New Imperialism
Dominion Is Not Taken, It Is Owed
New Imperialism teaches that wealth and power are divine blessings from Okran, bestowed only upon the worthy. Poverty is seen not as misfortune, but as sin, an outward mark of corruption and the touch of the Demoness Narko.
History
The roots of New Imperialism trace back to the fall of the Second Empire and the bloody fracturing of early post-Ancient societies. In the years following the chaos, merchants, warlords, and nobles vied for control over fractured city-states and ruined lands. From this struggle rose Emperor Sadus the Golden, a former spice magnate who declared himself chosen by Okran not through divine vision or scripture, but by the weight of his coin and the size of his retinue. He preached a radical interpretation of faith, that wealth was not a burden to the soul, but proof of divine favor, and that Okran rewarded those with ambition, cunning, and the will to dominate.
His teachings spread quickly among the merchant elite and noble classes of the rising United Cities, offering moral justification for greed, slavery, and conquest. Over time, Sadus’s philosophy was canonized by imperial scribes and repackaged into the state-sanctioned religion of the Empire, New Imperialism. It stands in contrast, and often in quiet rivalry, to the original Church of Okran, which it claims has grown outdated, weak, and too focused on humility.
New Imperialism teaches that poverty, weakness, and failure are not simply misfortunes, they are heresies, signs of corruption and the touch of Narko, the Demoness of Disorder. To show compassion to the unworthy is to risk contamination, to rise in rank, wealth, or power is to walk Okran’s golden path.
Culture and People
Those who serve New Imperialism, whether priest, merchant, or noble, walk with the conviction that their station is ordained. Priests wear gilded robes, carry scrolls of commerce law like scripture, and speak in terms of value,
dominion, and inheritance. They do not preach in temples, but in markets, palaces, and courts, whispering sermons through trade deals and sentencing slaves with solemn ritual.
The faithful measure virtue by prosperity. A generous donor is more righteous than a humble beggar, a lord who seizes three towns holier than a soldier who dies defending one. Even commoners adopt the creed in subtler ways, judging their neighbors by coin, shunning the poor, and dressing in ways meant to signal favor from Okran. Pity is rare, and ambition is seen not as vice, but prayer made action.
To rise is to worship. To fall is to confess failure.
Okran blesses not the beggar but the builder. Let your throne be your altar,
your wealth, the hymn.
Rise... Child of Okran
Type
Religious, Monastic Order
Official State Religion
The Lesser Known
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