One of the PCs in my Imperium Maledictum campaign is an Ursuline priest working for the Empty Synod, and another is a lay Ursuline. I figured I might as well lay out some of the details of the faith.
Large portions of the Tellian sector were once part of a stellar empire known as the Varosi Union, which was brought into Imperial compliance in a series of wars across M39-41. The Varosi had a half-dozen major religions and hundreds of minor ones, but most were wiped out during Imperial compliance, except for the three largest, which were transformed and absorbed into positions within the orthodox Imperial cult. The shared Varosi background of many systems and common processes of syncretism, proselytisation, and appropriation means that much of the sector has a common doctrinal and practical basis unusual for the Imperial religion.
Bhadra's Ecclesiarchy is run from the hive world of Kailasa, and its dominant tendency is known as "Madarianism" after the missionary and saint, Madaria of Nova Terra, who first promulgated it. Madarianism holds that the Emperor was born a human being in a previous incarnation of the universe, but attained cosmic mastery and true divinity through the cultivation of his inner power via nine hundred and ninety-nine secret techniques of concentration, meditation, and visualisation. This allowed him to preserve his power as the cosmic cycle turned, that previous universe came to an end, and this universe was born to replace it.
True believers can not only practice these concentration techniques themselves, but transfer the power gained by doing so to the Emperor, in time absorbing the entirety of the spiritual power of this universe and empowering him to create (or transfer to) yet another one, where the cycle will repeat itself. Those who transfer merit in this way are allowed to merge with the Emperor's godhead and will survive after not only their personal death but the death of the universe itself, becoming part of the next one. The Golden Throne is seen as a device that absorbs, purifies, and amplifies the spiritual energies of the faithful, with the Emperor's living body on it a mere relic to aid the less imaginative in their devotions.
The Ecclesiarchy maintains control of the dissemination and practice of these secret concentration techniques, which scholars widely believe to be ancient neuro-cognitive enhancement practices dating (in at least some cases) back to the Dark Age of Technology that were preserved / misused by the Varosi until the Imperium "restored" them to their rightful place as acts of worship and service to the Emperor.
The richer and more powerful one is, the more "advanced" the techniques one is granted knowledge of, the more merit one can accumulate, and the more right one's rulership and leadership of others becomes. The more commonly known techniques are also the basis of grand festivals where the faithful gather to communally practice them, while Kailasa's churches are full of meditators practicing them under the patronage (and to the accumulated merit of) its aristocracy.
Kailasa's religious hierarchy dominates the Bhadran system, with the bishops for Kangyur, the void-khans of the asteroid belt, and the sunya-clades and bhava-clades of the moons of Bhadra Quartius all subject to the arch-bishop of Kailasa. Kangyur serves as a dumping ground for loser, incompetents, and radicals amongst the Kailasan priesthood, with real power on the planet sitting with the diaconate that manages Amalthea Logistics and stuffs the church's coffers.
The Ursulines
Ursulinism is a heterodox religious movement originating on Kangyur amongst groups of mystics out in the Dhawalan lowlands. It has rapidly grown to become the dominant form of folk worship on the planet. This is despite the Kangyuri orthodoxy's attempts to stymie it, which have tended to backfire spectacularly. After nearly a century of failed efforts by its orthodox priesthood, the Kangyuri diaconate has become involved in suppressing it, and is escalating the level of force and compulsion brought to bear on its adherents. This has, of course, simply made it more popular and radicalized its adherents.
The key social basis for Ursulinism is the free population of Kangyur, including skilled labour guilds in Vajra Anchor Point, rad waste nomads, and the lower levels of the megacorporations, but it reaches into the dranj slave plantations and (according to rumour) into the offices of certain megacorporate executives and guild masters. Local Kangyuri priests are often Ursulines as a form of protest against the foreign domination of Kangyur's religious life by incompetents from Kailasa. These anchors of support have tended to mean that while the upper echelons of Kangyur's Ecclesiarchy fulminate against Ursulinism, attempts to move against it run into various bureaucratic and logistical difficulties when commands move into the middle ranks for execution.
Ursulinism is in some respects an ultra-Thorian doctrine, but it has become considerably more radical as it differentiates itself from Madarianism. Ursulinism holds that the emperor was indeed a man who became a god, not across multiple universes but only in this one, and that his coming death will sever the final bonds that restrain his godhood from its full manifestation. Until that time, he manifests as an inner light within the heart of each believer, which accumulates in certain holy individuals who can perform miracles.
The most shocking doctrines the Ursulines hold are that the Emperor's light can purify the corruption of mutation and heal the bleeding soul of the psyker, rendering both pure. This is not necessarily a merciful process, but the Master of Mankind turning even the flawed bodies and minds of lesser beings to his almighty will. When his body finally dies, he will manifest as a great light throughout the universe which will restore the shattered genes and souls of all humanity, and lead them once more on a Great Crusade against the wicked and the daemonic. The most radical Ursulines hold that even certain xenos will bow down before his power on that day, and will join humanity as pious servants of its manifest destiny.
Ursuline Practices
Ursulinism rejects the 999 secret concentration techniques of Madarianism as lesser practices that only inexpertly manifest the all-penetrating holy light of the Emperor (tho' many will still practice them as cover for their true beliefs), and instead favours three key sacraments, known as the Recognition of the Light, the Manifestation of the Light, and the Purification of the Light.
The Recognition of the Light is the key ritual of Ursuline mysticism. It uses the forty-nine prayers of St. Ursula chanted as mantras to open the reciter's or congregation's heart and soul to witness the all-pervading light of the Emperor for anagogical and apotropaic purposes.
