Church of the Worldsmith

Divine Origins

In the eyes of the Church of the Creator, the church of the Worldsmith was never "founded" in the sense of having a fixed date as of which it existed, while before it didn't. Instead, the sages of Church of the Creator claim, that the faith of the dwarven slaves separated from the true faith over their milennia of peril, when they were separated from the rest of society inside the Slaver City mines. This merely truly showed once the Dwarves were set free then.
The Church of the Creator thus considers the liberation of the dwarves the time when the "Church of the Worldsmith" split off, and feels reinforced in this idea by the existence of the "Lightbringer Saga" in the dwarven scripture. Herein JaNoRa Lightbringer and her fellow Lightbringers lead out the "faithful" from the Dark Roads, following a grand vision granted to her by the Creator, to have the liberated dwarves work as a seedling to rekindle the "true faith", that had gotten lost over what those of dwarven faith call the "Time of Trial".
This notion does not exist in the Scripture of the Church of the Creator, even though the chronicles of R'hyll tell of a terrible and effective dwarven rebel Leader named JaNoRa Bloodaxe. She was allegedly only 14 years of age, and claimed to be led by the Creator, which was a claim never accepted by the church in Haven. In their view she was a minor rebel, in a fight mainly fought between the Church of the Creator and the Heretics of the Slaver cities, for toatlly unrelated reasons. The liberation of the dwarves was a sideeffect at best. At that time however, the Chronicle's of R'hyll tell, the church had to rely on these rebels for otherwise it couldn't have brought the numbers to challenge the Slaver cities. Therefore, for the time being they had to accept their tenets and ideas. But after the dust settled then, the church simply couldn't field enough forces on the other side of the the Inner Sea to reign them back in. Hence the separation of faiths.
On the flipside, the Church of the worldsmith argues that the dwarves in the mines were the ones remaining faithful to the original teachings of the Church Founder, while "above" the society fell to the seeds of corruption and greed. Those Havenians who came over the ocean to help liberate them, were those for which hope still exists, even though they had started to follow a skewed version of the faith and forgotten of the Founders most impoortant tenets. The Church of the Worldsmith thus considers the founding of the Church of the Creator by the Founder, which they Consider as the "true church" but cannot point a finger at when the Church of the Creator separated from them

Tenets of Faith

It was a time of great strife. The settlements of man lay scattered, vulnerable and separate, disorganized to stand against the tide of faeborn. Elves and gelf came down from their trees and orcs and worgs rattled the foundation of the dream of the creator that mankind shall one day inherit the world as he envisioned. And the Creator saw that many a man had fallen from true faith and started worshipping demons instead of his name.
Wary not too interfere too much, but dreadful that his creation would come to ruin should he not, he found the most pure man amongst all men, steadfast in belief, strong in his conviction, and tasked him to found a church in his name, to unite mankind under it's banner. And the Creator gave him the tenets he should build his church upon and they were:

— Beginning of the Foundermyth of the Church of the Creator as it is also found in the scriptures of the Church of the Worldsmith

It was a time of great strife. Mankind had fallen from true faith, The realms of man had absconded from the vision of the Worldsmith. The church he envisioned to guide their faith and thoughts was now used as a tool to control them. Chapter argued with chapter about the true meaning of his tenets. And in the far east the slaver cities wallowed in their heresy, twisting the words of the Worldsmith, engorging themselves on the backs of other humans and humanlike they kept pent-up like cattle in the Dark roads of their mines. And the Creator saw that many a man had fallen from true faith, but that within those mines, in which they kept the lowest of their lowest, the true faith still shone brightly.
Wary not too interfere too much, but dreadful that his creation would come to ruin should he not, he found a most pure girl named JaNoRa who was a Lightbringer for those whose eyes hadn't yet adapted to the dark roads. Steadfast in belief she was, strong in her conviction. And he spoke to her: "I will collect those who haven't forgotten my tenets, and i will lead them to the shore of the Slaver cities to lay siege. And you shall be ready and lead your kin out of these mines to join the fight as a symbol that i will not bear the twisting of my words again. And once it is done you shall lead your kin to the east where i sahll grant you a place in which you shall assure my words and their meaning are never forgotten."
And the Worldsmith reminded her of his commandments and faithful as she was, she joined his words in citation. And the commandments were:...

— Beginning of the Lightbringer saga.

