Sunscripture

Sunscripture or Wara'hap Nihan is the main religion practiced by the Hap'ti. The main deity worshiped by its followers is Wara'hap, who is believed to be the one providing Hap'ti with the power to channel the sun.

Origins

Worship of Wara'hap is believed to have started after a prophet from the ancestors of the Hap'ti managed to communicate with Wara'hap to learn about channeling, which allowed them to fight back against their predators. As Hap'ti spent less time worrying about survival and more on how to manage their growing population, the question arose on what exactly Wara'hap wanted them to do next. A second prophet was able to communicate with Wara'hap for the final time and spread the virtues and tenets described by It to all the population. Structures and practices then arose to try and guide Hap'ti towards this lifestyle, such as the appointment of the first Overseer and the Circles system.

Scripture

The religion's scripture is recorded onto a series of clay tablets that are recycled each time there is a significant change in beliefs. The act of writing down oral gospel only became common when the Hap'ti arrived in Uraliwa due to the abundance of clay deposits.

Deities

Wara'hap

Wara'hap is the main deity worshipped by the believers of Sunscripture. It is associated with the domains of:

• Sun
• Fire
• Heat
• Agriculture
• Harvests
• Fertility
• Cycles
• Time
• Knowledge
• Life

Sundrop ore is believed to be composed of fragments of Wara'hap that It shed into the earth so that Tt could create underground-dwelling life.

Wara'liyasi

Wara'liyasi is considered a minor deity in Sunscripture. It is associated with the domains of:

• Moon
• Water and Ice
• Cold
• Mining
• Weather
• Tides
• Cycles
• Space
• Construction
• Death

Moondrop ore is believed to be composed of fragments of Wara'liyasi that It shed into the earth so that It could create underground cave systems.

Creation myth

The land and the water have existed since the beginning of time, embodying stillness and movement respectively. They remained eternally separated, and so the land was always unchanging and the water always unknowable. One day after an eternity water and earth met and two beings were born from this event, the sun Wara'hap and the moon Wara'liyasi.

Wara'liyasi took control of the weather and the tides, and brought currents out of the sea and turned them into wind so that the earth could be moved.

Wara'hap sought to replicate the miracle that had created them. Adding water to a core of land plants were born, beings that could grow as long as they basked in Wara'hap's warm glow. Adding earth to a core of land animals were born, beings that bore a will and could go wherever they desired.

After many cycles, Wara'hap and Wara'liyasi had witnessed all of the lives of all of the beings play out, and so the world threatened to grow stale once more. To remedy this, they came up with a plan: they would choose one of the species of animals to lend their power to. Wara'liyasi gave them the power to alter the world, and Wara'hap gave it the power to nurture life.

Wara'hap tasked the animals with creating new sights, living new lives, showing It beauty beyond imagination. It gave them the ability to channel from Its power so that they may perform divine feats akin to Its own.

It carved the secret to create life onto its body and then became too bright to witness. Once the animals had exhausted themselves, It would reveal the secret so that they could create successors who would further the cycle.

Origin of Hap'ti

Hap'ti are the latest to take part in the cycle of creation. They believe that the beings who came before them became greedy and did not wish to pass on the torch. They consumed all the other animals until only their kind remained, and they broke the world in order to keep them from eating themselves. They isolated themselves inside caves, painting their great hunts against all of the other animals and fashioning trophies out of their bones and the stones used in these hunts.

Wara'hap and Wara'liyasi became furious at their betrayal. They combined their powers to put the world together and repopulate it with as many animals as they could remember. The greedy beings were stripped of their knowledge and power. When they stepped out of their caves, Wara'hap could not contain its anger and burned them all to ash.

Wara'hap then made the next successors on its own, the Hap'ti. They were made weak, so that they would have to work together and keep each other from straying too far from their path. They were also made unable to eat other animals, so they would have to learn to live in harmony with them instead.

Cosmology

The world is thought to be a disc floating atop the Endless Sea. Once a new species is chosen to further the cycle of life, the Endless Sea washes over the world and removes most of its features. Wara'hap's original creations and its favorite creations by the last chosen ones carry on to the new cycle.

The realm is divided into several Circles. These Circles are numbered from highest to lowest:

1. The First Circle is where the souls of deities reside. Stars (other than the sun) inhabit this circle and are thought to be species that have previously gone through the cycle of creation.
2. The Second Circle is where the bodies of deities (i.e. the sun and the moon) reside. Hap'ti are able to reach this circle posthumously, once their souls go to the moon.
3. The Third Circle is where clouds, lightning and other meteorological phenomena originate from, as extensions of Wara'hap and Wara'liyasi's wills.
4. The Fourth Circle is where all the living beings reside. This includes both the sky birds fly through as well as the underground other animals burrow through.
5. The Fifth Circle is located deep underground and it is where all the forgotten things end up. There are stories of individuals who were able to travel there and return, but most do not.

There is also the Outer Circle, which encompasses the Endless Sea. It is said that sometimes objects and beings surface from it and move toward the world's shores, but Wara'hap and Wara'liyasi destroy them if they pose a danger to the world.

Other myths

Eclipses

Eclipses are believed to be trials designed by Wara'hap and Wara'liyasi to make sure Hap'ti stay on the right path. Lunar eclipses happen when the moon borrows some of Wara'hap's power and makes a major change to the world, often in the form of a new landmark or species Hap'ti must learn from. Solar eclipses happen when Wara'hap dims itself and tempts unfaithful Hap'ti to take a peek at the secret of life. If they do, they do not see it and go blind as punishment.

