The Great Daraka (Dah-rah-kah)

There is one God above all other Gods, and her name is Halcyon-Aizusha. Her chosen son is Wimbo Aizitu, and he is what we should aspire to be. Everything else is a distraction we cannot afford to get lost in. The world matters because it is a proving ground for our moral strength - it is a place where we are challenged to be heroes, and where the only thing that matters is how you answer that call. 
The Great Daraka, also known as the Daraka or Darakism, is a training ground for the heroic soul. It cuts away the distractions and trains the spirit to ride into the horizon as a true hero of goodness. It is also the only religious organization truly preparing for the apocalypse: for the day will come when the Adversary, Kemegi, leads the Army of Cowards to destroy the faithful. The heroes must prepare for this day and assemble the Sacred Relics, the Staves of Heaven that were once broken, to vanquish the impending evil. This is the quest of quests, which all heroics build towards, and the only thing that will set the world free from suffering and toil. 
The quest for the staves is not enough, of course - the progress there is guided by Halcyon, and is representative of progress in everyday goodness. Everyone has the soul of a hero that needs to be nurtured and unleashed; every individual is (mostly) equally important and contains equivalent heroic potential to save the world and each other! Through the true religion, this awakening can be realized. Through hard work and Halcyon anything is possible, so write that down. 
As a religion, Daraka is a smaller faith that exists in Southern Ekraht and Eastern Ibith and is currently trying to become an international force. While overshadowed somewhat by rival faith Kamada, Daraka is here and ready to fight!

Structure

Role	Duties
Ringlord	The ten Ringlords sit on the Circle of Glory, the supreme body that decides policy and leads the faithful
Lodgemaster	Lodgemasters manage regions and population centers, acting as elder priests
Elderpriest	Head of local priest communities and courts
Priest	Manage trial councils and lead the commonfolk in prayer

The Great Daraka is a rather decentralized faith, with great powers given to locally elected Lodgemasters and Elderpriests. Many local mystery cults and parallel religious groups operate alongside these. This robust ecosystem of local religious groups outside of the standard hierarchy is important for giving each local area their own identity and sense of agency. Of course, these groups must submit to and obey their Lodgemaster, and they must follow the Doctrine handed down by the Great Daraka - otherwise they are liars, and lies must be punished. 
The most important and most local of the religious groups outside the priesthood are Trial Councils. Trial councils are organized by the priesthood, and typically are a collection of local elders and community leaders who are socially aware and active. Trial councils are anonymous, and their purpose is to engineer personalized quests for the youngfolk of the community. The coming of age trial is the most important of these and the most likely to be personalized. Quests can range from helping local families in need with farming, abstaining from substances, building a house, killing a local predator, or doing some community task. Priests are supposed to watch over these Councils to make sure they don't prioritize the wealthy or act as political vehicles, but that happens a lot anyways.

Culture

Windweavers and Blood

Wind dryads, wind half-dryads, and the rare Windweaver human are all seen as inherently closer to the God Wimbo and better in positions of authority. All windweavers are descended from Wimbo, making wind powers a measurable sign of one's divine descent and heroic destiny. To be of Godly blood means that one is ever so slightly closer to being more cosmically important than everyone else - and while that is a small degree of greater importance, it plays a major role in how people are perceived. Windweavers are primed by the doctrine to be monarchs, priests, mystics, and heroes - and also villains, should they go against the state or temples. And since dryads have more Windweavers and more lineal ties to Windweavers, they tend to be overrepresented in religious leadership and positions of authority - and they tend to allocate more resources and more dominant narratives to their own dryad communities. Prisms, meanwhile, struggle to connect themselves to the dynasty of Wimbo or to major power centers; other species outside of humans, dryads, and hybrids similarly get left out most of the time. It isn't the hardest form of systemic preference, but it is present.
This ties into another prevailing attitude in the Daraka, a fixation on blood lines and lineage. Ritual adoption is extremely common, but mostly used in a 'godparent' kind of way that is valid but not as valid as biological parenting. Much fanfare is made for heroic battle-companions and intense oath-friendships (which Wimbo himself promotes), but destiny is said to follow families. In politics, this makes monarchies (especially Windweaver ones) more legitimate than republics or oligarchies - oligarchies are for priests and elders, not heroes.
Lastly, just as Windweavers are holy, dragon sorcerers are seen as ambiently unholy; all non-windweaving magic carries the temptation into evil, but the ambient pollution of Dragomanders make them particularly worth being wary about.

