The Predominant Religions of The Time

Author's Note: The Information Found Here Is From bastardlydastard's Religions Section In His Extra Background and Guidelines For Writers and Has Been Provided Here With His Kind Permission With A Few Tweaks of My Own, Of Course.

Estara is secularly ruled, but it allows followers of any religion to live within it's borders.

The two primary religions in Estara are Saeletrism and The Old Way.

Saeletrism: Saeletrism, organized into the church of Saeletra, is a religion based around the idea that the goddess Saeletra created the world and all its inhabitants for the simple joy of watching them live. it is commonly accepted among practitioners of Saeletrism that feelings of intense pleasure are the direct touch of Saeletra, and as such should be experienced as often as possible.

The church of Saeletra teaches that Saeletra created man first, then, dissatisfied with her creation, she created woman, and was at last pleased. they teach that Saeletra considered destroying man, but found herself piteous of the pathetic thing, and spared him. Though man turned out to be a violent, hateful thing, Saeletra still allowed it to live, knowing that her beloved woman would rise above it.

The Old Way: The Old Way is an Ancient Polytheistic Religion with no known organization to speak of. Practitioners of The Old Way do not worship gods, but instead worship spirits of the land, sea, and sky. The most powerful of these spirits are known as the three sisters.

The Three Sisters who were Primeval Spirits of Creation, Each representing one of The Three Principal Elements of The World... Unda, The Spirit of The Seas, Zephyra, The Spirit of The Skies, and Munda, The Spirit of The Earth.

The legend of The Three Sisters also states that they had a brother, named Ignis, who was The Embodiment of Fire and Sexual Desire, whom they loved dearly. But Ignis was a trickster, and he wanted to see his sisters subjugated. As The Three Sisters shaped The World, Ignis came to each of them, asking for a portion of their power so he could aid them in their work. They all obliged their brother, and he used his newfound power to battle them. The Three Sisters managed to defeat him, but in his dying breath he uttered a curse, promising that anything The Three Sisters created would twist and darken in his image. Unda's sparkling oceans would become great destructive waves, Zephyra's cool winds and serene clouds would become terrible storms, and Munda's sturdy earth would shake and convulse violently. After much time passed, The Sisters desperately sought to create a creature free of their brother's curse, so The Three worked feverishly to create The First Woman, Truly the most sublime and enchanting of all their many works. But even this combined effort was not safe from Ignis' curse, and the three sisters watched in horror as one of The Perfect Women they had created changed into a twisted parody of the beauty and perfection they sought to create.... becoming a Man.

The Women created by The Sisters while eventually going on to dominate the larger and physically more powerful men as the supreme expression of life, held a deeply ingrained desire to be enslaved and used by men thanks to Ignis' insidious curse... A Desire that was also visited upon The Three Sisters who eventually fell in love with one of the Men they had unintentionally created, A Man they would eventually bestow their combined blessing upon or so the legend goes.

Minor Religions:

Haylic

The religion of Haylic is the worship of a Dryad Goddess named Hayth. It is said that she is a Nymph of Nature that created all life, and helps it grow and survive. Being that Hayth is a Nymph, she is a very sexual being. There are stories told in which she would take form of one of her beloved creations and take part in mating rituals with them, eventually birthing their children. They describe her features in her natural form to be that of a tall, supernaturally alluring Woman with blue lips, hoofed feet, rune covered tree roots sprouting from her long beautiful legs, and an enormous set of ram's horns along with several brightly-colored feathers and thin strands of gold thread woven into her long white hair. It is said that everywhere she stepped blue and gold-tinted grass burst forth from the Earth. People would travel far to pray at sacred trees that were believed to be linked to her seed that she birthed to create The Giant Haylim Trees. They would pray for good health for their unborn children or for good crops, or for the sick to be healed. The trees grow with dark brown bark, and snow white colored leaves that shimmer in the sunlight like polished metal, standing twice as high as a Great Red Oak. Her altar is said to be the door to another Realm of Existence and takes the form of a small grove of Three Haylim Trees growing in a perfect triangle with the tree that would have been the point of the triangle being half as tall as the two behind it. It is customary to leave the heart of an animal on the altar as an offering and sign of respect.

Very few ever get to see a Tree of Hayth because some non-believers thought of the religion as a lie, a folk tale born in the heart of Zamira to give hope to the poor, and so they burned down these trees, slowly killing the religion to the point to very few believe it to this day.