Multicultural Merging

The foundations of the merging of what at the surface should be completely disconnected religions start in the ancient world. The Liberumian city states just had their island holdings in the Tranquil Sea and the Onano ocean destroyed by a mega hurricane that left evidence in the stone itself. The people who survived on the islands brought tales of the end of the world and it was believed they were all that was left and the old world they had been at was gone. The lights of the stars they thought were cities on the other side of the world they now thought were never ending fires.

From this time comes the first rumors of cities along a northern coast. These tales spread like wildfire through out the population who thought that they were the last people alive on the planet. A decade later came the first contact and scribes interacting with the new people. The Liberumians were crying happy to see new people for the first time knowing the world wasn't destroyed. The Alexandrians were highly confused as these new people spoke no language that they knew through their trading partners and came from a land they thought was impossible to inhabit.

The two cultures were shocking similar for being from completely different parts of the world and they quickly became incredibly close trading partners, cultural and military partners. At this time the Liberumian city states were all part a collective republic were each city state had a vote about what they collectively would do. Alexandria on the other hand was a bit more of a solid Republic that was more centralized in the port capital Alexanda(The name was changed to Alexandria later on). Around this time in history is when the surrounding governments started to isolate themselves from Alexandrian and start trading with the rising Kana Empire.

During this lull in trade Alexandria and Liberum started to draw even closer ties including religion wise. The individual religions already had a view that the gods of other lands where actually there but they worshipped the god's of their lands so the idea of merging some of the higher gods together was not that hard of an acceptance. It wasn't even mandated just happened during this time of isolation caused by the lack of trade and occasional wars outside of their boarders. This lead to them being conflated as one and their ideas being mostly the same through out the era.

Eventually the peaceful nature of the trade with the Kuna Empire came to an end when the Emperor at the time thought the southern states had been weakened enough to be taken. The analyst was correct for the states directly bordering them but when they reached the Tranquil sea and the states that bordered it. Most of these states had been blocked with trading the empire and were more reliant on the trade alliance in the Liber-Alexandrian Alliance. They still were weaker than they would have if they had been solely through the Economic Alliance but they were strong enough to hold the Kuna Empire from expanding to the Sea.

This failure to expand completely lead to the need of someone to blame. The real reason of it was so blameless and complicated that any reason was to be accepted by the wider population with little effort. This blame started with some of the most severely underperforming leaders in battle but as the Tranquil States kept holding now with the support of Liberum and Alexandria causing even more issues it quickly turned to groups of people. Starting with the people living on the boarders but the wider populace didn't accept the lie nearly as easily as it just being the leader's faults so they pivoted.

Where they pivoted was significantly more popular. They blamed the religious minority of the north the Druids. Their beliefs were similar to those of Libuerm and Alexandria leading it to feel more fitting. The blame started small with them just praying a little bit about them winning but quickly escalated into a full blown religious persecution and them being exiled from the entire empire. They were forced south and east but the majority of them ended up heading south to the Tranquil Sea alliance.

When they reached the Alliance they ended up finding more persecution by the eastern half. Nurlan, Liberum, and Alexandria greeted them with open arms as new workers and soldiers which they were lacking due to holding up most of the eastern states collectively. In Nurlan they were expected to work and keep to their own parts of the land but in Liberumian and Alexandria welcomed them anywhere they weren't expected to stay in one place. This lead quickly declaring the forest of them their new holy sites and both countries agreeing to it as long as citizens could bargain for wood they would need. All three parties agreed in the end agreed to the terms and the druids disappeared into the woods to make their own communities.

Over the century the Kuna Empire slowly lost the will to keep fighting and eventually turned to just holding the boarder. During this time is when ideas from the Druidic religion slowly seeped into the surrounding Liber-Alexandrian Religion. Ideas like rituals and a slightly less soft system of magic. These ideas were accepted as viable but only for this mystical idea of what druids are. At the time new myths were being made that incorporated them as advisors, prophets and others. This counited through the centuries and each new stories were eventually added and fully part of the mythos and even their myths were refenced. This never stopped and is still happening as of today.

To finish up the history portion of this article before we start to talk about the individual parts of the religion and what those main branches believe of the others we must talk about the collapse of the Kuna Empire. The failure to conquer the Tranquil States heavily harmed the economy of the empire. It caused the rise of anti Kunai sentiment in the southern regions of the Empire. This did not instantly lead them to revolt the economy of the region still on average was fine and did not fully collapse though it was a harder time. This changed during the second Tranquil war.

During the second war the Empire had declared it would either conquer the sea or die. This idea came from the dying Emperor at the time and said to the lower governors that if the next Emperor doesn't follow this rule they are to be put down. While the last part is true that he said it, it is not true that it would ever happen. None of the governors agreed nor did any of them ever repeated the words but the sentiment stayed in the populist mind. This caused the next Emperor, Emperor Kio, who took over in a bind. If he did not declare war he would seen as a traitor by the empire but if he did it could easily lead to finical collapse.

He choose to risk the collapse of the economy to keep the people happy. The timing was the best it could be, the Alliance barely was able to stay together and starting to fall to infighting only stopped by Liberum and Alexandria reminding them of what could happen if they faltered. Kio invaded during one of these spats catching the eastern half of the alliance to start to collapse. The western half held in a significantly better due to the more closely tied nature of their relationship during this era.

Over the course of the fight Kuna got just close enough to see the sea but they would never reach it. They were pushed back by a combination of the Liberumians, Alexiandrians, Nurlans, and the very few Lunirians left. This set back was the straw that broke the camels back of the Kunais. They retreated back to the boarder before the war to find a swath of revolts from the local population. of the southern states. This lead to the Empire falling back to just the northern seas of what they control before they took the southern states. This was not the end of the empire but it was near the end but the rest of the story is no longer relevant to this article.

We will now move on to the three roots that made this tree.

The Liberumian Pantheon

The Liberumian believing population at the moment is near it's all time low. Only 5% of the population currently believes. This is due to the centuries of oppression shrinking the population of believers over time. It spiked up to 4% right after the occupation ended likely due to the stigma around those who believed in it shrinking but the next precent appears to be organic growth. This root of the tree is where the creator goddess Kraia comes from. The Alexandrians later adopted her as their creator goddess through out the years.

Some of the most common reoccurring themes of the Liberumian myths before merging with Alexandria were, Mercy leading to better outcomes, messing with fate leads to issues, the gods don't know everything and justice should that go down to the child. All of these themes continued past the merge but justice should not go down to the child became a theme that had to fight to stay alive through the rule of Emperor Kio. Some of the city states at the time declared this as proof that the child is just as bad as the parent. This idea nearly caused a war between the two sides and the republic of city states barely hanged on during this time.

The general belief system varies from the others here as there is a heavy focus on self care rituals such as bathing; and taking care and, braiding your hair. These things come from a mixture of cultural and religious reasons for these rituals to keep yourself balanced and ready for the day. This proliferated into the other roots as the tree grew together. These daily rituals set it apart from Alexandrian idea of charms and drinks solving these problems. The Tea ritual was added seamlessly into the other morning rituals for Liberum and Alexandria took the bathing rituals from them.

The Alexandrian Pantheon