The Growth Grindset and Challenge Culture

Daraka frames all hardship in life as chances for personal growth. Workouts make your muscles heal stronger; scars are tougher than skin; wounds teach us to be strong in different ways; trauma gives us mental fortitude. This "growth mindset" depends a lot on how it is implemented (and many individuals use it well), but the general culture tends to be rather blunt about it. All suffering or sadness is a challenge, all challenges are gifts, if you don't know how to make yourself better with it that is your fault. This can lead to some toxic attitudes towards people who publicly struggle. There is also a constant pressure for people to be selfless and quietly take on the burdens of others - this is how status is won and lost in the culture of Daraka. People who are seen as helpless become "damsels" or objects of being saved defined by their lack of agency; the more social power one has, the more one is expected to intervene in the problems of others. Some people get stuck in an endless loop of becoming objects of rescue for others, and the more they are "rescued" the more their community sees them only as objects to prove heroism by. The doctrine officially condemns this and praises those who would make a damsel into a hero, but it happens. 
Status, adulthood, and prestige are all marked by Challenge Marks, tattoos that represent quests completed. A valid quest is only one given by a Trial Council - and the more difficult the challenge, the larger the tattoo. To fake a Challenge Mark is the ultimate black mark against one's reputation, and it is usually illegal. The more wealth or social status one has, the more pressure one has to have illustrious Challenge Marks. A truly exceptional Mark can also come in the form of special piercings or body modifications - the body of a hero should carry their tale. 
This all comes together to create an everyday culture of aggressive individualistic accomplishment and forced positivity. It is all about getting up early, working hard, and not-so-subtle humble-boasting. This is a culture of ambition (but not ambition that might disrupt the social order). Not everyone embraces these attitudes in the same way, but the religion's values do encourage certain social trends. 
This is a religion of hero-cult and hero worship. Hyping other people's accomplishments is encouraged, and admiration is seen as a virtuous emotion. To adore a hero is to be inspired to be a hero! Fame is the greatest accomplishment, fortune be damned! But heroes need their villains. And if one engages in the culture of ambition inappropriately, there is the danger of being labeled a Villain by the establishment. Villains exist to be destroyed by heroes; there is a certain allure to them as well, but always at the end of a sword. Villains can be lusted over but not admired (objectified always, both as alluring bundles of power and as objects in one's personal story). It is like having a bounty placed on one's head, where every would-be hero now has a reason to bring you down to build their own legend.

History

The Heavensent Movement (1100 - 1300)

