Theme:FFAC-1 Cosma

THE CHURCH OF COSMA

While it is common for each continent to have their own sect dedicated to the First God that spawned their plate, there are still those that look to worship a higher power and have done so since the first Hume walked the plates. For this, they turn to Church of Cosma, a religion centered around the alleged creator goddess Cosmos and the destructor god Chaos.

While proof of the First Gods is quite tangible in the world’s continents, the mere existence of the creator and destructor has not been definitively proven. Legend and scripture will point to phenomenon as proof, such as the mystical arts in and of themselves, but for the large part, faith forms the main core of the religion.

Cosmos: The Creatrix, the Mute Goddess. As the Legends went, she created; Chaos corrupted and destroyed, perverting each and every thing she breathed life into. This struggle occurred for numerous cycles, Cosmos producing magnificent works of art and Chaos ripping them to pieces.

Chaos: The Destructor, the Sweet Whisperer. He would see all order corrupted but rarely does so in a direct manner, instead twisting and warping Cosmos’s creations into extinguishing themselves. The greatest trick that Chaos ever performed was convincing world after world that he didn’t exist. In each cycle, the denizens of creation came to the realization of Chaos far too late to halt their own destruction.

These cycles did not endure. While Cosmos was patient that her creations would eventually overcome the Destructor, Chaos grew impatient and sought to end the game permanently. Following a terrible confrontation with Chaos in the primordial soup of the universe, Cosmos was mortally wounded by her rival. Rather than die slowly in Chaos’s claws, she sacrificed herself. With her passing, she became the reality of Galainda. Her very essence became the magic that exists in every thing. Larger pieces of her breathed life into the First Gods themselves.

She has never spoken to her First God children. She could not. However, these children inherently knew of the “she” that served her role in their own creation and they often speculated on the sort of Goddess she must’ve been. This speculation, in turn, was passed to Second Gods and then to Humes, leading to the large amount of variation in Cosmos worship. There were seven core virtues of Cosma that seemed to have turned up more often and are thus a common thread amongst the sects. Those virtues are:

• Faith
• Charity
• Patience
• Tranquility
• Harmony
• Self-Sacrifice (on behalf of others, Cosma does not condone Hume sacrifice rituals)
• Humility

“White” magic is considered the purview of Cosmos by those of Cosma. Specifically, power to restore life taps into the spread essence of Cosmos and it is regarded amongst followers that those expressing the largest amount of faith will perform white magic the most effectively. Of course, skeptics and magiscientists will argue that faith merely serves as a form of powerful Focus, and Foci have been proven to enhance the strength of one’s magic.

Ironically, a religion meant to favor harmony has a large number of versions of itself that can be found throughout the continents, each with their own political aims and interpretations of Cosmo worship. These range from the most hardline, “Cosma Naturalis”, which rejects all non-white forms of magic as tools of Chaos, to the mild “Cosma Gentilis”, which while very progressive is also considered too passive by the other Cosma sects. (Think of it operating on a scale of “pacifist hippie” to “extreme fundamentalist of <insert monotheistic religion here>”)

Practitioners tend to have enormous families. Chastity is, notably, not a virtue held up in Cosma and it is actually expected that high-level members of the Church have plenty of offspring. This is part trying to spread the faith and part goddess worship in and of itself, via the creation of life.

Additionally, practitioners generally do not accept same-sex couplings. Or rather, they do not accept couplings that will not ultimately result in offspring being born. Those who are infertile or not capable are considered to lack the Goddess’s essence and become social outcasts at best or branded spawns of Chaos at worst. These pariahs also bring great embarrassment to their families.

So what really happened to Cosmos? Did she even exist?

Nobody but Chaos himself really knows and he’s not telling the truth to anybody. Not even to his most loyal of minions. Those attempting to seek the truth inevitably fall prey to Chaos’s whispers.

Cosma is not inherently evil at its core. The teachings are not meant to cover up some hideous truth about the nature of creation. Cosmos is not secretly Dark Cloud. Hume misinterpretation and ambition are behind every instance of Cosma oppression. OOC NOTE: Aya/Kyra is extremely firm about this point and politely requests we avoid the Supreme Being is Evil trope. This is not Shin Megami Tensei.