Welcome back to World-building Wednesdays, this week
religion is the topic of focus. My
world-building process is very organic, the order I build things is rarely the
same from one culture to the next. I
feel this gives a more realistic feel to the culture as opposed to using a
standardized checklist. In this case I
went from generalities to religion while in another build I might jump to
government first.
 | |
| I see Ciall resembling Lady Justice, minus the sword and blindford |
In Enessian religion they essentially worship Reason, but
that feels a little too esoteric to have developed naturally. Perhaps instead they worship an anthropomorphic
personification of Reason. A quick Google
search for a Scottish Gaelic translator gives me two possible translations of
reason*: the masculine “adhbhar” and the feminine “ciall.” Since I for one cannot pronounce the first
one, I am going to go with the second one and use the same gender. This leads us to a mother goddess, named
Ciall. Okay, what is Ciall’s story? What role does she play in this
religion? Personally, I do not see her
as a “creator of worlds” but as an impartial observer. Perhaps the Enessi
believe she came to their
world in order to study it, and created the Enessi to aid her in that endeavor. (Wow that kind of has an Ancient Aliens vibe
does it not? Just to be clear Ciall is
not an alien… Or is she? I see a plot
point!)
How exactly do the Enessi worship though? I feel like they would do so through learning
and teaching. I see their temples as
being libraries and universities; their priests, teachers. Of course all of creation is a very broad
subject so people would have to specialize.
Each “specialty” could be a different sect that follows one of Ciall’s
children. What sect a person chooses to
belong to would have a strong relation to their occupation. Government officials would probably study
history, whereas farmers would study flora and fauna.
Next week I think I will explore the different sects in a
bit more depth.
*Keep in mind that I do not actually know Scottish Gaelic so any translations I use may or may not be correct and I will not know if they are or not. Since I am only using them as naming tools, I do not have a problem if they are "incorrect."
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