Ekraht's religious history is not one of continuity - religions come and go as the supervolcano nourishes and then destroys civilization after civilization. Lunar cult, ancestor worship, place worship, and lesser gods were all extremely common across the continent. But a movement in the 12th century, known as the Heavensent movement, changed things - it was the first durable religious movement in Ekraht. While it failed to form into a coherent political block at the time, it set the stage for the eventual Darakan temples.
In the 1100s, a new religious movement began in the land of Aizidi (now part of the Kingdom of Esedeta): the Cult of Wimbo the Heavensent, which placed the Lunar God Wimbo at the head of the pantheon and revered Windweavers as the heirs of Wimbo and the emissaries of a supreme God named Halcyon . The Heavensent movement was strange in many ways; it was one of the first religious movements that demanded primacy over other religions, it uniquely called for global community rather than local community, and it outright chose one Lunar voice to listen to over all others. The Heavensent movement thrived in Aizidi, which had long harbored a strong cult of Wimbo, and the 1120s saw a series of local religious pseudo-revolutions where Heavensent groups asserted their dominance over other cults. The Heavensent movement began reaching out and spreading their ideology in the late 1120s and 1130s, and it began making connections with other Wimbo cults throughout the continent.
The Northern missions were brutally crushed by the Empire of Zerua, which saw the movement's fixation with Windweaving bloodlines as a threat to imperial legitimacy and harmony; the only groups that the Heavensent truly reached were in Rakara, and these communities fled to Aizidi by the end of the century when Rakara fell to conquerors. They did bring a strange bundle of artifacts with them, though: a collection of magical wooden fragments supposedly from the royal sceptres Halcyon had made for dryads and humans to co-rule the continent, which had been shattered by the Goddess' wrath long ago - which would be taken Southward to strengthen the movement's legitimacy there. The only groups that seemed receptive to the Heavensent message in Zerua were Windweavers, who were uniquely privileged as priests and rulers by Heavensent theology - and the Windweavers of Zerua heavily modified the general message to fit their political and social needs. Small windweaver anti-imperial cults, such as the Cult of Tarnasha the Windwaker in Ibaisha might be classified as "Heavensent", but these movements are arguably as classically Zeruan as they are Aizidan.
The Southern missions were much more successful. Wimbo cults in the Far South were amenable to the Heavensent message and were greatly impressed by the broken sceptre pieces. Another factor was the Clarity-in-Purpose expedition. Clarity-in-Purpose was a solar cleric from Shirpatra that arrived with a group of fellow healers in the 1110s. This group of healers and scholars accidentally provided support and legitimacy for the Heavensent movement in the South; the clerics, from distant Samvara, had arrived in Esedeta seeking medical knowledge and cultural exchange (as they had heard that Esedeta was a miraculous land of healing arts). After establishing a base in Esedeta, Clarity and their clerics made it their mission to spread Esedeta's medicines and wealth further South, which they felt was unfairly neglected (and offered a wealth of local medical and natural knowledge to be gained in exchange). Clarity spent the 1100s organizing doctors in the Southern kingdoms and wilds, and accidentally united the medicine cults and lodges of the region. Clarity also spread knowledge of Samvara as they went, and their cult was defined by an association with foreign healing magic; this fueled a rising fascination with foreign religion and cooperation, which the Heavensent slotted perfectly into.
Ultimately, the Heavensent founders in Aizidi tried to unite the Southern movement and use it as the foundation for a potential religious empire, but they failed to unite Esedeta and were militarily smashed. Without a clear reference point for a non-state religious structure, the leading clerics scattered to the winds to try again elsewhere, leading to a dozen different tiny Heavensent religious empires that all mutated apart from each other and died alone. The Heavensent movement splintered into a dozen offshoots, and only remained tied to the name and stated ideas in the land of Aizidi - where they were crushed and ultimately subjected to exile or genocide by the Esedetan regimes of 1500 to 1900.

The Many Darakas (1300 - 1600)

From the 1100s to 1300s Heavensent expansion and collapse, Southern Ekraht became a fertile garden of religious plurality and transformation. Spinoff sects were taken and used for local needs, and these sects generally maintained good relations between one another. The sect that would eventually bear the closest resemblance to mainstream modern Daraka was the Iboran sect, known as the Lodge of the Hero's Trial. The Lodge of Trials was defined by its merging of warrior cult traditions, ancestor cult traditions, and healing cult traditions, all around the Line of Wimbo; it was also the favorite of Wimbo himself, and it received great support over the years from above. The Lodge of Trials was centralized and expanded under the leadership of the great hero Seran Thunderschild (an unusual human who inherited wind dryadism from a half-dryad grandparent), an Iboran warrior of legendary charisma and drive. Seran also stole bardic magic from the land of Esedeta and used it to bolster the Lodge's healing and storytelling ability.
Meanwhile, other Darakas ("Circles of Glory" - a term for the Heavensent sects) were developing in their own ways. In Yetua and Mekala, the network of doctors and exorcists that organized with Clarity-in-Purpose back in the 1100s remained more devoted to practices of medicine and protection than any united dogma, and became their own sect known as the Solar Temples of Healing. The Solar temples rejected the utopianism and broader evangelism of the other Heavensent sects, and confined much of its doctrine to the elite few. Further East still were the League of Heroic Destiny - a movement among the Zalkaran plains nomads to try and reforge a more stable status quo of treaties and trade through common rituals and hero worship - and the Rainshrine Cults, which embraced the Utopian vision of the movement and sought to create a promised Kingdom of Heroes.

