The Prime Canon

Summary

The Prime Canon is the most prominent doctrine in the urban cities and civil societies of Pharos and the Kcalsbury Continent. It holds very favorable views towards social order, and positions the Ones Above as hierarchs over the moral affairs of society. It primarily originates from High Elven mythology, but Dwarven and Orcish mythology bear many similarities to it, a fact which has been used to bolster its standing in contrast to other interpretations.

The Canon in Society

In many ways, the Prime Canon can be considered to be the foundation (or, at least, the justification) of modern states upon Eashavar. The Ones Above are viewed as individual forces which represent certain ideals, and many of these ideals are aspects (both positive and negative) necessary for the preservation of a nation. Mayors pray to Deanala, judges to Thear, corrupt nobles to Idolax, and all believe their prayers are heard by those in the Divine Planes above. Most practitioners of the Prime Canon primarily worship a single one of the Above while offering vague reverence to all others until need of their aid arises.
Worship of a certain one of the Ones Above can be a prerequisite for numerous occupations in modern society. At the very least, occupants of relevant careers must publicly swear fealty to the appropriate deity, even if their personal faith differs. This sometimes results in problems as believers of other doctrines attempt to assimilate into society, as their perspectives on the Ones Above are quite different, and they are thus excluded from standard service in such roles.

Primary Worshipers

Most Mortal races in Eashavar practice the Prime Canon, with the exception of the Dark Elves and (to some extent) the Forest Elves. Belief in the Prime Canon is a virtual guarantee for High Elves - who have long used it as a basis for their racial superiority - just as it is for the Orcs and Dwarves, who tend to be quite traditionalistic and insular. Humans and Halflings tend to be a little more rebellious, resulting in ample rejections of the Prime Canon, though among the nobility, ruling class, and others content without questioning their social status, complete opposition to the doctrine is rare. Many Fey today accept aspects of the Prime Canon as a means of assimilating into the societies they exist within.

Historical Perspective

The Prime Canon holds that at the beginning of time, the deities waged an eternal war against the dragons, which ended with their ascent into the skies. From there, the Ones Above entered the Divine Planes, influencing the moral fiber of the Material Plane. The Ones Above shepherded the first mortal races in the war against the dragons, and the High Elves were the first to rise to the occasion. Through the will of the Elves, the dragons were nearly exterminated, and other races were raised to construct their own societies in the absence of the threat.
The times of pursuing the dragons have long gone, but the Prime Canon remains. Over time, it has adapted to a more statist vision, as it now sees the dragons as embodiments of chaos and the Ones Above as embodiments of order. Civilization, then, is the physical manifestation of the Ones Above, and must be preserved just as fiercely as the dragons were hunted, as it safeguards against the greater threat that the dragons represent.
The Prime Canon categorically rejects notions such as the Elohim of the Green Way; it does not even recognize the Fey within its history, despite the fact that they coexisted with the High Elves. This is largely because of the bias towards deities-as-civilizations within the Prime Canon, which reduces the Fey to the level of mere beasts due to their aversion to formalized states. It generally reduces the Ones Around to a secondary level beneath the Ones Above, except in regions which have more recently been converted from the Old Faith, or among the Dwarves.

Writings

The Prime Canon places a particular emphasis upon the holy texts of the Ones Above. In most cases, secondary texts ascribed to deities are not revered at the same level as holy texts, though there are exceptions to this among some deities and worshippers. In addition to deific texts, the Prime Canon has a large collection of philosophical and interpretative writings to which an uncountable amount of theologians has contributed to over millenia. Some of these texts are viewed as authoritative, while others are still debated, in which case discourse is not viewed as "heretical."

Subdoctrines

There is sometimes a distinction drawn between the Prime Canon of the High Elves, known as the "Standard Prime Canon," and the Canon which the Orcs and Dwarves worship, labeled the "Mountain Canon." The primary distinction in the Dwarves' interpretation is that it places much less significance on the dragons as enemies, and that it raises a few more of the Ones Around to the main pantheon, which other races tend to consider heretical.
The Forest Elves vehemently reject the Prime Canon as laid out by High Elve theologians, and they instead have a syncretic view which merges aspects of the Green Way and the Prime Canon. This view still maintains the Prime Canon's historical perspective, while taking on a less personal tone with the Ones Above, viewing them as impersonal examples of values and beliefs which are all to be learned from, respected, and understood.

Interrelations

The Prime Canon is perhaps the most evangelistic of doctrines, by its very nature as a faith which considers itself to be representative of order. The goal of most devout followers of the Prime Canon is "to civilize," by way of spreading the Canon. They view the Fey as pathetic in their difficulty to adapt to society, and they view humans who practice the Old Faith as paramountly heretic, as their brethren have at least shown the capability of adopting the Canon's ways.

Type

Religious, Primacy