Lathvy

"Romal just said that because the Amatanians didn't follow the true faith, which was his faith, and then they didn't protect Ara, the bad God Loys got way too powerful. Then, when Loys rose, bad things started to happen, and Loys sent the demons, which are the Yomtanians, to destroy the world..."

Lathvy is a religion that was developed by Romal Anohar, based on the teachings of Nidero Tilav. It says that there are two gods: a Good god named Ara, and an Evil god named Loys. It also states that people must worship Ara and do good things to keep him strong or else Loys will become stronger than Ara and bad things will happen. It claimed the Yomtanians are creatures of Loys.

The Yomtanians tortured and burnt Romal to death, which the followers of the religion saw as a confirmation that Loys was trying to prevent Ara from getting too much power. For this, they began a revolution against the Hasian Horde.

From the years 169 to 170, these religious rebels fought the Yomtanians, freeing Pextoglazia and Ordica. Moxon adopted Lathvy as their religion in 172 when king Tormi III converted, and spread it across the Gomic.

The Hasian Occupation (162-169)
Even prior to the Hasian occupation in 162, in Pomlen, Romal Anohar had developed his own philosophical ideas from studying the Pawani and Xalian religions – in particular the Glaz religion, where the fundamental Lathvy concept of dualism is likely inspired from.

But until 162, he kept most of those views to himself. That all changed when the Yomtanians took over Pextum. That event firmly shaped the nascent faith in his mind. There was a perpetual struggle between Ara, God of Good, and Loys, God of Evil. But since the Amatanians had neglected to help Ara, that allowed the Yomtanians, demons of Loys, to proliferate. Thus, it was the Amatanians’ duty to fight, in the name of Ara, against their Yomtanian captors.

Romal’s philosophy crystallized around this concept, and he collected all of these ideas in a book he wrote, Yarosmy (“Thoughts”). This was the book from which first he spread his word to the other Amatanians of the city, and which then proliferated through occupied Pextum and Mea Glazia. This cult quickly turned into the new Lathvy faith.

The Hasians, of course, caught wind of this soon enough, and burned Romal at the stake in Pomlen’s main square in 169, with hundreds of Yomtanians and Amatanians forced to watch. But, Romal fully anticipated this. He stated to his followers that if the creatures of Loys would kill him, it would mean that Loys did it to stop the Amatanians from learning the truth (and thus keep the Yomtanians in power). Thus, it was time to all rise up against Hasia and fight in the name of Ara and of Romal.

Early Lathvy (169-178)
Following Romal Anohar's death, a large-scale Lathvy rebellion occurred within Hasian-occupied Pextum and Mea Glazia, and quickly spread into Ordica as well. With the help of combined forces from Oppia, New Pexamol, and Moxon, as well as the newly obtained catapults from Vanoma, the Hasians could be pushed back, with most of their surviving number retreating back to the island of Hasia, although a few that were slightly more sympathetic to the Amatanians stayed behind, forming most notably the Hofrrejjdkma tribe.

Due to the rebellion's success, Ordica's king converted, making Lathvy Ordica's official religion; while Pextum, Mea Glazia, and New Pexamol united to form the nation of the Holy Free Kingdoms of Pextoglazia, ruled under the first leader of Lathvy, Romal's disciple Protector Layson.

During the early years, the faith spread very quickly. As Tormi III, King of Moxon, converted his nation to Lathvy, in the same year 172, Pextoglazia made contact with the Nahallaian Empire while expanding its borders north and west. Nahallaia asked for help against its rival, Free Tolo; Pextoglazia agreed, but in return, Nahallaia converted to Lathvy. Free Tolo was quickly defeated; its Ennamite vassals of Entrom and Efna became independent city-states (which never did convert) while what remained of Tolo became Alo Tramo, a Nahallaian vassal.

In the three years that remained before the onset of the Great Gomic War, Pextoglazia sent many missionaries around the Gomic to continue the spread of the faith as far as possible. The largest of these successes was in northern Jasua, where the Kapolians converted to Lathvy and formed a large rebel group against Oppia during the war. In addition, Alo Tramo was also converted by Nahallaia around this time.

Following the Great Gomic War's end in 178, where the Oppian Empire was destroyed and many nations liberated including the Lathvy Jasuan state of Kapolia, the religion's initial massive spread died down, as Pextoglazia, Ordica, and Moxon focused more internally than outward.

Later Expansion and the Maxan-Pextoglazian Split (178-197)
By the year 189, most of the nations of the Gomic had thoroughly recovered from the aftermath of the war, and started to expand outwards again. The Nahallaian Empire was among the first to do so, expanding and exploring in all directions around. In doing so, it found the stray Hofrrejjdkma Tribe to the west, founded by Yomtanians from the Hasian Horde who were left behind on mainland Estal.

