The Azzai and Azzan and Axar - Updated!

Spoiler:

Deep in the northeastern-most part the desert, is a town much like the Fertile Crescent in our world, called Azzan. Isolated from the chaos emerging in the west, it has been relatively peaceful since its humble beginning in the later part of the Fourth Age.

The real reason of settlement is unknown, but legend has it that on the night before Drakan and his armies‘ first attack on Hallowvale, three men, women, and children saw a strange star in the southern part of the sky. They followed this star, no matter where it took them, even if it meant
traveling by sea.

It is said that the settlers traveled so far southwest into the night sky that it took them ten days and eleven nights to finally reach a shore where the settlers found a weeping man, around his middle-ages, alone. When the settlers asked what was wrong, he never responded. Through a series of a fractured conversation, the settlers then found out his name, Azzai, who was a wanderer searching for civilizations other than his. He had taken his wife and best friend, Hector, for company and support. Tyre helped Azzai create a universe out of their 'love'. However, Azzai did not know that Tyre was also producing the evils of the world by being becoming secretly
infertile when she started menopause, and by Hector‘s extramarital relationship with her. When she told Azzai of her wrongdoings, in mid-sentence, Hector stoned her to death.

Azzai was then engulfed in wrath about his wife’s murder before his very eyes, and killed Hector by using one of his spells he was crafting at the time. Their bodies were then laid out to sea, creating the greater parts of the world using what Tyre and Hector left behind- an unfinished world of misery and despair, only to wait for others to take his place in setting up all what is good in the world.

The group of followers named themselves, “The Azzai” (pronounced AH - z - I) based off the SINGLE deity of which they worship whom has the same name. They have stayed away from other civilizations in isolation because the original believers felt that only the original followers can carry the true belief of Azzai, thus, escaping heavy persecution by the non-believers.

Their government was set up in a system where Azzai was the True King, however it was up to the priests to interpret his messages to them. The High Priest, however, interprets signs of The
Azzai and will make any necessary laws based on the signs Azzai provides. To keep this system in balance, all decrees must be approved by the Lower Court of Priests, which handle things from final say on punishments to ratifying laws. Most of the time punishments for heresy, thievery, and vandalism wound up as a sacrifice to Hector. Sacrifices to Tyre and Azzai, are forbidden because Azzai viewed sacrifice as an act of punishment. Sacrifice is also viewed as the taking of one's life
to serve eternally to whomever you are sacrificed to, and since you are already worshiping Azzai, it would only prove redundant.

In this culture, art is the medium of choice to help people understand the religion. However there is a book for this religion: The Azzain. This book is a collection of seven epic poems that explains how everything should be and how the world works through stories of the experiences of the settlers meeting Azzai himself. Contrary to popular belief that Azzai wrote it, this sacred text was actually written by the first settlers who had met Azzai. There is evidence of another book called Azzain Rituality. It contains the sacred spells that Azzai designed himself traveling. Unfortunately, only one copy was made due to its volatile nature and has been hidden securely in an unknown
location, with only the High Priest having access to it in cases of dire emergency.

Ever since its creation, Azzan has been very prosperous with only a few anti-followers ravaging the town. In the 1st Year of the Fifth Age, when a man by the name of Peon (pronounced
‘Pen’) burned down the first Altar of the Azzai, which was a large temple containing many works of religious art, and stood supposedly on the location where Azzai was weeping. Peon was later then
sacrificed to Hector, then his physical remains were ground up and fed to various carnivorous beasts. As of now, the current Temple of Azzai was rebuilt out of the ruins of the old temple and it contains an even greater collection of artworks.

The Zarr Clan was the hardest movement to hold back in the history of Azzan. However, they were tolerable to the priests until the 137th Year of the 5th age, inspired by the temple burning in 1st Year in the Fourth Age, they led a rebellion for a peaceful and atheistic world. A group of twenty, led by a man named Jain, through a series of nonviolent protests in the years 137-141, they managed to convert nearly one-fourth of the population into atheists. With their last protest ending violently in the 141st year of the Fifth Age because the High Priest killed one of the
protesters with a powerful spell, called “45-Azzai”. The spell was banned a year later. The atheists then moved out of Azzan and set up a town called, Axar, to live in strict isolation from Azzan.

Since the 157th Year of the Fifth age, more and more people have started the trend of disbelief of this religion along with its modernization. This made the population of Azzan diminish at alarming rates. The priests didn't accept the theory of nonbelievers, as according to the priests
that the atheists are defiling what Azzai has provided for them. They made a strict code enforcing a religious caste system with the Zarr Clan. This law forced you to move out of Azzan and move to Axar immediately if you dropped your value set of The Azzai.

In the 162nd Year of the Fifth Age, the population of Azzan was nearly full of priests and very little amounts of wealthier citizens. This kept the more uneducated people, further resulting in little technological improvement. So, the priests continuously came up with ideas onto how to reconvert the populations of Axar. The Priests have been even so desperate to try and declare wars. In particular, the High Priest, Jina, ordered a proclamation declaring war against Axar in 165. Her attempts never passed with the other priests, tragically resulting in a sacrifice to Hector.

By the 168th year of the Fifth Age, Azzan was almost in total despair; more than two-thirds of its people immigrated into Axar. This, however stopped on the 8th of Ire of Phyrrys when something mysterious happened. A star lit up in the sky, just like the one that had shone when the original star that led the settlers. The next day, precisely at noon, the Spirit of Azzai supposedly arisen from the center of the Market Square in Axar, and peacefully told the masses of the public to start believing in Azzai or else they would experience the worst possible fate.

This is in turn caused some of the citizens to become believers once again and moved back into Azzan, while a few lay skeptical. The Zarr Clan is said to have risen out of the ashes after a rather mysterious death of Jain on the same day on the Ire of Phyrrys. Since people thought the clan faded out after the caste system was put into effect, they were somewhat confused. Contrary to many conspiracies, they have been in hiding and planning another rebellion.

Now the population of both towns have about equal populations living in somewhat harmony,
however, there is something brewing, and it isn’t tasty…

Spoiler:

That was a pile of crap.

The system if belief is centered around the Azzai- a god who has created the world out of the torment of his wife, Tyre (pronounced tEE - rAH), who was killed because she was deemed infertile and produced the evils of the world by Hector, Azzai’s enemy, who was later killed by Azzai. Azzai then created the greater parts of the world using what Tyre and Hector left behind- an unfinished world of misery and despair.

...the 1st Year in the Fifth Age... ...inspired by temple burning in 1st Year in the Fourth Age...

...converted into atheists...

...8th of Octuber

Dark Avorian wrote:Ok... a few things...

1) read the whole thing to yourself out-loud, there are several big grammatical errors.

2) the whole Axar thing is really unclear...and you said Jain was killed twice?