Don't you find it oh so curious, that the Lightbringer Saga and the Foundermyth share so much structure, even beginning with the same words? Might it be some Dwarves had taken inspiration? But wouldn't that mean that our faith came first? That... dwarves could also join the church and pray to the Creator?
You do know who translated the Lightringer Saga into Ring? It was not the dwarves. So... no...

— Discussion between a Dwarven High Templar of the Worldsmith and an odhali priest of the Creator somewhere in Odhal.

The eight Tenets

1. Seedborn species are the favourite of the Worldsmith. Faeborn species, like Elves, Gelf, Goblins or Orcs, although accepted when they hold the peace, may never hold higher offices in the church of the worldsmith. We shall pity them, for the time of their kin on this world is limited and coming to an end, but we shall strike them down if they take up arms against the faithful.
2. Leaving a halfbreed to the upbringing of the other species it was conceived with is a sin. Halfbreeds shall be isolated from the culture of their human parent in order to turn their human heritage dominant.
3. No child may ever carry the burden of the sins of its parents.
4. Every being has his place in the plan of the Worldsmith and should not deviate from it. However it shall not be upon the church to decide who did and who didn't, this is up to the Worldsmith alone.
5. The Church shall not hold worldly power, so it may never be corrupted. This shall ensure that the words of the Worldsmith and their intentions live on forever as he intended.
6. The Fae is the essence of the the Worldsmith. Arcane magic shall be strictly controlled and may only be used to further his goals. Clerical wonders of the creator are by definition the will of the creator. Clerical wonders of other deities is the work of demons.
7. No man or women shall ever own another, nor shall he or she bear the existence of slaves and shall destroy the chains that bind them.
8. No other deity may be worshipped next to the creator. There are no other Deities. They are nothing but Demons.

The eight Commandments

1. Thou shalt not have other gods besides the Worldsmith. He created the world and gave thee thine place in it. There are no other gods, just demons who wish to tempt thee.
2. Thou shalt not own another being or engorge thyself on its work without rightful compensation.
3. Thou shalt see that thy daywork is of good quality, and that thy does not ask for more than it is worth. Furthermore thou shalt honor thy debt and thy promises, and repay what was given.
4. Thou shalt honor your elders and your children and have neither of those pay the price for thy sins
5. Thou shalt not kill or rob another man's, women's or child's freedom for thy own gain.
6. Thou shalt not stand by idle in the face of injustice and thou shalt be vigilant to find it.
7. Thou shalt not invoke magic if you are not recognized a wizard of the towers. Thou shalt not make pacts with demons. Any who does either, shall be put to the curbing to disallow the demon entrance into our world
8. Thou shalt not produce depictions of your god, neither in thy mind nor in stone or any other fabric. For he is beyond understanding

Worship

The Symbol of Faith

The symbol of the church of the Worldsmith depicts a golden wheel with 8 spokes, usually embedded into a stylized anvil seen from above. Each spoke represents the 8 tenets and simultaneously the 8 commandments.

Priesthood

Unlike the priesthood in the Church of the Creator, there is only a spiritual way to serve the Worldsmith, not a worldly one. Was it different, it would threaten the separation of church and state, which the Founder originally intended.
This means that the dwarves have no, and never had any, inquisition, and left the hunting of plaguebeasts to the so called Dwarven plaguegard. This changed when Touran III founded the Sentry, which became an organization of well reknown also in the dwarven lands, which later assimilated the plagueguard as part of itself. As in most countries, the Sentry is considered a paramilitary worldly organization however, financed by the state and responsible for worldly problems only, while an organization like the Church, which basically cares only for the spiritual wellbeing of the faithful, does not need a military arm at all, and shouldn't have one.
All Priests in the Church of the Worldsmith are thus called Templars, which is a term the Church of the Worldsmith kept from the Church of the Creator, for those in the service of the "Vitas Contemplativa"
The high priest in any given municipality of the dwarven empire is called High Templar and resides over a plethora of Templars which either maintain the temples or, in rare cases, go on a mission. The lowest class of Templars is the Templarstudent, which is basically the novice, who cares for more menial tasks inside a temple. Below this there are basically only the Templar-Aspirants, which, technically, do not hold a churchly office, until they are accepted by the church as Templarstudents.

Permeated Organizations

• Um-Kal

Deities

• The Worldsmith

Location

Um-Kal

Related Species

• Dwarves

Related Ethnicities

• Dwarvish (UmKali)