Basilidean Celestialism: The Stewardship of the Universe

St. Basilides (ba-SIL-id-eez) was a humble rope-maker who became more and more intrigued by the high-level theology of Valentinus as it first reached him from its origins on the second continent; Basilides worked his rope-making trade in the small coastal city of Piot Alenky in the increasingly lawless Cumaean province of Gaz Agaia. Moved by what he learned as well as by visions from the Celestials themselves, he left his vocation and entered the Celestii priesthood soon after, and rose through the ranks to become a beloved and eventually sainted Archbishop - keeping in mind that the Old Gods of the Cumaeans, though surely fading fast, were still the official gods of the realm, and the priestly heirarchy of the time was very simple and small compared to the form it takes today. Throughout his career he authored a number of spiritual treatises, correspondences and sermons of remarkable depth, posing thought experiments regarding the nature of the soul and the source of creative spirit that continue to energize the faith even today.
Valentinus' teachings that he wrote in response to the arrival of the Celestials at Iodia (Now within the national borders of Toz) reached Basilides (in what would become Khazig province) within 300 years of Valentinus' death, but for quite some time Basilideanism was accorded to be within the boundaries of a unified Celestial faith. Basilides' writings inspired an ever-more-separate group of priests and worshippers, however, who had keyed on to a point of real incompatibility that Basilides himself seems to have glossed over in his own teachings, regarding the source of Angelic power. By 1280ADE the breach was significant enough for the Archbishopry to call the Council of Chigrin to attempt to resolve the two divergent faiths back into a single unified theology.
St. Cyrilius and others from the Basilidean side felt that they had science, faith, and magic on their side, but the Valentinian contingent had majority opinion, popular belief, and three thousand years of tradition on their side, and were unwilling to accept the Basilidean interpretations within the same umbrella. The essential and incontrovertible difference between the two faiths comes down to the interpretation of the source of angelic power, which Valentinians maintain actively comes from the Angels themselves, while Basilideans believe it was given to them at creation by the creator.
On the surface this seems a very minor detail, but in practice it creates a fundamental incompatibility. It suggests that the Valentinians worship created beings that are themselves powerless, the worship of which would be heretical; and from the Valentinian side it suggests that Basilideans worship an unknown, unknowable, distant and fallible creator that doesn't care, and may be unreachable - also heresy, if the angels truly are their own source of power.
It's important to note that Basilideans merely posit the existence of an external (mostly unknowable) source of power, but they too worship angels as the fulfillment and embodiment of that powerDespite this, the council ended reasonably amicably, and though the collapse of the remaining vestiges of the Cumaean Empire did pit believers of opposite denominations on battle lines against each other, these were not purely religious wars.
Basilidean Khazig's rise to prominence in the power vacuum that followed the collapse, and its ambitious conquest of the nations of the east to restore a new vision of the old Empire, necessarily put the Valentinian west back on their heels when it came to the idea of purifying the faith by force; and when the joint armies of Toz and Baar Zaal moved to reclaim the hopelessly undefended former Cumaean province of Iodia (eye-OH-dee-uh), which happened to be the nation in which the Celestial Revelation was given, both denominations united in their crusades to take the lands back.
The next 6,000 years were characterized by this conflict, which would heat up for a few generations before going dormant for a time. The Tozzite faith, a dualist religious system centered on perpetual cosmic war that recognizes none of the angels as anything more than powerful frauds, was utterly anathema to the Valentinians and Basilideans, and the possibility of the sacred lands and sites being claimed by these heathens, not to mention cutting off pilgrimages to those lands, was an intolerable reality for thousands of years, and though for a significant part of time those lands were back under Khazigiri control, they are at present once again a part of Toz itself.
As such the Basilideans see themselves as the defenders of the faith, as well as the natural descendants of the great Cumaean heritage, and the Valentinans, mostly to the west of where the combat actually is, are not in a position to argue.
In actual practice, the two forms of faith are so similar that a Tozzite looking in from the outside could not identify what the differences are other than purely cosmetic. They both venerate the same 73 angels, but each has a slight variation on two of them in the Holy Nine. Basilideans elevate Tzadkiel and Mdnothiel to the nine and relegate Adelis and Ycebiel to the 64.

The Basilidean Holy Nine:

1. Phanuel (FAN-you-ell), over Kings, the noon hour, the sun; Solariel is his son.
2. Niphonel (NIF-o-nel or NY-fo-nel), over peaceful nature, 3PM to sunset, life cycles, health and fertility.
3. Apuatel (a-poo-OTT-el), over endings, twilight and the sunset Hour, the first stars in the sky at night
4. Bretranel (BRETT-ran-el), over labor, honest hard work, fairness, and the working class.
5. Astionel (ASH-tee-uh-nel), over valuable things, wealth, banks, treasure and commerce.
6. Tarshiviel (tar-SHEE-vee-el), over hidden things, the dark, Midnight-4AM, witches, secrets, mysteries and magic arts
7. Typhoneth (TIF-uh-neth or TY-fuh-neth), over violent nature, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, battles, chaos.
8. Mdnothiel (mid-NOTH-ee-ell), over mothers and daughters, domestic arts, hospitality, stewardship of children
9. Tzadkiel (uh-DEL-us), over fathers and sons, house-building and upkeep, stewardship of the family.

