Religion: The Chains Faith

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壊す実 (Kowasu-mi) - The Chains

The faith of Kowasu-mi and its followers, the Chains or Breakers, seek to reach the Center and free the first god Raiju from eternal torment. In turn, Raiju will use his power to turn all of Qarna into an everlasting paradise. Their mythology proposes that Qarna began as a desert world until Raiju cast his lightning down, creating vast lakes of glass (fingerprints). These lakes of glass opened windows into the realm of dreams, through which the idea of Creation as we know it crept into reality and was gradually struck into life layer by layer through lightning. The eight Infernal Binders were created by Raiju himself as his companions, but they betrayed and imprisoned him in the First Tree as the Chained God.
Important symbols of the Chains faith are: lightning bolts, chains, and glass prisms. Glass appears in its mythology as a window into the dreaming world, and in the waking world when formed into a prism shatters light into multiple beams of different colors. Breakers believe that to fulfill a wish, one should pray to a glass prism kept at their bedside. If the universe wills it, a bolt of lightning will melt the dream and solidify it as reality; thus the Ashimachian inspirational phrase “Strike this!”
Lightning bolts represent the many branching paths that life can take, and many of the Chains' routines follow suit: the arrangement of hierarchies and even the way buildings are constructed are influenced by this mindset. Chains nations’ militaries hold this pattern near and dear as Kowasu-mi developed in the militarized state of Unkai during its time as a Piraan satrapy. The Chains faith warns against the pitfalls of sedentary life and selfish decisions, and upholds filial piety and the nobility of a life dedicated to the greater good: each finger of a lightning bolt is inexorably connected to its predecessor.
Kowasu-mi began as a sect of the Dreamswallowers faith and is a fairly recent religion: the majority of heroes in its myths are true (if somewhat embellished) historical figures, great generals and brave soldiers who gave their all in the name of the Chained God.
To reach the Center is the grand goal of all Breakers, and to this end the Chains have assisted the Explorer's Guild in establishing outposts in almost every Coastal city-state. Though the Guild is officially a secular institution, there is no doubt that the Chains’ contributions far outweigh that of any other group: the church is almost suspiciously generous to the Guild and in recent history has funded several large and extensive incursions into the Sea. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement: the Chains wish to reach the center of the Sea, and year by year the collective expertise of thousands of adventurers brings them ever closer to reaching that goal.
The Chains shun the creation of spirits and gods. In their faith the Sea is considered wicked because it is commanded by the same false gods who imprisoned Raiju. To brave life in the Sea - regardless of how far one can go - is a personal trial to be overcome through faith and dedication; by contrast, to harness the power of manmade spirits and gods is to risk irreversible dependence on something other than oneself and one’s origins.