Wyrm Worship
A loosely defined religion dedicated to the veneration of the lost Great Wyrms. It is not one central religion, rather many smaller religions of various groups, usually venerating a specific Great Wyrm.
Mythology & Lore
The dragons and wyerms who venerate the Great Wyrms do so out of a sense of familial connection, as according to legend, they are all directly descents of the Wyrms themselves. They belive that from the corpse of the Great Wyrms, the first of the dragons emerged, with their personallities and powers divided among them. Once those dragons die, the proccess continues, and the Wyrems emerged.
Divine Origins
Wyrm Worship dates all the way back to the Age of Creation, when the Great Wyrms emerged from the roots of the World Tree, but few practices exist from that time. It became more prominent in the Age of Conflict, where the Great Wyrms became very involved in the protection of their respective realms from the Titans, the Dark Tapestry, and the Rampage of Cabmov. In its height, Wyrm Worship had hundreds of thousands of worshipers, however, with the death and disappearance of all of the Wyrms, its influence has once again fallen into obscurity.
Tenets of Faith
Each of the Great Wyrms was responsible for the protection of an individual realm, and thus many sects of Wyrm Worship seek to follow in their great ancestors wingbeats. They dedicate their worship to seeking out and destroying things that threaten the stability of a realm. Most of the high-level leaders of Wyrm Worship are dragons themselves, and most conflicts of the church stems from sects ruled by draconic overlords of different realms attempting to expand their territory over each other.
Ethics
As absent deities, the Great Wyrms have laid down no ethics, and thus each sect of Wyrm Worship acts in according to the whims of a usually draconic overlord. Most sects subscribe to a "might makes right" rule, with the goals of conquering large amounts of territory. While they may seem brutal to those on the outside, most draconic overlords view themselves as the rightful rulers and protectors of the "lesser folk", even if it must be from each other, and will fight viciously to defend their charges, even if against other sects of Wyrm Worship.
Worship
While draconic overlords and wyerm nests might have their own specific practices for worshiping the Wyrms, but for those who are truly devout, worship involves sitting on the soil of the realm that was protected by the specific Wyrm the worshiper is venerating, while praying to the lost spirit of the Wyrm. If travelling outside of that realm, the worshipper is also expected to ingest a small amout of the soil of that realm, so that they can carry protection of the realm with them while they travel.
Priesthood
The church has few divine casters, as only lingering fragments of the Wyrms power remain, and most dragons prefer to delve into arcane magic. The few priests that emerge are often dragons or wyerms with more ancestral memories than others, or passionate draconic historians or humans with dragon blood intermingled in ancestry.
Granted Divine Powers
As the deities of the religion are long gone, gaining divine power from the Wyrms is incredibly difficult. Dragons and Wyerms have an innate connection to the Great Wyrms, which can allow them to still access a divine connection, but for anyone else, forming a connection is a nigh impossible task, taking years, if not decades, to achieve.
The powers gained are varied depending on which specific Wyrm a sect venerates, but all sects have the power to influence, summon, gain the senses and abilities of, and even transform into draconic creatures.
Some more specific abilities include gaining a resistance to magic, greater underwater or underground movement, harming outsiders, shaping clouds and storms and fire, summoning tidal waves or causing earthquakes, cursing the land with either eternal night of day, and animating objects.
Political Influence & Intrigue
Most Wyrm Worship takes place in remote areas of the world, ruled over by dragons, and thus is removed from direct large-scale politics. Most intrigue of the church is in fact against itself, as each sect attempts to gain dominance for its sect and realm. The draconic overlords usually have many spies spread out in the surrounding towns and nations of their areas, in the hopes of maintaining their influence on the realm and root out other opposing Wyrm sects. A draconic overlord who goes unopposed for too long usually will ramp up their ambitions, usually moving out from under the shadows and to more covert actions. Invetabliy, this action usually attracts the attention of local adventurers and governments (often pushed in that direction by an oppossed sect), who works to halt the ambition and scatter the sect for many more years.
Sects
There are countless different sects and factions of Wyrm worship, of which nearly all of are in conflict with each other. When a dragon dies and spawns a colony of Wyerms, most forge a new sect of Wyrm Worship with their own ancestral memories guiding them, and thus all sects are incredibly diverse. While rarer, non-wyerm sects exist, usually under the rule of a large dragon who as either converted promising recruits, or subjugated a local population by force. Most sects venerate one or more aspects of dragonkind, including but not limited to, the dragons longevity, cunning, strength, beauty, ferocity, elemental power, flight, wealth, and determination.
"Worship the Wyrm Within"
Deities
Divines
Related Species
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