The Cult of the Moons

One only needs to look into the sky, see the broken moons, to know the dangers of hubris and power. The gods led us all astray, and now we suffer the consequences of their actions. Their power remains, in the Rings, in the Crystals, but also in you and I, not because it was actually their power to begin with. This power is for all of mankind, and we must prove that we are more responsible than the gods...or risk becoming them ourselves.
-On the Nature of Man & the Divine, Harven Fen, Year 14 of the Fourth Age

Divine Domains

Arcana Death Nature Forge

Holy Books & Codes

As the Cult of the Moons is jealous of their powers and of exclusive membership, not much is known about their literature to those uninitiated. Their published works available to the world at large are screeds and pamphlets that seem only to reinforce that they know things others do not, and they are not sharing.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Two crescent moons, facing in opposite directions, and joined by a ring.
To greet another initiate, raise your arms to chest level, place your wrists back to back, cup your hands into opposing C's, and bow your head.

Tenets of Faith

The Cult of the Moons believes that their divine powers are available to all, and have been all this time. The gods do not truly have a monopoly on divine power, that is just what they want mortals to think. The fact that they can channel divine power without the grace of a deity seems to prove their point. However, the secret of how they do this is the most precious secret of the entire faith; one will spend many years after first being initiated, tested and tried many times, to prove their loyalty.
Besides their secrecy, the Cult of the Moons is a blatantly racist organization, at least at the upper levels. It is forbidden to initiate any non-humans, though a rare few half-elves and half-orcs have turned up and caused quite the scandal. Younger initiates that did not have a hand in founding the Cult disagree quite vehemently with this rule, and a possible fracture of the Cult seems to be rapidly approaching. Considering the Cult itself is less than a century old, having started in the early days of the 4th Age, it is likely that the secrecy of divine magic without gods will be revealed sooner rather than later.
The Cult does teach strict discipline, and adherence to a form of ritual humility in which every initiate must confess their sins to the newest initiate in their local group on the yearly anniversary of one own's initiation. With such powers they wield and offer, the Cult's leadership is desperately concerned with both the racial purity of their order, but also the threat their secret represents as well: if humans truly can wield the same powers as the gods, then they could destroy themselves with that power as well...and possibly destroy the world itself. Not even the gods' hubris had completely destroyed Lorinian, but mortals have to do better.

Holidays

There are no Cult holidays exactly, as they are still quite the new faith group. However, individual groups of cultists may commemorate certain local events, such as a town predominantly human freed from Sylvanarellen control, or the death of an influential member of their local group, and so on.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

The Cult of the Moons maintains an uneasy position in the Living Pantheon, accepted only because they stand against the chaotic forces of the Shattered Pantheon and for no other reason. Almost all the gods and higher beings of both Pantheons view the Cult of the Moons as the next-greatest threat even! As such, and so at odds with their practise of racial-exclusion the Cult does seem intent on slowly, carefully exploring and empowering the human race's potential - they fund efforts for schools for human children, devote their powers and skills to trying to help oppressed human communities in nations dominated by other races.
This dichotomy within the Cult, as stated before, has caused many rifts in philosophy and outlook. Some of their younger scholars and adherents insist that humanity cannot exclude the other races from this power, as it would be starting with the exact same mistake the gods did: exclusion.

Divine Classification

Mortal Cult

Religions

• The Living Pantheon