Dragon Worship

Faith of the Sceyori and the Celorians

Mythical Orgins: the Great War of the Heavens
For thousands of years, the Sceyori and the Celorians were one people. The Sceyorites lived on the great island known as the Land of Scey, south of Olveria.
According to their own legends, the Sceyorites were bred from cattle-like creatures called Sithi. There is no firm agreement on what the Sithi were, if they existed: various myths describe them as similar to bovines or sheep or dogs, with several describing them as ape-like creatures bred to give milk and move large stones for construction. The Sithi were said to serve the Drakat, reptilian people who were created by the gods of Sceyor.
These gods were dragons who lived in the heavens. Impossibly enormous and inconceivably intelligent, these dragons refused to set foot upon the earth, for it would sully their purity. Some scholars suggest that early Sceyori thought clouds were the breath of dragons flying over their land. Because of this aversion to land, they created the Drakat to serve and worship them. In time, the Drakat proved so loyal that one of the greatest dragons, Celion the Blue, granted them the wisdom of creating life. The Drakat quickly spread across the Land of Scey: conquering, enslaving, and destroying four other peoples called the Naftar, the Yvnarek, the Desheri, and the Celoins. It was this new wisdom they used to create the Sceyorites, or Dragon People as they are known today.
According to legend, the Blue Dragon Celion had granted this gift to the Drakat against the wishes of other dragons. The greatest among these, led by the Red Dragon Raquos, attacked Celion and her followers, leading to the Great War of the Heavens, which raged for a thousand years. There were supposedly hundreds of dragons, with the weakest being the size of a great hill and the biggest being large enough to swallow mountains whole. During the Great War of the Heavens, every dragon was slain and fell to earth, which caused the once united lands of Olveria and Kynaj to split apart into the numerous lands we know today. The greatest of these was Celion herself, who supposedly fell to what is now the Great Purple Sea, shattering off some far western continent unknown to modern wisdom.
In the end, Raquos the Red was the lone survivor of the Great War of the Heavens. He told the Drakat that they must abjure the secrets of creation. Raquos was grievously wounded from the war, and ordered his people to breed the Sceyorites in great numbers, to have them grow great and wise and strong, that he might devour them for his sustenance. This Great Feast, said Raquos, would restore him and allow him to rule over the world forever.
A schism then formed between the Drakat. Many remained devout and felt they must obey Raquos blindly, he being the last of the dragons. Others felt the time of the dragons was over, and that the Drakat were now free to carve out their own destiny. As the Drakat split into factions and fought, the wounded Raquos set down upon the earth to enforce his will. Legends say his purity burned the earth beneath him, and a great crack formed in the ground, creating what is now known as the Red Sea. Raquos fell into the waters, swearing he would one day return for his Great Feast.
Either the death of their last god united the Drakat in worship, or those loyal to Raquos managed to overpower the dissenters. Regardless, this belief of absolute loyalty to the Red Dragon passed on into the Sceyorites in their earliest days. Whatever happened to the Drakat is unknown. Popular myth says they did abjure the creation of life and all died out, while the Sceyorites named themselves the Dragon People, multiplied, and did all they could to grow stronger and wiser.
The Creeping Cold, the Great Schism, and Two Tales of Retreat
To hear the Dragon Sages speak, the Land of Scey was once rich and vibrant, covered in jungles full of life and vast fields of rich, black soil. It was upon the death of Raquos the Red that the Cold slowly began to cover the Isle.
Now called Old Sceyor, the great island supposedly grew colder and colder over several hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years, as Raquos continued to dream beneath the Red Sea. Yet no matter how harsh the land became, the Dragon Sages and the faithful continued to hold out, knowing that they were meant to serve Raquos, and feeling it was an honor to one day give strength to the great god so he might return to the heavens.
This age, called the Creeping Cold Age, was ended by the Cult of Celion.
There are two tales of how the Cult of Celion began. According to the Sceyori, after millennia of suffering the Creeping Cold, it was finally declared that the Sceyori must cross the Red Sea in order to survive. Moreover, north of the Sea, it was foretold that great and untested lands swept for thousands of miles, and they might fill the earth with subjects for Red Raquos to devour.
Yet there were those who refused to leave. A small faction of slaves, their overseers, and a few lowborn merchants suggested it was too dangerous to cross the sea. To justify their cowardice, they created and spread a new heresy, suggesting that the Blue Dragon Celion had not died, and that she was recovering in some far-off sea. She would one day return to them, and they therefore could not travel far from home. This heresy appealed to many, especially the lowborn, for Celion had no desire to consume her people, but rather to shepherd them into a golden age of plenty. She would destroy the Creeping Cold and change Sceyor back into a lush paradise.
The cult spread, and many a lord killed their slaves to quell such talk. It was eventually decided, however, that the Sceyori would cross the seas regardless of what the lowborn thought. Slaves and servants who remained loyal were given honored positions among the households of lords who crossed the sea. The rest would be dragged over in chains.
Many of the cultists ran off into the freezing wastes, and many others died resisting, even leaping over the sides of ships to drown in the Red Sea. Yet the Sceyori landed in the taiga of what is now Sceyor. There they subdued and destroyed the native inhabitants, whom they called the Centori, and established their new home. Since that time, for at least five-hundred years, the Sceyori have been warring against Carnad, Wundu, and Laizhou, now members of the Batsalian Union.
