Liberated Path

Mystical Kivishta

The Liberated Path is Kivish religious sect that values magic and mysticism as necessary tools to find enlightenment.

Like all Kivish sects, the Reverent Path preaches that the world is a dream or illusion. Ederstone is a demonstration of the illusory nature of reality - it turns the world to malleable clay and defies all earthly logic. Kobolds, as the only things in the world immune to Ederstone and other transformation magic, are the only entirely-real people inhabiting the shared dream of reality. Similarly, while other people go to various afterlives (enduring in the dream for eternity), Kobold souls vanish after death to re-enter the cycle of reincarnation (or so the priests claim). As the real people within the shared dream, Kobolds have a special calling to seek enlightenment to escape the dream and become 'Awakened'. Until the believer has reached this ideal spiritual and mental state, they will be trapped in the cycle of suffering that is reality. Only the blessed few will fully transcend reality and suffering, while most people will have to wait until the coming of the messiah - called the Irunek - to usher in an age of enlightenment.

Unlike the other Kivish sects, the Liberated Path teaches that enlightenment is a gradual process tied to a mystical, personal, symbolic interpretation and understanding of the material world. All the world is a dream, but dreams have fundamental meaning - by embracing The Dream as an experience while rejecting it as true, initiates can learn more about themselves and the true spiritual nature of things. While the Reverent Path seeks to imprison all Ederstone in their city of Rumakel to limit and domesticate chaos magic, the Liberated Path seeks to set chaos magic free to work its miracles upon the world. When chaos magic creates hazards and monsters, Liberated Path mystics see trials of character and stories of struggle. Some seek harmony with chaos magic and believe that there are non-violent ways to make the chaos wastes safely inhabitable. Other Liberated Kivish embrace the violent hardship of the wasteland as a way to become strong in spirit.
Liberated Path Kivish groups interpret omens and prophecies in chaos; some Liberated Kivish Priests are said to be able to read the mutations of a wasteland to read its "mood" and trends of magical change. Many Liberated Path groups also share a troubling belief in Metamorphosis: that Ederstone exposure can elevate non-Kobolds into being Elevated Beings that bring good into the world. These include both "Ethereals", spiritual heralds who chant Liberated dogma, and Angels, powerful and erratic monsters that often wield great power. While mainstream Liberated Path dogma demands that metamorphosis be purely consensual (that is the source of its goodness), many outsiders find the practice repulsive and suspect that the Liberated Path trick and indoctrinate those who join them. And, given that Liberated Path Kivishta lack a religious hierarchy and practice varies between communities, Liberated Path groups can certainly become high-control cults.
The Liberated Path is an individualist mystical tradition, that often teaches that rules and hierarchy among the religious elite create ignorance and stagnation. Individual Liberated Path religious and political leaders might teach their own strict rules and create tiny pockets of authoritarian rule, as the focus on personal freedom tends to prioritize local leaders rather than the general populace. Still, many Liberated Path mystics preach total individualism and freedom for all followers of the Path.

Structure

There is no universal structure for Liberated Path communities. Each group may have its own structure and inherited local hierarchy. Generally, a Liberated Path band may have a Kivish Priest to act as the formal keeper of knowledge and traditions, with one or more Kivish Gurus acting in various religious roles (sometimes part-time) depending on their earned respect within the community. A large Liberated Path community might either borrow Reverent Path titles for their over-priests or they might make their own.
Liberated Path communities typically are part of Conventicles, or local clusters of Liberated Path communities who share people, religious specialists, wisdom, and resources. Conventicles often have their representatives meet annually (usually during Kivish New Year), though they may agree to meet more or less often. Conventicles only have power if there is unanimous agreement among the priests to give their local institution power. Generally, most Conventicles have no power but to deny their mutual-aid benefits to members who disobey Liberated tenets or act against the common good. 
Some Conventicles form larger associations, which vary in their official names. Many of these associations form around permanent Liberated Path installations like sacred shrines, monasteries, libraries, or schools. These broad Liberated Path spaces are often quite tolerant of dogmatic and ritual difference, and are known as Free Havens. 
While Liberated Path leaders have traditionally eschewed supreme political power and hierarchy, a new group has emerged to claim leadership of all Liberated Path peoples: The Nightmare Kingdom of Kazel-Karn. This group is led by the Circle of Prophets, a group of ten Liberated Path leaders who commune with the Heavenly Host (a large assemblage of Angels). Some Liberated Path communities accept the leadership of Kazel-Karn, as the Nightmare Kingdom asks little of its subjects and represents a symbolic competitor to the Empire of Kizen. Other Liberated Path communities reject Kazel-Karns's authority as fundamentally at odds with Liberated Path values.

