Keveket

The Great Hierarchy of Keveket is dedicated to peace, tranquility, order, and harmony. Dangerous knowledge is kept secret, dangerous weapons are kept for safe keeping, and dangerous people are restrained and kept in check. All power is to be in the hands of the Highest Order, where calm heads and wise thoughts prevail. Kings, merchants, all in power must be watched over and kept in check. All social change must be carefully vetted, all new ideas must be checked by higher powers for potential danger. This is the will of Gods.
There are two main kinds of Keveket: that of the commonfolk, and that of the elites. Elite Keveket has become a coldly mechanical religious philosophy over the years, sometimes even verging on atheistic. The Creator Gods are depersonalized, made into cosmic principles that are more math than person. Worship, ritual, and the like should be pragmatic and coldly emotionless. All that matters is what you can personally experience. Lesser Gods and Immortals are real, of course, but their power and moral standing is exaggerated. One stands above the rest as a prophet-God of true Wisdom and Enlightenment: Agamine the Lost, whose heavenly silence and aloofness is a sign of his ascended purpose. All other Gods and Immortals have their purposes, of course. Everyone and everything has its divine purpose in the great cosmic clockwork. Everything needs only to be understood and used appropriately, and this is where correct philosophy becomes important. 
Common Keveket is a lot more personal, spiritual, and superstitious. The Creator Gods may be principles, but they are still people, with personalities and preferences and hungers! The dead are important, can influence the world, and are worthy of reverence. Nature is alive with spirits. Miracles are possible in this world. Agamine is still the prophet-God, but he was fallible and complicated and his silence is a reflection of his personal journey and exile. 
Both branches of Keveket share the same stories, ideas, and ethics. But elite Keveket draws a line between the mind and the body, between emotion and logic, between perception and reality. Common Keveket just has a much blurrier line and makes fewer value judgments. 
All of Keveket agrees in the same basic message, though: Change is Danger, Peace is Goodness, Tradition is Purpose.

Structure

Elite Keveket rules the roost - common Keveket is disdained as an afterthought by the Hierarchy. The Hierarchy of Keveket prioritizes political power and the production and regulation of the Empty over spiritual guidance. Theology is deemed "complete" and pointless to debate or teach - everyone has already had every necessary thought and there's no point thinking or fighting over it now. 
The Hierarchy is led by a Head Office, which sets policy for Branch Offices to follow. Branch Offices act as regional authorities with a great deal of autonomy, as long as they follow orders. The current Head Office is in the Kingdom of Latashu. There are six other branch offices in Kurtarsa, Logota, Mahkem, Dalekir, Novosem, and Esedeta. A new branch office is being constructed underwater in the Maradian bay currently. 

Rank	Role
Heirarch/The Highest Order	Meet in an oligarchy of ten that acts as the supreme authority
Arbiter of the Head Office	Run the head office
Arbiter of the Branch Office	Run the Branch office
Justicar	Act as the Office agents
Shining Overseer	Manage the spiritual and political needs of a region
Head Priest	Manage the priests and common-priests of a province
Priest	Administer moral advice, community outreach in the cities
Common-priest	Go out into countryside and govern

While the Keveket Hierarchy only directly administers its own Empty construction, it closely works with the Great Factories of the other faiths to keep the monopoly.

Culture

Species Preference: Prisms but mostly class

Prisms have a special place in Keveket. Their long lives and 'dependable nature' make them reliable and skilled. Their mining is considered more important than other species' agriculture, as it also provides the materials required for building and production. 
That isn't to say that all rulership is reserved for prisms. Any individual can climb the Hierarchy if they are analytically or mathematically smart enough. Class is the more glaring divide here. If a hurricane, both the prism-communities and the properties of the wealthy will be prioritized - the poor dryads, humans, and hybrids of the land will always come last. And any prism community that leaves the close embrace of the Hierarchy abandons all privilege. 

