I’ve devoted some time to the tenets of Photianism and I think it’s fair to give the religion of the Elves a little time of the spotlight. Note that “religion” is singular. Though there are five communities and four sub-races, there is essentially one religion uniting them all. There are multiple “denominations” if you will, but few Elves dispute the overall belief system.

The Elven religion has a certain animistic and panentheistic character to it. We have to begin with their concept of the soul. There are three degrees of souls: greater, common and lesser. The greater souls are essentially gods, the common souls belonging to sapient races and the lesser souls belonging to non-sapient lifeforms. Souls are believed to be uncreated, having existed from the beginning of time, but it was the greater souls that were active first, responsible for the creation of the universe and the waking and incarnation of the common and lesser souls. Another important element is the aether, an unfocused form of spiritual energy similar if not the same in substance to the souls but lacking any will or individuality. The aether is omnipresent and acts as a medium for the souls to operate (which is all much in line with most systems of magic on the Planet). Some Elven philosophers have posited that there is a singular Greatest Spirit from which all other souls and the aether emanated and will one day all be drawn back into it.

There are numerous deities venerated by the Elves to varying degrees, but chief among them is El-Naia, the Divine Mother. El-Naia is not the greatest of the gods, but she is regarded as the creatrix of the Elven race and so is adored above all. I will discuss her, the other gods and various myths and legends relating to them in future posts. It will be easier to go into more of the details of worship then. For now, it is sufficient to describe the Elven religion as a sort of nature worship with a personal creatrix held in highest adoration.

Unsurprisingly for a religion centered on goddess worship, the highest ranking clergy tend to be female, but there are some branches where males tend to dominate, such as the cult of the sun common among Light Elves. The clerical hierarchy isn’t terribly complicated or particularly rigid in structure. The priestly caste is largely ranked according to seniority, though certain extraordinary spiritual gifts may result in a quicker rise to higher prestige.

There are a number of major and minor festivals following patterns you might expect for a religion of nature worship: new moons, full moons, solstices, equinoxes, etc. Other than that, there’s nothing so formal as weekly services, daily prayers at set times or anything like that, though some branches of the sun cult can be a little more regimented.

I could go into greater depth, but this post is only meant to serve as an overview. I’ll go into further details in subsequent posts. Stay tuned.

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