Eyes of the Void

An ancient, animistic religion with an unusual focus on the skies of The Curved Time, the Eyes of the Void was one of the few Old Voxelian religions which survived the New Voxelian imperial unification and conversion to the Church of the Unexpected. Despite this miraculous endurance, the religion is small and in decline as of the year 10,000 AR.

Divine Origins

Stargazers claim that the Eyes of the Void pre-dated the end of the Curved Time, and that there were a few who even ascribed religious value to the stars before them. Still, as with anything regarding the Curved Time, these claims are difficult to substantiate and are regarded merely as apologia by the adherents of most other religions.

Cosmological Views

Stargazers claim that, during the Curved Time, the sky was not simply a blank vault when the sun was gone. Rather, the night sky revealed itself to contain countless tiny points of light called 'stars.' Each of these stars was, in fact, a distant abode of the Stellar Spirits - of the creators of the world, of the beloved deceased, and of all living beings past and future - and a place from which these spirits would observe the deeds of men in mute judgement. The casting of mankind into the Manifold Sky was an occasion for despair. The Stargazers were cast away from the beloved stars, unable to gaze upon their beauty or demonstrate moral rectitude before them in preparation for the starward spiritual journey upon death. The stars are hidden in what are now known as the Celestial Realms, beyond the six walls of the cubes. Despite the loss of their stars in the physical world, the Eyes of the Void will sometimes see the stars still hanging in the skies in dreams; such dreams are regarded as divine prophecy.

Tenets of Faith

Though mankind cannot see the stars from within the Manifold, Eyes of the Void are expected to live as though the stars can still see them. Because the stars may be watching, Stargazers are expected to demonstrate behavior that will win the moral approval of the spirits observing from the hidden stars. In general:

A Stargazer should be kind and courteous in so far as doing so does not put others in danger.
A Stargazer should acquire land, build monuments, and gather groups of fellow Stargazers to make their worship better visible to the distant Stellar Spirits.
A Stargazer should make burnt offerings of food (with garlic and onions for olfactory taste), herbs, and incense, as the smoke of these offerings rises to the Stellar Spirits.
A Stargazer should strive to observe the night sky whenever possible; the priestly class should, furthermore, be entirely nocturnal.
A Stargazer should always make journals of their dreams and encounters with nocturnal animals, as these are prophecy and the messengers of prophecy respectively.

Priesthood

Priests of the Eyes of the Void stay up all night and sleep during the day. They spend much of their time outside, laying face-up on specially constructed biers so that they can comfortably observe the motion of celestial objects. On cloudy nights and during inclement weather in general, priests are not required to perform observations, though some still do in order to give peity to the hidden Stellar Spirits despite the discomforts of the flesh. In the evening and early morning, Priests give sermons which double as lessons in astronomy and meteorology; indeed, much of the early speculation surrounding circumvection came about because of lessons taught and research performed by Stargazer priests.