Meritocracy, Class, and Personhood

The difference between rich and poor is immense in Keveket. The common laborer is seen as an animal in all but appearance, just a step above a construct. They are mindless machines in the eyes of the Hierarchy, and their lives are valuable more in their number than their quality. Ten suffering commoners are better than two happy ones, morally speaking, because there are more of them. More life is more goodness. Simple. Happiness is useful because it improves efficiency; when it does not, it is no longer useful or desirable. 
There are rare exceptions of course. Mutations that make the commoners more than machines, that make them like us. But that is why the meritocracy is important: all people have a right to attempt to prove their intellect and competence (and therefore, personhood) via standardized testing. They don't have a right to education (that would be wasted on the majority of commoners), but they do have a right to try. 
All those who make it into the elite class have access to a very nice series of inherent rights to food, shelter, medicine, and employment. And those within the elite class have a habit of keeping their families there, through education and nepotism. Intelligence is seen as inheritable, at least in some small amount. 

Conflict Avoidance

There is no greater taboo in Keveket than aggression. Aggression and violence are seen as inherently gross and unintelligent things that demonstrate a lack of tranquility. Violence is one of the great sins of Keveket, and aggression demonstrates one's inability to battle the most basic of animalistic impulses. Aggressive posturing, tone, or any kind of display of anger are all seen as aggressive displays in the culture of Keveket. These things are allowed in war, or when hunting criminals, but these actions still require the soldier who did them to purify themselves afterwards. And elites are allowed more leeway when displaying anger down the ranks of command (as it is simply the harshness of a teacher to a student). But generally speaking, this is a religion with a culture of intense aversion to all conflict. Causing trouble by raising concerns is tolerated, but can be interpreted as a kind of aggression as well if everyone agrees.

History

Origins

Before Keveket, Maradian religion was a variety of local-oriented animisms devoted to connecting with and understanding the natural world. The discovery that the ocean was inhabited with sentient species in the mid Divine Era opened the world to a variety of possibilities - what could be sentient next? It confirmed an understanding of the world as a place that is alive and sentient. In the -600s and -500s, divine intervention changed it all: Halcyon reached down and inspired a lowly prism tinkerer by name of Agamine with the secret to powerful magical constructs known as the Empty.
To protect the world from their potential danger, Agamine entrusted a group of loyal priests and disciples with the exclusive knowledge of how to make and repair the Empty. This group became known as the @Cult, and their influence spread far and wide across the land. The Cult was seen as the ultimate divine authority, and soon attracted a massive following of mystics and supplicants. Over the last few centuries of the Divine Era, they began to grow comfortable with their position as God-Kings, and were picking fights with the other kings and priests of the area. Even worse, they were winning, and by the 100 ME were on track to build a massive empire.
Agamine, ascended as a Lunar God, was deeply upset by this development and jumped into action to course correct. His paladins were able to help an overthrow of the Cult from within, and the overly ambitious and militaristic cult leaders were imprisoned. Agamine also used this opportunity to correct a few theological misconceptions of the Cult. The Cult had twisted the local belief systems to their advantage, and believed that the Empty could serve as vessels for powerful spirits. The Empty of the Cult Leaders were made into idols, and some were essentially walking shrines - and their deference to the leaders was to set an example. Agamine found this disturbing, and clarified that the Empty are indeed Empty (hence the origin of the modern name). Agamine's paladins were told to create a new order of 'Keveket' ("Truth in Peace"), a regime of honesty and pacifism that sought to mediate, not rule.

Peacemaker Era (105 to 600 ME)