(This map is a simplification - movements blended and were rarely monolithic)

The Lodge Rises (1600 - 1830)

The 1600s were a time of change for Southern Ekraht. In Esedeta, the Keveket elites were consolidating power and began to actively persecute outspoken Heavensent communities. Wars between the plains nomads and the Kingdoms of Yetua were leading to religious chaos among the Northern Solar Temples, and that network was increasingly retreating Southward. And in the far West, a rising power in Eastern Ibith known as Namusha was increasingly its own Daraka - taking on Southern Ekrahtan influences, revering Wimbo, and legitimizing their monarchy as Windweaving destined heroes.
For reference, here's a regional map that might be helpful:

As the prior order shifted, Keveket missionaries from Esedeta did their best to convert Southern Ekraht. In Yetua, the Keveket were undermined by a group known as the Tandia - a half militia, half organized crime group. The Tandia rallied around a rowdy traditionalist named Boss Vavendi, a charismatic Ibithi prism and master of the Way of the Open Palm. In Ibora, the Keveket faced opposition from the Lodge of Trials, which came together more as a structured organization. The Lodge had its own anti-Esedetan figurehead, a priest by the name of Lodgemaster Joden. The Lodge of Trials was not entirely successful in stopping conversions and takeovers, but it did create a structure that sustained resistance through the next two centuries.
This all continued through the 1700s - the Lodge and Tandia gained great power in their respective regions, and the Solar Temples and nomadic League of Destiny began to settle into one another and fully fuse together. From 1805 to 1850, a new radical change set in: Keveket was on the retreat and the Empire of Zerua was arriving with corporate arms to seize the Southern trade for their own. The religious pressure of Esedeta was off, and the Keveket communities began to flee to Esedeta rather than continue a losing battle without support. The Tandia crime dynasties, in their moment of glory, turned on each other. The Zeruan criminal cartel, the Eketari Circles, jumped into the fray, and the resulting regional crime war caused mass social unrest and the collapse of traditional community institutions.
While the Tandia were fighting (and ultimately would be absorbed into the Eketari Circle), the local temples searched for aid from their networks. The decentralized Solar Temples and Destiny League were slow to respond and uneven in action, while the Lodge of Trials moved swiftly and effectively to support communities in need. The Lodge's influence quickly spread across Yetua and began flirting with prominent priests in other regions. The Lodge had its own series of problems, though - it was overextended, and many worried that it was losing its way. Internal factions threatened to rip the Lodge of Trials apart, and already groups were threatening to secede.

Daraka's Origins (1830 to 1855)

The modern religion of Daraka was, strangely enough, born from the infighting and destruction of the Lodge of Trials. The factionalism grew to be too much over the 1840s, and in 1847 the Lodge collapsed into open infighting. Religious infighting mixed with political warmongering, and things threatened to spiral wildly out of control. Enter the mother of modern Daraka, Trudassa the Lion. Trudassa was the child of a windweaving traditionalist and a chorical, inheritor of both the old and new. She had risen quickly through the ranks as a hero, adventurer, and then priest in the Lodge of Trials when the religion detonated, and she was determined to stitch it back together by hand. She campaigned against the other Lodges eagerly and openly - this was a civil war to her, regardless of what was or wasn't a kingdom. Through war, bribery, intrigue, and persuasion, she went after the major splinter sects and brought them to heel one by one.
Trudassa's wars, while successful, were only one part of the puzzle. Two other founding parents of Daraka brought their own pies to the potluck: Ozra the Ice Queen and the Solar cleric Curiosity. Both were contemporaries to Trudassa and religious outsiders. Ozra was a druid from the Antarctic taiga, a hardy dryad who went North for mercenary work and ended up leading the army that unified the Grand Kingdom of Mekema. Curiosity was an Ayshan  exile, a blessed solar from the West who initially arrived seeking profit but later turned towards charity work and education. Curiosity had helped smuggle the secrets of Alchemy and Druidism to Western Ibora, as part of a plot to create a healing monopoly (that would then, the plan went, be bought out by the Healing Church for big bucks) - but after their business partner used that monopoly to create a despotic regime on the island realm of Birsara, Curiosity lost their conviction to the plan and defected to Trudassa's new religious faction. The solar cleric helped Trudassa invade Birsara (thereby granting her access to alchemical arts and a druid school) and legitimized Trudassa's religious mission.
Ossra, meanwhile, brought the steel and gold to Trudassa's theological and political genius and Curiosity's magic. Ossra's rising empire in Mekema needed a bold new direction to legitimize her rule and stabilize the new state, and Trudassa's faith seemed like a wise bet. Ossra supported Trudassa, as well as the fledgling Queen of Ibora, Vindya I, who was conquering her own empire in Ibora (and would become a close political ally of Trudassa). With overwhelming political support, magical legitimacy, divine backing, and clerical support, Trudassa declared a new Lodge in 1855 - not a rehash of the Lodge of Trials, but a Grand Daraka that would unite all of the Circles of Glory into one whole.