Significantly, people do not simply pick one patron and devote all their worship towards it to the exclusion of the others, as is the case in most game systems; quite the contrary, the purpose of religion is to flatter or at least pacify the angels so that they, in their capricious lack of concern for individual people, will not seek to actively harm the worshipper. Most people are elaborately careful to fulfill the rituals and participate in the feasts of all the angels, and while they may favor the stories or evident personality of one over another, people take care not to court the rage of the less lovely or lovable angels by ignoring them, either.
As such, these nine are best considered the prime movers, the ones through whom most of the intrigues originate and flow, and from which most enlightenment derives - but the other 64 are critically important, and the saints of the faith and other lesser celestials are also invoked in both the Valentinian and Basilidean rites.
Those beings that have turned up in stories or games before are listed, but do not feel constrained by this list or to these details; the faith has been followed for longer than written history has existed on Earth, and over that time any number of re-interpretations, contradictions and later evolution has taken place.

Other Celestials:

• Teniel (TEN-ee-el),over books, scrolls, libraries, learning, civilized pursuits. Often opposes Tarshiviel.
• Solariel (so-LAR-ee-el), the light of the sun (separate from the sun itself; note the moon doesn't have these rays but the sun does. Center of the Sol Invictus/Yule festival on the 22 of Ysebiel's month (Dec 22)
• Aishapriel (eye-SHAPP-ree-el), over insects, creeping and crawling things
• Baraeon (buh-RAY-on), over justice, authority, law and order, obligations, duty
• Arsisiel (ar-SIS-ee-el), over love, sleep, procreation. Daughters are Oriel and Auriel, over romantic and pure love on the one hand and impurity and lust on the other; their names sound the same when spoken and they are usually impossible to tell apart, even in sculpture, painting and sacred texts.
  • Oriel (OR-ee-el), over romantic love, affection, attraction, physical beauty, and lovemaking. Or maybe that's Auriel.
  • Auriel (OR-ee-el), over lust, sex, irrational desire, unrequited love, envy, and addictions. Or maybe that's Oriel.
• Aeaneth (AY-an-eth), over cleanliness, health, healing, recovery, pure thoughts, chivalry.
• Metaneth (MET-uh-neth), over patience, resilience, endurance, self-sacrifice for the greater good.
• Bellesiel (bel-EE-zee-el), companion to Tarshiviel. Over abominations and the necromantic arts.
• Ysebiel (yuh-SEE-bee-el), over winter, death, decay, endings; nightfall to midnight. Often spelled with a -c, Ycebiel, but the pronunciation is the same and it identifies the same angel.
• Adelis (uh-DEL-us), over farming and domestic animals, crops, seedlings, cultivation and the harvest.
• Artemiel (ar-TEM-ee-el), over the moon; frequently connected to both Tarshiviel whose domain is the late night, and Arsisiel, whose domain is love, romance, procreation and sleep.
• Suriel (SOO-ree-el), the angel of outsiders. Not listed in the annals of the 72 Great Celestials ("Celestii Magni"), nevertheless Suriel appears in myth as a consort to Ophidius/Ophidiel after he is cast out of the 72 over doctrinal disagreements. In those stories she is sometimes his companion, and sometimes his adversary, which is ironic to some extent because the heresy of Ophidius is that the universe is inherently dualist in nature, and she herself is impossible to peg as either a friend or foe.
• Elijin (il-EYE-jin), "the freedom provider", a celestial associated with comfort for and release of slaves from their bondage. The dragging War in the West, which began as a slave revolt, has tempered the popularity of this celestial a great deal, though his/her advocates argue that the celestial is profaned by the Kylmen, not in league with them.
• Undiel (UN-dee-el), Angel of the sea.

Basilidean Saints:

Basilidean Celestialism is replete with saints and generous with its awarding of sainthood. Each day of the calendar year has a host of feast days for various saints and angelic patrons, and another day reserved for all of them including any who might have been missed on the other days (First of Typhoneth's month, Nov 1, "Allsaints"). Saints have special intercessory powers, such as the ability to speak directly to the angels with whom they share a common spiritual substance, even when the mortal is sleeping or otherwise occupied. Saints and angels are often invoked in very similar ways in practice, but only Angels are to be true objects of worship. The Basilidean saints of note include:

• St. Basilides (ba-SIL-id-ees), the Archbishop whose practical and easily understood theologies first initiated and then spread this denomination through the east.
• St. Cyrilirus (sir-RILL-ee-us), the archbishop who led the eastern contingent at the Council of Chigrin and was the primary driver of the clean split from Valentinian theology.
• St. Nikolas (NICK-laws), a Basilidean Bishop who saved 5 children from an evil Cumaean landlord; his feast day (5th of Ycebiel's month - 5 Dec) is a popular worldwide festival based around a later myth by which a gang of capcauns steals evil children into the woods so that the good children can have a happy Yule feast on the 22nd.
• St. Panagea (panna-GEE-a), a paladin of Phanuel who was active in Naarod some centuries ago and made a saint after her success in calming Typhoneth and the Winter King. Her feast day is the midmonth of Astionel's Month.
• St. Firth, the patron saint of the Monastic Order of St. Firth, who freed many captives from Orc slave pens during the old war years in the 10,000's. Due to the War in the West he's not nearly as popular as he once was, but his feast is still celebrated with a summer fair on the City Green in late Niphonel's month.

Other saints These are people mentioned in place and object names (ship names, feast days, etc) but whose area of interest is not given or obvious; Use your imagination and define them for yourself:

• St. Ulven (Orphanage)
• St. Kyntia (Fast Frigate)