In time, those cultists of Celion who remained on Sceyor succumbed to the continued ferocity of the Creeping Cold. They overwhelmed the last Sceyori settlement on the great island, Cerwyth, stole its ships, and sailed north into Laizhou to beg their protection. Laizhou granted them enormous tracks of land with the expectation that they fight with them against the Sceyori. The Cult of Celion became the protectorate of Celoria, eventually taking lands from Laizhou, Datsua, and Taqseyat, in exchange for tributes of taxation and the ending of slavery in their borders. It is rumored that many of the wealthiest Celorians still keep slaves, but that chattel are never allowed outside the homes of their masters.
And so the Sceyori abandoned their homeland, and the cowardly Celorians eventually chased after them to prove thorns in the side of their holy mission. Or so the Sceyori legend goes. Unsurprisingly, the Celorians tell a somewhat different tale.
To hear the Blue Sages speak, the Cult of Celion started long before any thought of leaving the Isle of Scey. Small dinners were hosted in the homes of slave and noble alike, where members of all ranks dined together and considered the mysteries of Celion, who gifted the Drakat with the power of creation. They discussed and debated what this power was: was it merely procreation, or some great magic now lost to time? As the cult grew in popularity, and more of the aristocracy counted themselves as members, their oppressors turned violent. Many slaves were murdered for voicing their support of Celion, and some were killed merely for wearing blue. This violence eventually spread to the merchant class and grew so brazen that the nobility began to fear their own lives might soon be in danger.
The powerful organized a mass exodus to Cerwyth, where they chartered ships to take them across the Red Sea to what is now their capital of Invetwyth. There they spread along the Blue Bay and outward through the fertile and mostly unpeopled lands. Some legends say they traded and intermarried with the native peoples. Others say the nobles and merchants had abandoned their slave-born brethren in Sceyor, and thus enslaved new people upon arrival in their new home. Regardless, their expansion eventually drew the eyes of Laizhou, Datsua, and Teqsayet. A treaty was formed between them, and Celoria ceased its expansion.
It would not be long, however, before the Sceyori learned of their success, and at last abandoned the Land of Scey to cross their Red Sea themselves. The Sceyori spread north and east, and though Celoria defended itself well, it lacked the strength to push Sceyor back into the sea. They proposed an alliance with what had become the Batsalian Union, but they refused due to Celoria’s continued use of slavery. The Union then began repelling Sceyori attacks eastward into Celoria, until the nation became overwhelmed and submitted to the Union’s demands. They abandoned slavery and became a protectorate of the Union.
The truth no doubt lies somewhere in the middle of these two claims.
The Dragon People
The Dragon People are perhaps the only folk of ghast complexion that likely share no lineage with the Mornals to the north. The Sceyori are almost uniformly pink or peach of skin, but the Celorians have become more cosmopolitan thanks to generations of interbreeding with their neighbors (and some of their freed slaves), making it unremarkable to find earthen or even golden folk amongst their numbers.
What remains unique among the Dragon People, however, is their hair. Most Dragon People grow hair of vibrant colors: red, blue, green, violet, as well as gold, black, and brown. The Sceyori have an unofficial but ever-present hierarchy based on these hair colors, which unsurprisingly places red-haired folk at the top. The Celorians are more openminded, ostensibly, but old prejudices die hard, and one cannot help noting an excess of blue hair upon the heads of the most privileged.
Despite allegedly spending centuries in the freezing cold of the south, the Dragon People are not an especially hirsute race. Some men cannot even grow beards, especially those born of marriages between Celorians and Teqsayetans. Dragon People do tend to be a bit taller and larger than most of their neighbors, but not by much.
Little and less is known of the Sceyori Faith, but much can be inferred by observing the rituals of the Celorians. Small banquets and unofficial gatherings remain prominent, which either grants truth to their tales of secret gatherings in ages past, or suggests that such dinners were common to the faith before the great schism. One also notes a fondness for blue clothing: with peasantry donning vibrant blue costuming on holy days and nobility adorning themselves with blue jewelry or modest blue accents upon their rich clothing year-round.
One most intriguing ritual is the Feeding, done by the head of the household every full moon. The adherent in question kneels before a dragon alter and passes a ceremonial dagger of bone across their palm, then holds the palm to the alter whilst praying, usually as their family and even their servants kneel around them praying. This can continue for a few minutes or the entire day, usually starting just after midnight. It has been generations since Sceyori and Celorians mingled, but rumors suggest the Sceyori actually cut open their palms and bled upon their altars for hours at a time. Other rumors suggest they bled their slaves or even their children, rather than themselves.
This is nothing, however, compared to the questions raised by the baptism of children. Six moons after birth, a Celorian child is held above a pool of frigid water and, after some chanting, is dipped into the pool. If the child cries, their name is finally entered into public records. If the child does not, they are baptized again six moons hence, always on the full moon. Although this practice is now extended to all children, there was a time when only the firstborn child was baptized to Celion in this fashion. One cannot help but wonder, then, what the Sceyori do to their firstborn children, to appease their hungry god.

Type

Religious, Organised Religion

Demonym

Dragon People, Dragon Worshipers, Sceyorites, Raquons, Celionites