Modern History

All was not instant smooth sailing after Trudassa's merging of the Darakas in 1855. It would take years to hash out a united doctrine that would appease everyone, and there were numerous holdouts to be stamped out. From 1855 to 1885, Daraka was just focused on stabilizing - and it settled pretty well over those decades. In 1885, though, a new religion entered the scene and changed everything: Kamada, the religion of Imperial Zerua. Zerua began pressuring the entire continent to come together to accept this new organized religion, and countries were joining fast. The kingdoms of the South suddenly found that they had to pick a side: join the Grand Daraka or join Kamada. It was an easy choice for most to go with the religion that was already doctrinally adjacent, and the structure Trudassa had made suddenly swelled with members.
From 1885 to 1950, a rivalry emerged between Kamada and the Daraka - Zerua was getting accustomed to exerting political and economic influence through the temples, and Daraka's resistance was irritating. The fact that the Daraka was also hiding alchemical secrets that could enrich the empire was another reason to try and devour the rival religion. There were attempts to steal the secrets of alchemy by force, to sabotage the Darakan temple via espionage, to bribe priests away to Kamada, and to conduct corporate coups that would also bring in Kamadan religion. The more Zerua pushed, the more the Grand Daraka centralized and radicalized in their dogma - the old utopian project of uniting the Staves of Heaven re-emerged as a focus, and a sort of pseudo-monotheism began to emerge around Wimbo and Halcyon.
In the 1950s, Zerua got a new distraction: Esedeta, awoken from their slumber to fight again. The new Esedeta was all smiles and cooperation, and began reaching out to the Grand Daraka for support. Zerua responded by suddenly dropping their campaign of terror to try and curry influence to diplomatically isolate Esedeta. The Grand Daraka finally got a moment to breath as the two powers were lost in their mutual hatred, and it has used this moment to stabilize, consolidate, and reorganize. Since the mid 1900s, the Daraka has begun looking beyond the local cast of imperial characters for allies. A big one is the selkie Khilaia , which they have worked with as part of "Operation Universal Friendship" to create a stable and consistent trade route across Ibith and towards the Isethra Healing Tree . They have also reached out to form a tentative alliance with the Samvaran Healing Church, to possibly make moves together to coordinate their alchemy.

Mythology & Lore

In the beginning, there was Halcyon, also known as Aizusha. Halcyon was wise and kind and good, and wanted to create a good and just world. She made herself the three great companions:

• Marusha, the goddess of rain and magic and called the Chimera in foreign lands
• Dwareg, god of the land and its wilderness, called by some the Hidden One
• Ossimoss, god of the sea and protector of the dead, also called the Masked One