While Agamine had saved Maradia from takeover by the Cult of Living Stone, the monarchies that succeeded it were no better. They fought and squabbled and threw away lives for money and power. Agamine was deeply disappointed that these rulers seemed to miss the point of the faith's morals. Agamine decided he was going to put a stop to this pointless war. He asked his fellow Lunar Gods for aid and together the pantheon went to work. The enforcers of the Cult of Stone, that tracked down people who tried to steal their secrets, were given great assistance in taking back total control of the Empty trade. Those rulers who obeyed Agamine were allowed to trade in Empty freely; all who refused were cut off from purchases and repairs. Some kings tried to conquer what they could not buy, but the faithful united against them. And those warriors and kings who did pose a threat to that defensive alliance were killed off quickly by paladins and enforcers in a series of assassinations. The arrival of Corpseblight and other diseases from increased trade was treated as further divine punishment for straying from peace and harmony.
From 105 to 390, peace reigned in Maradia and the Hierarchy of Keveket watched over the land. The first signs of fracture were not on the planet, but in heaven: the Lunar Pantheon was slowly turning against itself, dispute by dispute. They stopped working in unison and they started working against each other in certain parts of the world. Maradia was not initially all too bothered by this - Agamine had assumed direct control already, and the system no longer needed that much help from above. In the late 300s, a climatic anomaly struck South Maradia and brought a few decades of poorer harvests. A terrible plague soon followed, and the developing cities there were abandoned as death traps by their human occupants. The Dryads and Prisms who remained were unaffected by the disease and assumed total control over the Empty and local power. This new leadership only made things worse, as they lashed out in fear and took what resources they could for themselves. The humans died ever-faster, and called to heaven for salvation. Ishkibal was unfortunately the first and clearest to answer their calls. He branded the dryads and prisms as 'demons' and coordinated an armed revolution. Ishkibal's paladins rode in and helped fight the plague, and with his help they reduced its spread. Only Theia the Liberator was able to try and slow the spread of this new worship of Ishkibal - with all the hatred and fear it brought.
Ishkibal's movement was initially dismissed - South Maradia was undeveloped, and these new Ishkibites were far from Desmia and seemed destined to "get over themselves". They did not - and a species war between humans and dryads broke out across South and Central Maradia. One region, Pelikit, became a bastion of this new faith. The Keveket tried their blockades and assassinations, to no avail. These "Ishket" warriors were driven by faith and fear, not greed or an isolated tyrant. It took until the 500s for this "Ishket" movement to cool, but Maradia was left deeply shaken. Keveket was left with a fear of overt spirituality, disdain of the other Lunar Gods than Agamine, and a new direct political control over local kingdom's militaries. "New Desmia" had been contained and declawed, but Keveket grew ever colder.

Sharpened Keveket (600 to 1400)

Keveket's increased policing of those in power was critical for containing Ishket, stopping war, and preventing construct abuse. But it did lead to the emergence of a rather cold and ruthless priestly elite that looked down at those below them suspicion. A group known as the 'Toruket' or "inner peace" movement emerged as a reaction against all this. The Toruket saw true peace as an individual state, called for a return to nature and mysticism, and rejected the inherent superiority of the Highest Order. Agamine tried to bring the ruling Keveket and the Toruket together in compromise, but ultimately just made the problem worse by legitimizing this movement and confusing who to listen to. And when the Toruket were defeated, the ruling elite doubled down on their old policy. Agamine was too indecisive to act, and Keveket further crystallized into an elite institution.
Agamine took decades to formulate a clear plan of correction, but this approach was foiled by yet another fun surprise: a massive outbreak of a new blight in South Maradia in the 1000s. Lily of Red, Orchid of Blue, and Ishkibal fought for control of the situation, and a radical Dryad version of Ishket emerged that no party fully controlled. This sparked a new wave of species conflicts, and the whole Pantheon descended on Maradia to defend "their" species or favored groups. War began to break out again - Keveket needed to be more strong and ruthless than ever before. And Agamine had to focus on asserting his influence just to keep any shred of control, as the rest of the Pantheon reached to take Keveket for themselves.
By 1200, the radical sects had all integrated into an increasingly theologically wild Ishket religion, and Keveket reigned supreme once more. Agamine's rule was unchallenged as the Supreme God, and all who questioned his power were executed in a purge of heresy and "wrong belief". Agamine felt deep shame at directly enabling this, and even helping with it - it felt like an impossible moral quandary, and he felt like he had violated everything he stood for. He worked as hard as he could to try and de-militarize Keveket in the 1200s, to make amends.
In the 1300s, the branch offices went to war over which qualified as the Home Office, and Agamine decided he would simply give up. He worked to insulate Keveket from the influence of the rest of the Lunar Pantheon, and withdrew from command. Eventually, Agamine stopped answering contacts altogether. But, again, peace mostly reigned.

