The Church of Unity

The Church of Unity is perhaps the most influential faith currently on the continent; though it is nowhere near as widespread outside of the  Alvyrnian  heartland, the church exists to serve the Empire, and its reigning monarch. It has many branches, some of which are seen in daily life, and others of which are hardly known to anyone outside the royal palace.

The Church was founded alongside the Empire, when the original Emperor and Empress reformed their separate religions into one. They decreed that the royal family was the living embodiment of two all-powerful gods, the goddess of the moon and the god of the sun. Old high holy days were recolored with festivals pertaining to the monarchs, and the new scriptures were codified by a single book, the Divine. The faith believes that the  Elideis  are the children of the Sun, while the  Cyleis  are the children of the Moon. Each god gave their children rulers to rule over their lands in antiquity, but those rulers came together to found the Empire, binding the two families in matrimony and ensuring that their newly unified family bore the blood of both gods.

Holidays
Imperial holidays are many, and serve to venerate both past and present monarchs as well as to provide simple festival days for the common people. The most important holidays are the equinoxes, known as the  Day of Sun  and the  Day of Moon , and the date of the Empire’s founding, known as the  Day of Unity . Also important are days like Vespasian’s Day and Nadine’s Day, which venerate the founders themselves, and the Day of the Empire, which falls on the reigning monarch’s day of birth. Holidays are generally marked by streetside sermons, shouted to crowds from the lips of devoted preachers, and feasting festivals. The Imperial monarch uses his or her own wealth to fund these holy days; and since they are only practiced on the Alvyrnian peninsula and in a few outlying major cities, the cost is trivial compared to the income.

Institutions
Since the Imperial Church places such high importance on the royal family, it should come as no surprise that many of the institutions of the church exist only to serve and protect the royal family, however heinous their acts may be. Open organizations include the  Wordsayers  and the  Truthseekers , the former of whom proselytize and hold sermons among the people, and the latter of whom keep the scriptures and search for new knowledge of the world and its peoples. More clandestine organizations, like the  White Hand , who serve as diplomats and messengers across the Empire, and the  Stars , who serve as bodyguards for the highest echelons of Imperial society, are less well known. There are even rumors of a shadowy group known as the  Red Hand , who do what cannot be done in the open.

Origin Story
In the dawn times, when the sun and moon still ruled lonely over the lands, there was naught but boundless sea. In his infinite wisdom, the sun saw that he might make a beautiful and bountiful land, and raised it from the oceans. Here he planted his seeds, which grew into beautiful people blessed with wisdom and grace. His lands were perfect, but the ancient powers of the sea grew jealous and smote his creation, sinking his lands into the waves. To save his people, he offered them ships of wood and bronze, and set them asail to new lands. But the stormy sea gods were wicked, and threw many of their horrible spawn up onto his shores. To help her brother, the Moon planted her own seeds in the new land, which grew into a pale people of the forest, who defended their southern brothers for many thousands of years, until the Sun saw fit to raise great mountains between the lands of good and the lands of evil. Here the people of the Sun and Moon lived for hundreds of years peacefully, praying to the Sun for strength and justice, and the Moon for forgiveness and health. This lasted until the gods of ocean and storm smote their wisest and most honorable leaders with the curses of jealousy and envy for each others’ holdings. The Queens of Moon and Kings of Sun battled for a thousand years before a peace was reached, and the Kings and Queens became one; under the Empire of Sun and Moon, guided by both of their Divine forebears.