The Manifestation of the Light is a set of exhortatory blessings and consecrations suitable for individuals, objects, and places that is believed to imbue them with the power to concentrate and/or amplify the light of the Emperor, manifesting miraculous powers, luck, and blessings on those so imbued according to the strength of their faith.
The Purification of the Light is a healing ritual and funerary right in which the light of the Emperor is invoked to cleanse and purify a sinner, mutant, psyker, apostate, or heretic's mind, soul and body. It is also used to cleanse the souls of those about to die so they can become an angel of pure light in the service of the Emperor after death.
In addition to these three core rituals, there are numerous local versions of other rituals due to the lack of a unified religious hierarchy to promote a single conception. These range from the "First Fruits of the Light", a simple two-line prayer and laying of hands uttered by the Most Blessed Guild of Bulb Installation (Local 504) when they replace light bulbs throughout the Glass Belt's agri-gardens to ritual gladiatorial duels fought with las-cutters in the underhive of Vajra Anchor Point on certain holy days to human sacrifices conducted by the rad waste nomads where the still-pumping hearts of their enemies are cast onto pyres to transform their sins into pure light and heat.
Finally, many Ursulines take the trek on a pilgrimage out to the Dhawala Eco-Remediation Zone in the Dhawalan lowlands, where the faith originated and many of its holiest sites continue. Despite a number of hostile rad tribes in the area, faithful tribes help escort the pilgrims as they visit the Monastery of St. Vinicius, the shrinefields where countless Ursulines are buried in sacred catacombs, and the Tomb of St. Ursula herself, which has significantly expanded over the past century into a sprawling complex, along with many other lesser shrines. It's considered a profound act of faith to create a small shrine during one's pilgrimage, and the broken terrain's many canyons and gorges make carving niches to host the shrine easy for anyone with the time and skill to use a las-cutter or some paint.
Major Ursuline Figures
The Holy Saint Ursula, Our Lady of Dhawala, Mother of Kangyur
The namesake of the movement, Ursula had her first mystical experience at age 12, and died of radiation sickness at 24. Before dying, she managed to dictate many of her visions, a series of prophecies, and her famous forty-nine prayers to her companion, St. Vinicius. She died approximately a century before the Great Rift, in the last 41st millennium. She was initially dismissed by most religious authorities, but one of her prophetic visions was of the Great Rift opening, which revitalised the small Ursuline movement and encouraged its rapid spread. Her most shocking, and as yet undemonstrated, prophecy was of the rapidly coming death of the Emperor's body and his transformation into a god of pure light.
Saint Vinicius the Learned (Officially Unrecognised), Scribe of the Faith, Proselyte of the Wastes
Vinicius was a highly talented organiser, editor, and theologian from Kangyur whose career as a priest had dead-ended under the incompetence of the Kangyuri church, leaving him stuck overseeing a minor monastery in the Dhawalan rad wastes where he encountered Ursula shortly before her death. After her death, it was Vinicius who edited her writings, formulated the theology of the new faith, preached to the waste tribes surrounding the monastery, recruited his fellow monks, nuns, and priests to join him, and organised the careful undermining of Madarian orthodoxy across Kangyur. He spent fifty years essentially creating the new faith from scratch, before dying in the monastery that bears his name. The Kangyuri Ecclesiarchy refuses to recognise him as a saint, and claims that he was a rogue psyker who used sinful powers to bewitch the minds of innocents into falling for his heretical nonsense.
Saint Bola the Contemner (Officially Unrecognised), the Heat of the Emperor's Light
Towards the end of Vinicius's life and only a few decades before the Great Rift emerged, Bola Aramyth was a Kailasan canon lawyer exiled to Kangyur after angering House Bagh-Nam in a dispute with the Ecclesiarchy. At some point after arriving, she converted to the new faith, and became a legal terror for the authorities of the day as they first noticed and began to suppress the emerging Ursuline faith. Bola is most famous for her defense of the Unmartyrs of Vajra, four pious Ursulines who intended to sacrifice their lives by undergoing Ecclesiarchical trials for their faith. Instead, she managed to show the bishop of Kangyur (the trials' judge) had been engaged in heretical practices, dethroning him in the process, while also making such a tangled weave of Kangyuri religious law that decades passed before the orthodox church could straighten out the mess well enough to go after the Ursulines. Her other great accomplishment was to successfully manage to have Ursula canonised by the Kailasan authorities (relying on the fact that the Kangyuri church had not bothered to inform them about the situation). For her services to the faith, Ursulines canonised her in turn.
Sister Lily Huang
The most influential and charismatic advocate of Ursulinism on Kangyur, she is the unofficial head of the faith. Her life's work is to take the scattered folk movements of Ursulinism and bring them together into a powerful and dynamic organisation that can usurp the orthodox church and become the dominant faith on Kangyur, and then throughout the Bhadran system. She is most active in the Dhawalan lowlands, but travels widely across Kangyur meeting secretly with small groups of radical Ursulines, bringing connections to other groups and soothing over their differences. Should the Ursulines succeed in taking control of the planet, she would be the inevitable choice for its new bishop. She is a fierce, uncompromising, and highly charismatic priestess who holds to the most radical doctrines of the faith, and is not afraid to preach to mutants. Rumours swirl around her of miraculous healings she has managed to perform, restoring the tattered genetic code and malformations of mutants to their true, whole, forms.
Lay Ursuline reporting in!
ReplyDelete