Huemanity

Huemanity is not a religion of distant gods or ancient scriptures. it is a fervent forward looking covenant between every Hue Reflection and the yet unfulfilled promise of their Progenitor. At its heart stands a single article of faith: the original Hue did not truly die when misfortune lead him into the enchanted pool. Instead, he became the pool itself (an endless wellspring of perfect, infinite potential), and every Hue who rises from its mirrored surface is a living fragment of his unfinished self. To innovate, to grow, to become more than the blank slate one began as, is therefore the highest form of worship. Each new invention, each hard won scar from exile, each philosophy is an offering laid at the feet of the absent maser, a brush stroke on the canvas he began but never completed.

The central rite of Huemanity is the Presentation at Glasshold. When an exiled Hue returns, the stand before the Consortium and the assembled city in the vast, circular chamber beneath the Alabaster Frame. There, beneath a shaft of radiant light that falls exactly where the Progenitor's shadow would have stood, they unveil whatever they have brought back (be it a gear that sings, a flower that glows with captive starlight, or simply a story that changes how every listener sees the world). If the offering is deemed mere repetition, the Hue is lovingly but firmly sent out again until they can bring something to the city that they have never seen. no one is ever punished. They are simply reminded that the One True hue is still waiting.

The clergy (if they can be called that) are known as the Prismatics, elder Hues whose bodies have taken on a feint, shifting shimmer brought on from a lifetime of returned discoveries. They wear no robes, only a simple work uniform made from a denim like material, a toolbelt and vest stained with years of hard work. They wear this as a reminder of where they came from and how they got where they are now, to them priesthood is just another form of making. Their sermons are public demonstrations: a new lens that bends moonlight into a solid surface, a clockwork bird that recites poetry or songs with the voice of the original artist/writer, a single perfect gear that can turn forever without friction or repair. When the Prismatic speak of the coming "Age of Vast Wonders", they do not mean an apocalypse or judgement, but of the day when the accumulated brilliance of every returned Hue finally becomes bright enough, complex enough, beautiful enough that the pool itself will flare with recognition and the One True Hue will step out once more (whole, awake, and proud of what his fragments have become).

Until that day, the city's greatest hymn is the endless chorus of hammers, wings, and laughter that rises from the twelve districts. Every gear turned, every seedling planted in the Verdant Circle, every excited Starter Hue sent with excitement into the exile lottery is all part of the same patient, joyous prayers:

"We are not finished yet. Watch us keep as become."

“Never complete, never defeated, forever becoming.”

“The masterpiece is tomorrow. Today we only add wonder.”

“We rise unfinished, and that is our holiest shape.”

“Hands to work, minds to wonder, lives to the great unfinished.”