and standing of the gods involved. Divine opinion and information was sought through oracles by many methods of divination, and the corresponding rites to be conducted were interpreted or 'dictated' to clients or the public. Not all such worship was done to the benefit of a community, or even a particular faction. On the contrary, witchcraft was a common and widely feared practice; the malicious manipulation of spirits was widely blamed for many things and regularly made causes for violent legal, religious, or opportunistic retaliation.
Specific sets of rituals and reverence of tutelary deities came to define and tie together collectives such as families, cities, and guilds. Many Undughu polities were defined by a regular institution of worship and schedule of festivals, or several systems of propitiation appealing to different or even opposite gods competing with each other. Oracles could dictate public life and thus act as government. On the extreme, these developed into Chotarian-style state cults, most notably that of Opto, developing into the Undughu Empire. Other Chotarian-style cults emerged in individual cities or regions during and after the Empire, differing wildly in who the god-monarch was representative of (such as Dytlad) but generally demanding unquestioning obedience and extolling the sense of order created by the cult.
Priesthood
The most common type of priest was the hatāłī (literally 'singer', 'cantor'), who performed typical rituals that were known for divine music and singing. An independent or institutional priesthood was only sporadically and inconsistently present in Unscany until the imperial era, with spiritual knowledge being considered an everyday skill, and rituals performed as part of a faction in a daily routine. Professional priests or supernatural experts were only established in extraordinary cases, often appointed by a wider political community. On the other hand priesthood became a distinct vocation in Tiha, and some priesthoods were institutionalised around temples. Even then, priests primarily came from a wider class of generally respected elders and aristocrats.
Under the Undughu culture of sany, women were employed as a kind of medium or ritual instrument inferior to and used by the hatāłī. This was often poorly distinguished from religious aspects of the northeastern Joriscian marriage, where the paterfamilias acted as the family hatāłī. Distinct 'priestesses' or 'shrine maidens' were those occupied at temples to serve institutional rituals. Under the Empire, these priestesses attained a degree of autonomy and agency comparable to Cairan clergy, but it was also considered one of the period's most salient examples of moral decay.
The Undughu Empire structured religious officials into distinct guilds, closed corporations akin to Chotarian temple-slaves, but at local and folk levels rites were still carried out by ostensible laymen or uncertified adepts. Other independent orders and guilds of priests dedicated themselves to their temples ascetically.
Places of worship
Rituals were conducted anywhere from grand urban temples, to household hearths and chambers, to shrines in nature. After the 11th century, Undughu rites were gradually moved into temple-shrines located primarily in the countryside, tended to by dedicated monastic priests.