The four architects went off and created a just and kind world, a world of love and plenty. It was divided into ten Primeval Continents, each with its own quests to be joyously overcome and its own special paradises. But, one by one, the mortals of the world chose wickedness. Each continent went from paradise to living hell, and each was permanently marred by a Great Sin. With each Great Sin, the world became more dangerous - the mountains vomited flame and the seas smashed the continents into one another. Leviathans rose from the deep and plagues ravaged the land. Each curse as a challenge, a chance to prove the virtue of the people through adversity and danger, but the mortals of the world all failed - except for one realm, the realm of Ekraht. Ekraht had no dire sin - it only had many lesser sins and a very big, angry volcano. And so Halcyon offered the people of Ekraht the chance to save everyone in the entire world: she gave two stave to the mortals, known as the Staves or Scepters of Heaven, and these staves could, if wielded together, perform any miracle necessary. She gave them both to a dryad man by the name of Ossvin the Hero-King, the strongest and most beloved of the dryads. She told Ossvin to give the other to a poor human hermit named Voski, who would be the destined king of the humans.
But Ossvin was tempted by the Staves; he was overwhelmed by their divine radiance and intoxicated himself on his own ego. Ossvin had his admirers craft him a false stave, which he gave to Voski, while he kept both Staves for himself - he alone would be the savior-king of all the world! But he could not fool Halcyon. Halcyon confronted him, storming down from heaven to demand that he end his ruse and seek repentance. In an ultimate act of hubris, Ossvin tried to turn the Staves against Halcyon, to destroy God herself. The Staves refused his orders and buckled under the strain, and exploded in his hands, wounding him. And so the last and tenth Great Sin was committed and Ekraht was cursed by a permanent supervolcano. The world was forsaken.
For ten times ten years, the world languished in the misery of divine annihilation. Halcyon wept for the world as the three lesser Architects punished it mercilessly; heavens turned to hells, to exist became pure suffering. Ossvin, wounded by the Staves and imbued with raw sinful power, tried to collect the fragments to make himself a God - but the more he tried to extract, the more monstrous he became. Ossvin lost his own name in his jealous obsession, and transformed into something truly wicked - the first dragon, Kemegi. Kemegi ruled Ekraht as a tyrant with his dragon spawn, polluting the air and devouring cities alive. Fearing his own blood might have the heroic destiny to slay him, he hunted down his children and devoured them - but one eluded him. Her child's child's child would be born a hero pure of heart - Halcyon's secret final redemption for mortals. That child's name was Wimbo Aizitu, and he is the savior of our world.
The Ten Great Sins period is a kind of mythic pre-era of fables; each of the sins represents a moral lesson, which is considered more essentially true than any discussion of material history. Prior to the Staves incident, the other sins are: Murder, Slavery, Theft, Pollution of the common good, Xenophobia, Species-Inequality, Apathy in the face of evil, Cowardice in the face of evil, and Neglect.

The Wars of Worlds

Back to the story: so Wimbo, coming of age through a series of trials, learned of his destiny and went to go face the evil dragon Kemegi at the crags of doom. At the great volcano, Kemegi called forward a great torrent of fire and polluting death, but Halcyon armed Wimbo with the powers of all the wind. Wimbo, the first and greatest windweaver, cleansed the wave of death and brought Kemegi out of the sky. The dragon, having let his fear fester while he failed to challenge himself, fled from Wimbo's strikes back into the depths of the fiery hell. Kemegi's legion of dragons, Halcyon purified and transformed into tiny dragomanders - harmless, even beneficial in the right hands, but also a test to see if people would make the same mistakes again.
Nine other heroes emerged from the nine other realms, and these heroes ascended to become the Lunar Pantheon - Wimbo's heroic companions in the heavens. Halcyon gave the world a second chance: under these heroes, the world could grow to become just and brave once again. Only when the world had learned its lessons would the Architects return.
Before Halcyon returns, it is foretold that there will be another War of Worlds. A dark time will come, when Kemegi unleashes the greatest evils the world will ever see upon the innocent. Most of the nations of the world will cower in fear and crawl before Kemegi, but Wimbo's faithful will not. As ash rains from the sky, an army of ten million cowards will march with Kemegi and his demonic draconic creations against an army of ten thousand heroes. Wimbo himself will descend from Heaven, to reforge the Twin Staves of Heaven, which will be used to strike Kemegi down. The cowards will flee and the heroes will carry the day! Wimbo will use the Staves to bring an era of plenty, and mortalkind will carry out the great work of healing our world. After ten times ten years of this labor, Halcyon will descend from Heaven, purify Purgatory (where Kemegi would be cast to), and begin a new era of Divine Love.
In between the two Wars of Worlds, a great cast of heroes and villains and lesser spirits canter across a number of local stories, fables, and legendary sagas. None are cast as Gods, though - and that differentiation is important within the Daraka. Curiously, Kemegi is the one creature given divine status, though always in a negative light - as a supreme evil, also known as The Adversary.