Keveket On Its Own (1400 to 1800)

In 1440, the mystics of the countryside, the descendants of the Toruket movement, rose in rebellion in the Northeast. The plains tribes had had enough of city-slickers treating them as illegitimate, and rode with fire and fury against the Keveket authorities. They were able to capture their own Arcane Factory and Branch Office - and Keveket's Highest Order was forced to negotiate with them, lest they reveal the secrets of Empty construction. They tried to meet together in 1456 to find common ground between them, but it was eventually agreed by both sides that it would be better if these tribes just founded their own religion. The faith of Heksala was born, and Keveket was starting to lose ground in Maradia. In the late 1500s, the Ishket (again, in a calmer state) seized their own Arcane Factory. The Highest Order was left fuming: Maradia was their's, and they were tired of having their perfect peace threatened by these ingrates.
First, Keveket turned to expand elsewhere, to foreign lands. In 1460, they took their first kingdom in distant Ekraht: the Kingdom of Esedeta, a perfect outpost from which to expand West. The agents of Keveket even tried to take the continent's dominant Empire of Zerua for themselves in 1530.
In 1620, all three religions met in a most curious conference. It was not a meeting of peace, but an agreement for how they would fight the approaching war - and that they would agree not to ruin the monopoly for everyone else when it happened. Like fine gentlefolk, everyone headed home and built their weapons of war, to fight a more refined and civilized war. The Great War of Control ensued: a massive conflict that dragged on, as the continent entered a free-for-all.
Keveket, distracted by its wars in Ekraht and without clear Divine support, lost despite its overwhelming resource advantage. But no one really won. The Head Office of Keveket had to relocate from the Holy City of Vetuza to the coastal land of Latashu, but it was more of a setback than a full defeat. The war ended with some shifted borders and some representation of Ishket and Heksalan leadership at the new Highest Order chamber, but it mostly calmed the egos of the leaders involved.
The Keveket also faced overwhelming odds. The Empire of Zerua began entering militaristic overdrive in 1690 and was tearing through their Ekratan outposts. After 1810, the war was fully lost - only Esedeta remained Keveket in Ekraht. Instead of invest more in that pointless war, many within the Hierarchy chose to invest in colonizing Ukaram instead.

The Current Order (1800 to Present)

The last peace agreement between the Maradian Hierarchies and offices was signed in 1780, but the struggle was not over. Esedeta and Zerua continued fighting each other in the West; the Ukaram colonies were expanding rapidly in the North; and a new threat was arriving in the East. The religions of Nafena were arriving in full force. The Singing Church of Orisha and the Final Choir of Vetevism could no longer be held back, and they surged through the Southern lands of Maradia. Ishket, Heksala, and Keveket united together to face them, but lost ground steadily through the late 1800s and early 1900s. While a peace was negotiated formally in 1920 ME, the Nafenans continue to evangelize among the Maradian lower classes (which Keveket refuses to fully recognize as people, and therefore fails to notice).
In 2001, Keveket took on a new approach: going to the oceans. A new Arcane Factory and Branch Office are being developed, on route for completion in 2020. And in the North, a new Arcane Factory site is being scouted in Ukaram. What new forms will Keveket face, marching over the tropics and seas?

