Religion

THE CHURCH OF DRIFT: The Church of Drift (also known as the Church of Winds or the Church of All Gods) is a henotheistic composite faith.  The structure of the world in this campaign has allowed many cultures to grow their own religions in relative isolation, but the Church of Drift holds sway where trade, war, and exploration have brought differing beliefs into conflict with one another.  The Church of Drift holds that the winds of change blow all men and women where they will, and that if one cannot steer against the current, one should go with it.  This simple tenet forms the core of the Driftchurch's faith, which is summed up in the closest thing to a holy book they have, "The Parables of the Ideal Captain", written as if from the viewpoint of a questioning but loyal first mate to a sunship captain, recording the mate's many questions, concerns, and philosophical quandaries.  While the Ideal Captain is believed to be fictional, it is nonetheless a bit of a historical enigma that one of the Church's founders (and author of the Parables) was First Mate on a trading ship prior to finding religion.  The Church of Drift believes in two classifications of deity, "False Gods" and "True Gods."  True Gods are those accepted by the Church, while False Gods are demons or other powerful entities who misuse their power to lead humans astray yet still receive worship.  The Church of Drift believes in reincarnation based on one's nature in life...those who are disharmonious and die full of hatred and bitterness are reborn as lesser or more wicked creatures, while those who achieve harmony and virtue are moved up the cycle.

Bizarrely, some gods in foreign pantheons are considered True Gods, and others False.  Novorro Who Eats Livers might be a terrifying, skeletal monster from Pebble mythology who punishes the wicked and purifies the sin from the righteous, but he is a popular god among the Church of Drift because he accepts that men are imperfect and forgives them to an extent, and allows those whose sinful livers are devoured to be passed on peacefully to the next life.  The Great Hive Mother of Kvetya, on the other hand, is considered a False God despite being overtly benign.  Her adherents preach unquestioning obedience, service, selfless setting-aside of one's own desires to serve the state, the inequality between men and women, and an afterlife of perfect, eternal movement as an immortal saint in service to the Mother, which is at odds with the Church of Drift's teachings.

Grandfather Motok is the nominal head of the pantheon, such as it is, but it is viewed as a flexible rulership that is willing to give way to local deities on their own territory.  Motok is a Hero-God whose domain is the wind and sky itself, with records of his worship extending back to fragments from the Lost Age.  Legends of Motok describe him as an adept negotiator and warrior.  A common thread in Motok's stories is his enemies underestimating him for his quiet humility, and then being undone by their own hubris (or a tornado).

The Church of Drift does not tithe worshippers, which is seen as inhibiting them from moving with the flows of the world.  Rather, the Church has extensive investments in sunstone mining, and invented many of the secrets for refining sunstones into a usable form.  They also sell sunstone compasses, which can detect the nearest large sunstone concentration (very useful for a lost sunship trying to find the nearest island) and pursue cartography as a holy art.  Lower-level Brothers are a common sight selling maps, aerial gear, and compasses.

Brothers of the Church of Drift wear a distinctive uniform, a vertically striped caramel-and-white robe with a high, cylindrical hat that has earflaps and frequently a pair of tinted goggles, like those worn on a sunship.  They also hang a chunk of raw sunstone around their necks as a holy symbol.

THE SUITORS: The Suitors are, rather shamelessly, a cult.  Being in a cult is really half of their appeal, so they don't discourage it, and their options for not being a cult are limited by their beliefs.  The Suitors mostly crop up among the rich, the beautiful, and the privileged, but also in some strains among the desperate and dispossessed.  As for their beliefs...the Suitors are unsatisfied with the world.  Perfection is the highest good, and beauty is the most important and physical manifestation of perfection.  As such, the Suitors worship beauty, and are dissatisfied by the ugliness of the world around them, seeking to make it more perfect.  They practice strange magic that can meld the forms of animals at the upper levels, and have adherents on many sky-islands across this portion of the world.
The Suitors work in the name of their goddess, the Lady in White.  According to them, the Lady was once the most beautiful individual in the world, perfect in every way, excelling at every art.  Jealous of her gifts, a group known as the Unworthies scattered her followers to the wind and locked her away, where she sleeps until the world is ready for her return.

The Suitors have many regional variations, and even within the same city two different sects of the Suitors may be at each other's throats.  For example, on Kvetya the Suitors are almost entirely women, and believe that only the female form is beautiful, with males being an ugly necessity that tie them to the Unclean World until they learn how to break their biological chains.  Meanwhile, on Megama, the Suitors have a small foothold among the Idealist faction of the Winged Nobles, and uphold the flying form as the most perfect aesthetic.  Most hold the human form as the "perfect" one, because the Lady in White was ostensibly human during her mortal life, and forbid alteration save to make it more "humanly" beautiful...but with no centralized leadership, this cannot be policed, and there are always heretical sects in one form or another (such as the crew of the Wind Prince, a pirate born of a blasphemous ritual combining a human form with that of a Wind Drake).