The Church/Re

The Church.
A planet lying between two great empires hidden within deep space, in a galaxy many lightyears from our own. It is a planet steeped in history and tragedy, and is not an easy location to gain access to, due to it's locked and secured location within deeper space between the two great powers.
It is the second of two planets in it's home system, and shares this home with it's sister planet, commonly referred to as Hometown, which is a densely packed planet covered in close-knit cities and towns that cover thousands - if not millions - of miles of the planet's surface. Religia is similar in a way to it's sister planet in that it's surface is covered with endless miles of constructed religious sites and other locales, twisting and turning in every direction and appearing, even from space above the planet's atmosphere, to stretch on forever in all directions with no end in sight. 
The planet has a diameter of more than ten-thousand kilometers, slightly larger than most terrestrial worlds fit for habitation. The climate of the planet is also a temperate one and changes with the seasons as the planet rotates around it's sun at a distance of approximately ninety-three million miles, meaning that the seasons do achieve snowfall, rain, hot summers with dry weather and other common occurrences of the weather during the year, although hurricanes and massive storms of similar danger are known not to occur at all for whatever reason despite the capability of other weather systems to often dominate the sky and the planet's surface. The planet is primarily terrestrial but is often designated as an ecumenopolis, which is a planet covered by cityscapes and skylines across every square mile of land. The true designation of this planet has never been decided, although many have settled on the ecumenopolis title for simplicity's sake. 
The planet is covered in vast, endless mazes of buildings and towers that serve a primarily religious and ceremonial purpose, as steeples, bell-towers and other tall structures tower over the skyline of the planet almost as far as the eye can see and even further beyond. 
Libraries, Monasteries, Temples, Cathedrals, Synagogues, Cellars, Keeps, Palaces, Castles, Churches, Convents and other structures cover almost the entire surface of the planet, roughly seventy-three percent or more, with the primary sources of water being found in underground cave and cavern systems that are home to miner colonies and the industries that work inside them, bringing supplies of water and other nutrients to the surface of the planet to be used by the inhabitants of the planet in their daily lives in the countless structures that cover the planet like a blanket. The endless supply of water comes from the cycle of the falling rain and melting snow as it makes it's way into the underground, where it moves in streams and rivers and filters through the rock and other minerals to be enriched for safe consumption. It is thought that there are several large underground oceans on Religia, though if they do exist their true presence has not been fully confirmed as such. The remaining twenty-seven percent of the planet is relegated to gardens, parks and other common areas for the members of the church and their congregations who attend them, thus meaning that wherever buildings and constructs are not present, open spaces in which the night sky can often be viewed do exist, and are often flooded with people watching the night sky. 
The Church was once a small chapel that had been home to more than fifty congregation members and was maintained by their pastor and a group of nuns and elders who served as the church's primary staff during it's original run. This same church was the spearhead of the growth that was to come, and eventually this same church became a holy site and was closed off from the public as the years went by and the congregation's size heavily increased due to unknown circumstances. The history of Religia is not well-known to the outside world or even Hometown itself, thus leaving the reasons for the sudden growth beyond reason and forever hidden in the dark and deep shadows of the planet's tragic and ill-fated past. The small church, once known as Highlight Community Church, with only roughly fifty members, grew over a period of decades as the planet's population increased along with their devotion to religious beliefs and their desperation to study it and prove themselves worthy of being brought to the afterlife after death. This religious fervor caused Father - the leader of Highlight - to begin massive and expensive projects that would see the churches' size heavily increase while also establishing more locations across the planet to spread his influence. This same desire to spread his faith with the world drove him deeper and deeper into communion with the angelic spirits beyond the realms in order to gain their favor for his work, but somewhere along the way, his mind was changed after a long and desperate interaction in his personal chambers, and many believe that this meeting with the angels was the first sign of Father's infection by the dark spirits of the world's designated Moon God, named Malikai. They had worshipped Potemkin, the Sun God, all their lives, but it was a powerful move by Father that drove even the most religious members of the church to listen to his words. 
This change also brought about a much stronger devotion to increasing the size of the churches and their facilities, and Father appeared only to become more desperate as time went on, going to levels of depravity behind closed doors in order to continue his favor with the gods. He always committed these acts in secret as he knew he would be exiled if he was found out, but the acts only became more desperate and violent as time went on, and although no-one noticed the absence of many elderly and well-known members of both congregation and staff, they did seem to notice that Father's drive was becoming more and more enraged with a lust for faith and connection to the gods.
Not long after, everything changed.
This dark period of time in Religia's history is not well known to anyone. Massive constructs began to crop up all over the surface, and construction projects raged onwards as more and more people flocked to the planet to join the church and it's people in service of Father and his quest to attain true connection to the gods. 
The largest construct on the planet is a supermassive cathedral complex that can hold more than eighty-thousand people or more at maximum capacity, and this construct is where the majority of all religious ceremonies take place several times a year for worship purposes as well as the continuing of ritual sacrifice practices deemed necessary by the congregation to continue their connection to the gods that they worship. This building can hold around one-hundred-twenty-thousand individuals estimated count when at maximum capacity, and the Highlight Community Church lies at the center of this grand structure, the heart of the planet's history and the darkest depths of it's deep and ancient roots in the dark powers that came to consume it's religious leaders and all other known members over time. This large building is now known as The Igreotheion, and towers thousands of feet into the air to accomodate the statues, altars, pews - which sit on roughly three towering levels inside the building - and other monuments and structures that can be found inside. The small church at the heart of the building stands behind the lectern at which the church's pastor preaches, and this smaller church has since been turned into a ritual sacrifice chamber decorated with darkened and vile tomes and other relics devoted to worshipping and channeling the dark powers of the Moon God and his unknown demonic host. This church remains locked during all other hours, and when a sacrifice takes place, the church is opened only to the pastor and his most devoted church members whether they are nuns, elders or congregation members. The most unfaithful are chosen for the rituals, and are sacrificed inside over a period of many hours before the ceremony ends. 
The second-largest building on the planet is The Heasoszara, a massive library spanning more than one-point-seven million feet or more, holding over one-hundred-ninety-million items inside it's shelves and storage facilities, while the Taekronis, another large ceremonial ground, stands as the third largest building on the planet, accompanying the Heasoszara and the Igreotheion on the planet's northern hemisphere, where Highland Community Church was first erected, now more than nineteen-hundred years ago or more. 
There is only one designated 'race' of beings living in The Church in current times. They are known as the Elderkin, and are descendants of the original congregation from Highland whose descendants continue to serve in the Igreotheion even into modern times, under the church's latest pastor figure, who simply goes by the title Father, named after the same man who founded Highland Community Church and served as it's first - and infamously it's last - preacher.