Cosmological Views

Existence as Challenge and Fable

The universe, they say, is a stage on which we perform for the Gods. Everything is a story and a trial, a fable in which we are all the protagonist. Even heaven and hell are testing grounds and places for storymaking. True peace can only be found when the story is satisfied and the actors are welcomed off the stage and into the land of the Gods, to watch the next performance beside them.   This is good news: good will win in the end, evil always gets its just desserts, and anyone (eventually, everyone) can be a hero. It is all a matter of scope - we live in the days of trial and transformation. It is the point of life to grow emotionally by overcoming these challenges. And by life, I also mean life after death - your audience are the ever-watchful Gods, so your story never ends as long as there is a 'you' to act. The bad news is that, as long as the world exists, it is defined by conflict and suffering and the hard work of personal growth.
This means that symbolic meanings and purpose are more real than physical things - doing the right thing as an act means more than the material value of the good deed. This doesn't mean that the world as we know it is fake or meaningless, though. Nihilism is villain talk, emotional cowardice. Everything in the world matters so much that you should cry about it. 
As opposed to other religions, Daraka doesn't dwell on or emphasize the possible fictionality of the world - many average Darakans might phrase it something like "everything happens for a reason" rather than anything esoteric.

Classifying the World

The Darakan worldview is a fundamentally binary one: something is broken or fixed, a person is a hero or a villain, evil and good are tangible and distinct. There is room for complication, of course - a person can be a damsel or bystander, or perhaps a tragic hero or a redeemable villain - but all things not of the binary exist purely in their relation to said binary. It wouldn't be right to say that Daraka is a black-and-white worldview, but it certainly prefers clean and tidy categories to messy ambiguity. 
That isn't to say that ambiguity isn't celebrated in its way (the best legends are emotionally complex and subjective), but the fundamental categories of the world are never to be questioned. How can you salivate over the depth of that tragic hero if you reject the idea of a 'hero' altogether? How can you appreciate the fable if you won't assign the characters? It is the job of the young to act; it is the job of the old to classify and interpret. 

Ordering the Heavens

Okay, so what does this mean for how the actual magic demigods and planes are seen? Firstly, there is a sharp line drawn between Gods and everything else - the title of 'God' is limited to only a small handful of the most important and powerful beings, and it carries great weight. As all souls are eternal, the difference between an immortal and a mortal is mostly in terms of magical power rather than importance. All individuals are equally important and equally durable in the eyes of Halcyon. But being a God means being actually Important, a part of the great story that will bring an end to toil and pain. Even among Gods, only Halcyon is truly above it all. 
As for the Lunar Pantheon, the only actual God on there is Wimbo. Everyone else is a magically powerful hero instead, still big but not essential. Below Wimbo in importance is Hiku the Muse, who is critically important for artistic design and finding narratives in the world but is most certainly not a quest-giver and God like Wimbo. The others are divided into the Twin Trifectas: groupings that should be listened to together for maximum effect. The first Trifecta is Lily of Red, Jade Atharzen , and Theia the Liberator , and it is the Trifecta of Strength. Lily represents piety, Jade chivalry, and Theia bravery - together they reveal the path of physical action. The second Trifecta is that of the Scholar: Emesh , Haru , and Orchid of Blue . Ishkibal and Agamine the Lost are viewed with reverent suspicion and confusion and are avoided.