Mythology & Lore

Creation

In the beginning, there was chaos. And then, from nothing came something: Halcyon. Halcyon began as a principle, an idea, that goodness exists. That things should live and multiply. The old chaos was subsumed instantly and the universe was made with Halcyon at its center.
From Halcyon, many spirits and orders arrived. But growth is a painful process. Conflict began. Elements of the world lost their way. To correct course, Halcyon sent down divine inspiration to her favored prophet, Agamine the Found. Agamine revealed the true way and worked great miracles to place fate back on its correct course - as Halcyon always intended. Eventually, Agamine left to join Halcyon beyond our world, to watch creation grow

The Anthropomorphized Gods

There are numerous myths and legends of the Gods as people that do not fit the established Keveket canon of the Highest Order. These legends name the Gods and turn them into people - something that elite Keveket considers false, superstitious, patronizing, and bad luck (as naming Gods risks the ire of others that go unnamed). Here are a few examples:

• Halcyon, Goddess of Knowledge, Being, Law, and Goodness. Often a slightly flawed but ultimately goodhearted teacher and sage, perhaps with a sense of humor
• Agamine, the Prophet-God of Building, Artisans, Agriculture, and Writing. A cautious and timid student of Halcyon, desperate to win her approval and always striving to be better
• Emun, the All-Earth, the soul-spring, the Goddess of wealth, minerals, healthy children, and marriages; endlessly generous but sometimes rather mean when offended
• Rekagu, the Turtle that carries the world on its back. Immensely wise but incredibly slow
• Agnielos, God of volcanos, fire, the sun, and metallurgy. Energetic, apathetic, destructive, but creative
• Uvong, the Bird of Storms and Rain. Seeks to calm passions, but can destroy in her own attempts at caution
• Aviwari, the Worm-Mole, Lord of Prophecy and Ghosts, Guide of the Deal
• Rumatar, the all-weaver, guardian of fate. Jealous, strict, but knowledgeable. 
• Telesper, the Bat-God of travel, magic, and song

The Lunar Pantheon also have folk interpretations that go with these legends. Lily is a guardian of the wild who is periodically obsessed with the hunt and demands strict obedience in her wild domain. Ishkibal is a great warrior and strategist who is always looking for a fight and is always paranoid someone is attacking him. Jade is a mage-queen who forgets anyone else exists. Orchid is a healer who expects payment for everything she does and is quite stingy. Wimbo is a god of vengeance who is easy distracted with booze. Emesh is a shapeshifting traveler. Theia is a guardian that can get over-protective. And Haru is an easily distracted and mercurial god of sunbeams.

Cosmological Views

The world is math, dependable and clean. Everything makes sense to the Gods - we just don't have the math down yet. Everything also has a purpose to build, to grow, and to multiply. This is righteous and good. More life and more things is the ultimate measure of goodness; less life and less things is the ultimate measure of badness. It really is that simple. Anyone who says otherwise is overcomplicating things to compensate for not being smart.
As for the world beyond ours, it is essentially pointless to get all concerned. Its all predestined anyways, and anything that happens, happens for a reason. The wise and the smart will devise a plan to bring us all to paradise anyways. Only mystics and blasphemers speak at length about death and what comes after.
As for the Lunar Pantheon, most of the Lunar Gods are seen as 'useful' rather than right. The Lunar Gods can be destructive and wrong because they aren't meant to be asked questions outside their specialty! Forming a deal with a Lunar God that isn't Agamine is a recipe for disaster unless you are contained to a specific specialty.

• Agamine the Lost is the exception. He is correct in all things, but refuses to say much because goodness is self-explanatory
• Hiku is a muse, to be asked about art, bardism, and experimentation. 
• Jade is a legalist, to be asked for aid in writing law
• Orchid of Blue is a healer and bureaucrat, ask her for efficient government systems
• Lily of Red is for druidism and ecosystems
• Ishkibal is for military strategy
• Emesh is for trade and understanding foreign cultures
• Haru is for solars
• Wimbo Aizitu is for crime fighting
• Theia the Liberator is for slaver-hunting

