The Rainbow Path

Followers & Priesthood

True to their nature as a secret society, those who walk the Rainbow Path hail from nearly all corners of creation - though in the far-distant past of the Path's inception they were almost exclusively drawn from the ranks of The Venau Necrocracy's Elite: Their Scholars, their Soldiers, their Societal Elite, and so on. Now, centuries or even millennia later, the Path has taken root across both Corexus and Inara in nearly all corners of both continents - finding easy footing in countless communities who have witnessed firsthand in the past century and a half the unchecked destruction the Gods wreak when left to their own devices such that nearly all beings of all walks of life and societal ranks find themselves turning to the Rainbow Path to find meaning after it was robbed from them by the Gods. This, largely, is what has made the Path and its Adherents so utterly terrifying to the faiths and countries of Corexus and Inara - any one and everyone could be a member of the faith, be it a mother, brother, neighbor, local lord, general, beggar, or more; So long as one has found umbrage with the Gods and the Chaos they wreak, one will find comfort and respite among their newfound Brothers and Sisters of the Path.   To those who walk the Path, there is no uniform nor badge of office - at least, none that are worn publically. As a secret society, the Path's Adherents distinguish themselves in public solely through extremely subtle means which are difficult to describe due to how little information has been gathered about them - though things such as rainbow-colored lapel pins, colorful earrings, specific patterns upon clothing or armor, or even colored streaks in the hair; all and more can be outward signs of adherence to the Rainbow Path. This, it is believed, is a vital part of the Path - for it is a sign that allows its Adherents to find one another even in lands afar, and locate the local Drakeum(Drah-kay-uhm) to continue their secretive practices.   In secret however, the Path's Adherents are believed to be quite well organized and easily distinguished - operating within the walls of their local Drakeum(Drah-kay-uhm) while wearing robes and masks to identify their rank to others of the faith and for purposes believed to be both symbolic and practical, Adherents of the Path are broken down and ranked into Seven Grades. These Grades, in order of lowest to highest, are known to be Crow, Prismus, Soldier, Serpent, Dragon, Suneater, and Father/Mother - with higher grades granting access to not only more resources and higher ranking missions of the faith, but also to more and more of the faith's darkest and deepest secrets said to stretch all the way back into a time BEFORE the Path's formation within the Necrocracy detailing its dark and mysterious origins.  

Ethics

Ultimately, the ethics that bind the faithful are largely unknown in any exact specifications due to the Path's highly secretive nature and propensity to rely on word of mouth to spread their teachings and recruit new followers(Which makes it very easy to hide their ways from others). However, despite this, in many ways the Ethics of the Path's Adherents are not a large mystery - driven largely by pain, sorrow, and hatred for the Gods and the havoc they and their followers wreak, the Path's Adherents believe perhaps most crucially that the entire Cosmology of Ea is ruled by Gods who are not only unworthy of being considered as such, but are ultimately little more craven, self-absorbed tyrants who stifle the beauty inherent to mortal life with their tyrannical rule over the hearts and minds and souls of nearly every being in the cosmos. While many ultimately hold conflicting views of whether other, lesser deities(Such as Minor and Risen) are worthy of worship, the faithful are fairly united in their perception of the Major Gods as petulant children who have essentially held the Cosmos hostage ever since its creation - flawed reflections born of the life they seek to control who must be cast down and destroyed for life to truly prosper. The exact degree to which members of the faith see the Gods as undeserving varies(Ranging from true and total Atheism to a more unique brand that seeks to find and elevate "True Gods" and cast down all others), but are largely driven by those who have seen firsthand the pain and suffering the Gods ultimately wreak in the world who wish to do something about it.   Yet, the faithful are careful to remember that ultimately, their qualm is with the Gods themselves - not their mortal followers, who the faithful often see as misguided sinners who sins are not their own, but the fault of the Gods they worship. To them, each creature they can persuade away from worship of a False God is another they can save from afterlives they view as essentially eternal damnation - being forced to live in their chosen deity's planar realm after their death and sing their praises until the very end of time, removed from the cycle for untold eons as a twisted form of blackmail for what the faithful view as wasting their lives in their God's service.   Ultimately, to the Path's Adherents, Life itself is Beauty - and the very notion of a deity cajoling its followers into service via promises of Life After Death(Instead of Rebirth and/or Reincarnation, which they view as the true and natural path) is an insult to Life itself; a Divine Extortion or Blackmail that besmirches the beauty of the mortals they enthrall, where mortal beings are forced to constrain themselves and lead duller lives that better serve their Deity's aims rather than living as they should be living - free of burden and worried for themselves alone(Two qualities that Adherents believe are at the core of a Beautiful Life). For while the Path's Adherents see themselves as inheritors of a righteous burden to look out for their fellow man and free them from their shackles to False Gods, they equally believe in looking out for themselves above else - as only then, facing life's adversities without aid, can one truly live a beautiful life. They rarely deny the moral goodness of helping others(And many may even indulge in it), but believe that doing so ultimately cheapens the lives of both helper and the helped by easing their struggles and burdens unjustly - both of which they believe fosters true beauty. For better or worse, they believe, a life is yours alone to live - and should you spend it being helped or helping others rather than living for yourself, you will miss the entire point of living at all and be unable to truly take a stand when you find yourself alone.  

History

Perhaps one of the most mysterious faiths on the entire Planet of Ea, the Rainbow Path's history is largely shrouded in mystery due to the incredibly secretive, insular nature of its followers who largely guard the innermost secrets of the faith from all except the highest ranking members of the faith. However, from what little is known, the Rainbow Path got its start centuries or even millennia ago in the lands of The Venau Necrocracy - specifically, within the Necrocracy's Academic Halls, Gentleman's Clubs, and Army Barracks as a "Secret Society" that was born out of the Atheistic Beliefs of the Necrocracy's population(And especially the land's elite) both as a way to gird themselves and their institutions against what they saw as the corrupting influence of the divine and as a way to remain in touch across the Necrocracy's vast borders. Their beliefs, born out of a shared disdain for the divine and based on what are even now rumored to be much darker, infinitely older teachings of unknown origins, gave them common purpose and united them as brothers.   This is largely how the Path continued for decades or centuries afterwords - remaining a small cult that operated within the borders of the Necrocracy almost exclusively that went largely unnoticed by the country at large; whose members wore subtle signs to mark their faith as they moved within the country to help identify themselves to one another and who worked towards unknown ends - a hidden hand whose touch could later be seen all across the Necrocracy. In this form, the Path worked largely to keep the Necrocracy's various political and private institutions as free from the influence of religion as they could manage - operating in secret to ensure that those in charge of such organizations or institutions were either one of their own, or those who paid homage to no deity.   However, much changed when the immortal Lich-King of the Necrocracy Barkhan the Eternal vanished during the Age of Troubles a scant century before the modern day - when the lands of Venau went through such turbulent upheaval that the Path was at last exposed in the public eye and largely driven out of their strongholds by the new ruler of Venau who did not share the Lich-King's Atheistic Beliefs. As a result, the followers of the Rainbow Path dispersed across the lands of Corexus and Inara to escape persecution - and in doing so, spread their teachings far and wide across the land in a time when their Atheistic, Mortal-Centric teachings resonated with the people who were experiencing just what the folly of the gods could wreak - millions of deaths and millions more in suffering as the Gods strode upon the land as tyrants, acting as they pleased.   As a result, the Rainbow Path has grown and mutated(And continues to grow) in the current day as a secret society that helps those who have grown disillusioned with the gods find a new purpose in their lives - a society that has continued to grow and operate in relative secrecy which seeks only one thing: The Downfall of the Gods themselves.