Culture

Species: Kobold Leadership

The Liberated Path, like much of Kivishta, fundamentally accepts that Kobolds are the most true and real people in the world - sleeping souls wandering The Dream, while other species are a part of that Dream. Kobolds tend to be the primary audience of the Liberated Path as a result. Other species, particularly highly-irradiated Starspawn, are welcomed into the community not as spiritual equals but as spiritual guides and "characters" of the Dream to be interpreted. While different Liberated Path communities interpret these ideas differently, it is generally considered very strange for any non-Kobold to hold a position of religious or political authority within a Liberated Path group.
Generally, the Liberated Path encouraged a kind and gentle treatment of non-Kobold outsiders. These "characters" or "figments" are sent by the Dream for a reason, after all. Some "characters" exist just to give basic perspective, others exist to generate "good energy" by helping them, and others have the important role of undergoing metamorphosis to become an aid to enlightenment. This can lead to the Liberated Path acting in "erratic" and "scary" ways for uninformed outsiders. A Liberated commune might lovingly care for a total stranger visiting their village, only to cheer when their new friend is suddenly killed by a monster in front of them - and instead of giving that friend a burial, they eagerly have a haruspex cut the body open to read as an omen. It would be easy for an outsider to interpret that as trickery or even human sacrifice, when it is just the Path interpreting a tragic event in a mystical way. It should be noted that this warm regard for non-Kobolds is not some kind of oath of pacifism - like people of any faith, Liberated Path members can be raiders, mercenaries, bandits, and conquerors. 
Like with all things about the Liberated Path, there are limits to the valid generalizations around the Liberated Path's attitudes towards species. Many Liberated Path groups toy with the idea of other species being people within the Dream. Perhaps other species are fellow sleepers, but their waking forms are ageless shapeshifters (hence their false afterlives and malleability). Maybe other species are "test drives" of particularly-lost or newborn souls, who generate fake afterlife-souls to act as a form of library of experience. Maybe other species are actually former Kobolds who are being damned to hell, losing their waking privileges and being stuck in the Dream forever. These are all valid Liberated Path beliefs that modify how various Liberated Path groups treat non-Kobold outsiders.

Extremes, Charisma, and Choice

The Liberated Path contains multitudes. A single Liberated Path acolyte looking for enlightenment might jump from band to band, dogma to dogma, lifestyle to lifestyle. They might live as an ascetic warrior-monk embracing struggle against the chaos wastes for one decade, then live in a gentle commune village doing psychadelics the next decade. To the Liberated Path, this isn't a sign of inconsistency or false-faith, but a perfectly acceptable practice. Some Liberated followers devote their whole life to a single tradition and never leave their band, while others follow a winding path through many disciplines. Every individual has a different path to Enlightenment. There is simply no single straight line from birth to enlightenment. And while most Liberated traditions see other traditions as false, they understand that the exploration of falseness is the basis for all experienced life. All that is within the Liberated Path is fair game to sample, though wandering to other Kivish sects or out of the faith entirely is a very spiritually dangerous path only to be walked by a daring few. The Liberated Path alone has the flexibility and freedom for people to explore it freely - it is taught that leaving the sect entirely means submitting to a foreign hierarchy that will crush spiritual freedom and lead the person into mental slavery. While Liberated Path priests all claim that it is very easy to simply leave their community and that they promote unlimited individual choice, not all Liberated Path communities make leaving equally easy. Some Path groups create intense material or social pressures for people to stay. Even in these high-control settings, the illusion of individual choice and consent is typically there (which is more than could be said for most religions in this world). 
The loose organization of the Liberated Path makes charisma and reputation incredibly important to advancement. Charismatic firebrands who can present their ideas and communities in an appealing way tend to accumulate clout and followers, and may have more success persuading or bullying other Liberated groups in their conventicle. Not all social power and "charisma" is direct interpersonal charisma, though. Plenty of awkward, unsociable, and eccentric people who have a big enough reputation can cultivate a sense of mystery or mastery that attracts followers and translates into clout just as much as a silver tongue. This pressure to be charismatic, esteemed, and to offer something other mystics cannot is part of what drives Liberated Path communities to be so diverse and so prone to forming cults of personality.