Tenets of Faith

• Seek Peace Always: All violence is unholy, all conflict is a path to hate. All violence must be carefully controlled and regulated by those wise enough to know that it is evil
• Tradition is Purpose: You are a cog in a divine machine. Play your part. Follow tradition.
• Listen to those who know better: You are weak, limited, blind to the consequences of your action. Obey your betters
• Build, Beautify: The world seeks order. Bring it the order it craves. Build cities, make art, carve the world into shape
• Evil is Ignorance: People are not evil; people are just stupid. Actions are evil. Forgive and forget past evils, lest you be tempted to do evil as well.
• Control Yourself: Impulses and temptation take us to dark places. Be calm, be peaceful, be in control.
• The Smartest Shall Rule: Those who are the best educated and the most analytically (or mathematically) smart have a divine mandate to lead. They may not want to, but it is their duty.
• Safeguard Power: Secrets or arts of great power, such as magical arts or how to make the Empty, belong out of the hands of self-destructive commoners or foreigners. It is the sacred duty of all Keveket to defend the sacred arts and secrets.

Ethics

Keveket is strictly consequentialist in its morality: an action can be judged by its consequences, not its intent. Intent is unknowable and pointless. People are machines, they are prone to act repetitively and without logic. We react to stimuli according to trained and observable ways. We have impulses that simply exist as organisms. Thoughts and "reasons" are just excuses we make to cover up our impulses and trained behaviors. 
Justice is less important for punishing reasons and more important to train the population against a specific action. People must also be harshly trained through either "conditioning" (often via forced labor and mantras) or preventing them from ever committing that crime again (via mutilation or death). So thieves lose hands, blasphemers lose tongues, etc, unless they choose conditioning instead. 
Preventative justice is also a big thing here. If you are likely to commit a crime, it is moral to forcibly prevent you from doing it. There is no divine principle of punishment to require the sin to be done first - you wouldn't have really meant it if you'd done it anyways. There are limits to this, of course, but certain crimes (such as stealing secrets of the Empty) have basically no limits to preventative justice.

Worship

In the cities, Elite Keveket temples host a number of meetings and rituals to reaffirm community order and bonds: once a week for neighborhoods, once a week for guilds or professional groups, once a week for families. When not within the community, followers of elite Keveket are to review temple-provided guidelines for moral behavior every week and chant mantras every night on moral behaviors before bed. 
Repetitious mantras are a big thing in Keveket generally. They are seen as a way to condition oneself into orderly and virtuous behavior. 
The countryside has much more organic worship. Halcyon is in the trees, in the sky, in the sea; the holy principles resonate like sound through every natural thing and living thing. Worship is communal and repetitious but has an almost 'druidic' naturalistic element to it.

Priesthood

Entry into the hierarchy is decided via standardized tests relating to math, theology, conflict mediation theory, and social structure. They then enter large religious academies for further training and testing to decide their ultimate place within the Hierarchy. Advancement is possible, but it is rare for someone starting at the lower echelons to rise to the Highest Order.
Community priests wear white and grey robes with orange-trimmed hats. Upper administration typically wears orange-and-purple dyed silk robes. All certified priests are to have their names and an identification number stitched into their robes.

Political Influence & Intrigue

Keveket rules over a cluster of countries in Maradia, Ekraht, and Ukaram. This is not official rule, but it means a lot of interference and regulation in practice. All use, trade, construction, and repair of Empty constructs in Keveket families is regulated by the Hierarchy. Trade policy is set by the Hierarchy; military leadership needs Keveket oversight.
The Hierarchy splits matters of education with local states.

Sects

The Enforcers of Agamine are the greatest holy order within Keveket. This group strictly controls information regarding the creation of the Empty and hunts down those who would steal or misuse it.
In terms of divergent sects, the only significant one is the Branch Office of Esedeta - a distant and isolated kingdom in Ekraht. Esedeta's version of Keveket is less conflict-averse, more militaristic, and slightly less classist.

Peace At Any Cost

Founding Date

105 ME

Type

Religious, Organised Religion

Predecessor Organization

• Cult of the Living Stone

Demonym

Keveket

Subsidiary Organizations

• The Maradian Enforcers

Permeated Organizations

• Kingdom of Esedeta
• Kingdom of Novosem
• Latashu Sovereignty

Deities

• Agamine the Lost
• Halcyon

Divines

• Agamine the Lost

Location

Maradia

Official Languages

• Ortesian Language