Tenets of Faith

• Never Show Fear: Bravery is the base foundation for heroism. You can feel fear, but allowing fear to control you will lead to evil and weakness. To show fear is to spread it - be strong and face the dragon with a smile, so that all the children and damsels will have hearts full of hope!
• Protect the Vulnerable: You should protect and support those less advantaged than you. Power without compassion is villainous pollution.
• Never Lie: Lies ruined the world, and you ruin it even more when you make new ones.
• Use Magic Only to Aid: Magic is power, and power must serve compassion (lest it poison your soul)
• Honor Before Death: Keep your promises, play fair, and resist a desire for vengeance. Even if your enemy doesn't do these things, they matter to God - a fair play that kills you will make you a heroic martyr
• Love, Love Love: Love is everything! Be open with your love, and do not stamp down on love (unless it hurts someone - that is corruption)
• Defeat Villains: See evil? Defeat evil. It is that simple.
• Champion Freedom: Everyone is equally important in this world. Anyone who claims otherwise needs to be corrected
• Seek Out Artifacts: Seek out the fragments of the Staves of Heaven, that we may invite Wimbo back to earth! Seek out artifacts of power, to bring to the Daraka and aid in the final battle against evil!

Ethics

Ethics in Daraka are about action and intent - consequence be damned! The world exists to be acted in, and bad things are allowed by God to give us a chance to do good in opposition. So, if a good deed fails and has ill consequences that is a-okay by God because you tried! Similarly, if you fail to act and so harm another person, that counts as aggression by neglect. There are limits to who is expected to act, of course. A person's social importance and power within the hierarchy determines one's inherent responsibilities to protect others; an aristocrat should be a true hero who should protect others at a moment's notice cost be damned, while a peasant child has big damsel energy and is allowed to be more passive.

Worship

Worship in the Daraka is best done through song and story. Every week, the community gathers to sing the songs of the past and laud the most recent completed challenges and quests of the community's members. There is also a kind of "confession", where the community members go before the priest in private and quietly tell them about their greatest trials and greatest accomplishments; this is a space for forgiveness if necessary, but it is geared more towards talking about problems and private good deeds.

Priesthood

Priests of the Daraka are selected by either existing priests or by Trial Councils, and must pass their own special series of spiritual and intellectual trials if they are to be officially accepted. Priests tattoo themselves with specific face tattoos to mark their success in these trials, making them unmistakable.
Common priests wear grey, typically a cloak or long jacket over a plain tunic and pants. Plain clothes, but heavy makeup and jewelry if they have any - in this way, common priests imitate the humble exterior and divine interior of Wimbo during his coming of age quest.
Elderpriests wear robes that are to be styled like armor, if they aren't wearing armor, to represent their fight against evil. Again, makeup for ceremonial events as well. Lodgemasters, meanwhile, can wear actual ornate dress according to local custom.
Advancement within the priesthood is typically a matter of popularity and prestige, theoretically a way to promote those with the greatest legends.

Sects

The Great Daraka is on good terms with most of its splinter sects, which tend to be more autonomous than heretical. 
Namushan Daraka: The Kingdom of Namusha in Eastern Ibith has its own history with the Heavensent movement and Daraka, which it adopted in the 1600s and developed in a different direction through the 1900s. This Daraka was only brought into concert with the mainstream during the 1900s, and it still has a lot of autonomy. Values-wise, it is more monarchist (with elements of imperial cult) and has a larger cult of Lily of Red, and is generally slightly less individualist. 
Zalkaran Destiny-Daraka: The Zalkaran nomads of the great plains are difficult to keep in religious lock-step, and the Great Daraka doesn't much try. The Zalkarans are more willing to play with the ideas of reincarnation and demigod heroes, and have their own set of lesser bloodlines they care deeply about. There is also more of an emphasis on militarism and martial victory. 
The Rainshrine Daraka: The land of Zibeta, to the East, has its own religious hierarchy that doesn't like being told what to do by the Great Daraka - they also have flirted with the Temple of Kamada in the past, despite being doctrinally more different from mainstream Kamada than anything found in the rest of Daraka. They are very into weather-omens, sky worship, augury, and their own local bloodlines - they see their land as the holy land of Wimbo, and the rest of the world as fundamentally polluted.

"Have Courage! The World Shall Be Restored!"

Founding Date

1855

Type

Religious, Organised Religion

Alternative Names

Darakism, New Heavensent

Demonym

Darakan

Deities

• Halcyon
• Wimbo Aizitu

Location

Ekraht