History

Origins of the Path (-100 to 1400)

The Liberated Path has old roots in various dissenting and heretical communities against the early Truthful Path, who argued that the centralized military authority of the Kivish Horde led to various forms of spiritual degredation. Liberated Path historians would go further, arguing that their sect is the true original form of the Kivish religion before the ancient prophet Verkohn the Honest formed the Kivish Horde in 480 ME. Certainly, there were diverse and mystical forms of Kobold religion in the centuries between -100 DE and 480 ME that have strong similarities to Kivish religion and could be interpreted as "Liberated" in their diversity and fluidity. That said, those ancient religious traditions definitely did not identify as "Liberated" and had none of the modern Liberated fixations on dream interpretation, Ederstone cult, magical metamorphosis, personal choice, or individualistic stoicism.
The Liberated Path as we know it formed as a concrete ideology in 988 ME, during a civil war in the First Empire of Kizen (successor to the Kivish Horde). The Liberated Path joined with the Reverent Path in overthrowing the Empire in 999 ME, destroying the ancient Truthful Path and throwing the religion into chaos. From 999 ME to 1100 ME, the Liberated and Reverent Paths fought for dominance as the "true" successor to the Truthful Path. The Liberated Path was gradually forced out of the Kivish heartlands, fleeing to the hinterlands, chaos wastes, and Southern coastal regions. Over the course of the 1200s and 1300s, the ascendant Second Empire of Kizen pushed the Liberated Path further and further away from the most prosperous territories in North Stildane. Liberated Path groups began to migrate extremely far, venturing into Southern Stildane, Boram, and Uzeven in large numbers. 

Finding New Homes (1400 to 1700)

The Liberated Path tried to retake control of their old homelands during the Fourth Kivish Scouring (a large Kivish civil war), but ultimately ended up siding with the Reverent Path once again against dangerous new sects - notably the rising Exalted Path, which was poaching dissatisfied and radical Liberated Path communities. The other new Kivish sect, the Promised Path, was similarly unkind to the Liberated Path priesthood and worked to forcibly convert or exile Liberated Path communities wherever they settled. 
After the end of the Fourth Scouring in 1440, the Liberated Path spent centuries migrating, building new local traditions, and generally focused on local concerns. Unlike the other Paths, the Liberated Kivish refused to organize themselves on principle and generally did not engage in large scale political or military projects. Still, the Liberated Path didn't spend these centuries doing nothing: local bands built countless schools, temples, and shrines, explored regions considered uninhabitable, and built homes for themselves in the isolated inland chaos frontier of Uzeven. 

Modern History

The Fifth Scouring, when the Empire of Kizen was taken over by Truthful Path imitator heretics and went on a rampage across Northern Stildane, created a sudden surge in violence that pushed Liberated Path communities together. At the same time, that same violence pushed many refugees into the Liberated Path's arms. One group, the Daughters of Heaven, took particular advantage of this chaos to build up their communities. The Daughters of Heaven united many Liberated bands near the conflict zone into a great League. A charismatic prophet named Letma Angelkin harnessed the League to create the Nightmare Kingdom of Kazel-Karn in 1955. 
Now, with the rise of Kazel-Karn and the growth of trade networks moving through the chaos wastes towards Inahng and Suneka, Liberated Path communities are growing larger and wealthier again. Liberated communities are deeply divided on how to approach these changes without losing their ascetic, mystical, and decentralized character. Some groups have worked to forge greater harmony and consensus between them and other communities, while others have become more competitive and militaristic. Perhaps the stage is set for a new charismatic leader to bring even more change to the Liberated peoples.

Read the Dream. Let us Wake.

Founding Date

988 ME

Type

Religious, Sect

Parent Organization

Kivishta

Permeated Organizations

• The Nightmare Kingdom of Kazel-Karn

Location

Stildane

Related Ranks & Titles

• Irunek

Related Species

• Kobold