The Church of the Sacred Flame

"At the end of time, the Sacred Flame will cleans this world of all it's sinners and give it's loyal children the perfect world that they deserve"
The Church of the Sacred Flame, or the CSF, is a religious order that was originally created short after the first people came to the continent of Astonia. Their message was to embrace the warmth of love, for that is the true flame that sparks life. They never grew to a big religion for they didn't worship any gods. THe gods themselfs cared very little for the church and it's few followers.
When Falka, the first queen of Redania rose to power she made sure that every follower of the CSF was welcome in her city. She herself was a fanatic follower and she build a few churches throughout the city. Falka's actions increased the amount of followers significantly and gave the CSF a home from where they could opperate and where their followers could gather.
The amount of followers slowly increased over time, but it was not until Radovid I created the Burning Man festival, that the CSF became a big religious order. After the first festival, almost every citizen of Redania and many surrounding cities and villages where part of the church. The church did still allow it's followers to worship gods and it allowed everyone to enter. They spread their message of love all over the southern parts of Astonia.
Over the years the church established a hierarchie, with 7 priest and 1 high priest as the leaders of the CSF. They would make sure it's followers where indeed spreading love and that they where worthy to be a child of the Sacred Flame. Over the years the added a few more ranks.
The CSF slowly began shunning tieflings for they where of hellish blood. They believed that all fire was corrupt except the fire of the Sacret Flame. Soon they also denied Dragonborn to become followers for they and their kind used fire as a weapon to kill and their fire was unholy. This kept going over the years and slowly the CSF began denying more and more races from becomming a follower of the church. They also started forbidding the worshipping of gods, for the gods are not worthy either. They are not the real god but pretenders who manipulate the people for their own gain.
It wasn't until Radovid V father of Radovic VI was murdered by an elf assassin and Radovic VI became king that the church started to hate non-humans. previously they only denied membership to non-humans but now they where actively making them look bad . The CSF claimed their souls are impure and corrupt and that they where not worthy of the sacred flame. Together with Radovids anti-magic campaign the church quickly got every human in Redania at their side, activly trying to scare away all non-humans.
Now many magicc-users and non-humans are fleeing Redania as they are no longer welcome. Radovids Witchhunters are one of the most loyal followers of the CSF.
"This church used to be a symbol of love, but all we see now is hatred. They are not the corrupted sould, but we are" -A priest of the CSF before he got executed for helping a elven mage escape out of Redania

Type

Religious, Cult