Parhelion

Virtues

The three main virtues the ideal Hap'ti embodies are community, harmony and beauty.

Community is reflected in the fact that Hap'ti on their own are weaker than most other animals. They must always work together, not only to strengthen their physical weakness but also to strengthen their mind. Hap'ti must not wander out of their settlements alone, and groups of Hap'ti must only go as far as the community permits them to. A Hap'ti who does not work together with their peers grows lonely and resentful, and eventually starts to hunger for violence and flesh.

Harmony is how Hap'ti should live. Conflicts must be mediated by a council of the wise and experienced. Hap'ti are not allowed to kill animals unless they pose a threat to the world as a whole, and they must not kill other Hap'ti under any circumstances. If a Hap'ti refuses to live in harmony with their community, they must be brought to a temple where they will be reminded of Wara'hap's teachings and put through many trials until they are open to cooperation once more.

Beauty is what all Hap'ti must strive for. It is their mission given by Wara'hap itself, to color the world with the pigments of their will. They must foster diverse life and the expression of the inner self. They must build gardens and tend to them. All senses must be catered to — beautiful sights, beautiful melodies, beautiful fragrances, beautiful textures and beautiful flavors. A Hap'ti who makes no effort to present Wara'hap with beauty must be hidden from its sight.

Forms of worship

Hap'ti do not ask favors from Wara'hap as they believe It already provides them with all the power they need and it is only a matter of developing the correct spell to be able to channel it. Instead, prayer is focused around showing gratitude to Wara'hap for all the boons It grants them. The channeling and crafting of spells are considered acts of worship, and so is the recording of stories and major events.

The most common form of prayer is through Prayer Grass, a type of grass bred by the Hap'ti to have an abnormally fast lifecycle. The use of spells that accelerate plant growth can cause it to go through its entire life cycle in 5-10 minutes. Prayer involves channeling into one or a couple seeds until they reach their flowering stage and then consume them. Similarly, the consumption of any meal outdoors on a sunny day is also considered an act of worship.

Channeling as part of a First or Second Circle job is considered to be a form of worship. First Circle channelers, also called temple channelers, use their spells to attend to the Overseer's whims and also develop new spells through reviewing scripture and analyzing stories and phenomena recorded by scribes. Second Circle channelers, called community channelers, use spells to help workers from other circles in their duties. Some duties commonly performed by them are growing and drying plants, powering furnaces and driving off predators by inflicting them with mild heatstroke.

Customs

Death

Corpses must be buried so that the sight of their decay does not offend Wara'hap. Plants are grown over the burial sight so that their flesh can continue to nurture beauty even in death. Such plants must be productive and yield good food or materials for crafting tools that will help other Hap'ti live their lives. The spirits of the deceased are taken to the moon, so that they may appreciate the work of the living.

Succession

Important facts must be recorded so that future generations will know where to pick up the work from. Old Hap'ti whose minds start to wane must abandon their authority so that their successors can improve on their work. Hap'ti who dedicate themselves to archiving and storytelling are considered holy even if they do not actively participate in worship. By proxy, clay is considered a holy material and its use and distribution must be controlled by the most faithful.

Political Influence and Evolution

The Overseer, the highest authority figure in a Hap'ti settlement, is regarded as a vessel for Wara'hap and so their decisions promote the religion's virtues. Practices such as the consumption and use of animal parts (with some exceptions) is criminalized as that goes the ideal of pacifism. The Overseer is also in charge of organizing festivals that promote the faith such as harvest festivals.

Because anyone can channel the sun, the Overseer's religious significance is considered to be purely symbolic. Another consequence of that is that there are virtually no atheists among the Hap'ti — though some subscribe to the idea that Wara'hap is not the highest deity there is, but rather one among the world's great deities (see below).

Since the Overseer governs a single settlement and not all of the Hap'ti, different regions can have different interpretations of the original scripture that get reintegrated into the general faith over time. Disrupting animal lives in any capacity was originally forbidden but the domestication of animals has since been reinterpreted as a good act, akin to domesticating plants.

Influence of Liyap'ti religion

See: Moon Worship.

In the earliest known version of the religion's stories the sun played every important role and the moon was not a being, simply a place where the spirits of deceased Hap'ti resided. The importance of the moon and the symbolism of the land and water was borrowed from Liyap'ti religion, in which there are spirits who govern all forces of nature. The sun, the moon, the land, the water and the wind are all possessed by great spirits, while artificial constructs such as objects, households and whole settlements give birth to lesser spirits. All Hap'ti settlements hold festivals to the moon, while settlements with a greater population of Liyap'ti (current or past) tend to hold festivals to the rest of the great spirits.

One of the widespread traditions linked to Liyap'ti religions is that of spirit vessels. They are small clay figures modeled after an animal or a plant that are said to contain the spirit of a household. Spirit vessels are crafted on the first morning of a new year so that a new spirit can be born and watch over the household's inhabitants throughout the year, and they must be destroyed on the last night of the year so that the now mature spirit can be freed. Spirits who are not released before a new year begins will become resentful and attract misfortune to the household it inhabits until it is finally freed.