Nahallaia was, of course, concerned about this development, and asked the main Lathvy powers of Pextoglazia, Ordica, and Moxon for assistance in the containment of the creatures of Loys. All three nations agreed, and Hofrrejjdkma was successfully dealt with. However, debates started occurring on what to do with them afterwards. Moxon believed that the Yomtanians could be brought to see the light of Ara, and could be trained to serve as special units in the army. Pextoglazia, meanwhile, viewed this as blasphemous, since the Yomtanians were made by Loys itself and thus could not embody Ara like Amatanians could. They relented and allowed Moxon to occupy the tribe and to attempt to tame the Yomtanians, but said they would have nothing to do with it. This event is generally considered to have been the start of the Maxan-Pextoglazian split.

Further expansions of the faith did continue for a while, though generally small. In 192, Ordica expanded eastward, defeating the Maldikian tribes to the north, bringing them under the Ordic yoke as the vassal state Maldikia, and thus embarked on a program to spread the Lathvy faith to those lands. It worked for the most part, although the traditional Malda faith is still holding quite strong in at least northwestern Maldikia.

In 196, after a long period of influence from the Lathvy world, and Kapolia in particular, Stroktur finally converted from Shirism to Lathvy. To honor this, Stroktur and Kapolia expanded further into the jungles of Estal to the north.

It was in 197, however, that marked a critical turning point for Lathvy as a religion, as well as for the Gomic in general. Sar used a complex diplomatic web it set up among the Oppian remnant states, and the artifact known as the Crown of Emintas, to start the Great Arlentan War.

Sar managed to convince the Quanex Realm to annex the two neighboring countries of Birum and Lyposh in order to get the Crown of Emintas from Sar (which was really already given to Arlenta). But Sar was able to utilize the fact that Moxon was generally uninformed about the subtleties of Oppian politics, to convince them that Quanex Realm was trying to restore the Oppian Empire. So Moxon joined the war, on Sar's side, against Quanex Realm.

Quanex Realm found out about Sar's trickery and told Moxon, but Moxon refused to switch sides. Pextoglazia was generally on good terms with the Quanex Realm, however, and tried to convince Moxon to leave the war. Moxon again refused, resulting in a situation that escalated into a full-on severing of relations between Moxon and Pextoglazia. After the war, Quanex Realm was destroyed, Sar and Nutia expanded, and two great Gomic powers that were formerly close allies became enemies. Sar certainly achieved all its goals that it could get from the war.

After the Schism (197-Present)
It was a short while later, still in year 197, that Kapolia insisted Moxon formalize the split as a schism, with the creation of a new Reformist Lathvy Church in Agixion. Moxon agreed, with Moxon, Nahallaia, Stroktur, and Kapolia breaking off and forming Reformist Lathvy. Pextoglazia, Ordica, and Alo Tramo remained under the Purist Lathvy authority of the Protectors in Pomlen.

Dogmatic differences between the two churches were rather slight, with the nature of the Yomtanians being the main one. The only major other operating difference is that Purist Lathvy is far more fanatical in general than Reformist Lathvy. Reformists believe that conversion is a person’s choice and thus shouldn’t be forced (since then it wouldn’t be genuine), but rather encouraged through priests and missionaries of the faith. Purists, on the other hand, believe that it is their duty to ensure as many people as possible heed the word of Romal, for their own sake.

But the main divide between the two Lathvy churches is simply one of politics. Much of the Gomic is in a state of cold war between Maxan allies and Pextoglazian allies, and the choice of which church one aligns with essentially boils down to whether it is more strategically useful to support Moxon or Pextoglazia.

In the years following the schism, it was Kapolia that took up the mantel of spreading Reformist Lathvy around the world. As a result of these conversions, a Lathvy revolt in the southern highlands of Aresia occurred in 200. But while Kapolia and Stroktur declared war to support the rebels, the end result was simply a white peace.

The Second Jasuan Trade Union was established between the four founding nations of Moxon, Kapolia, Stroktur, and Kinvirel a year later in 201, in order to protect the Jasuans and aid the Reformist Church. Thus, Kapolia’s missionaries continued on, resulting in millions of followers of Reformist Lathvy throughout the East, as well as a few Maxan-influenced areas elsewhere.

The Purist Church, or Pomlen Church, was not complacent either. It strengthened itself (except for Alo Tramo, being a Nahallaian vassal) into a military alliance in 200, which the SJTU’s formation was largely a direct response to.

In Pomlen, the first Protector after the split, Jolan, died in 203. He was replaced by his successor elected by a council of clergy, Thirel. Thirel was far more authoritarian than his predecessors, and his rule seems to only get worse every passing year, particularly regarding the increasing oppression of the Glazians as opposed to the Pextumians.

A defining moment of this was the massacre at Bera in 208, where 1000 Glazian civils were killed in an attempt to find a notable rebel leader, Eyath Loviaz. This was the last straw for many thousands of Glazians, who abandoned Lathvy entirely and left their homes for the west, founding nomadic groups like Xalbon. The rebellion in Pextoglazia in general is large-scale, and seems to be headed by the king of New Pexamol within the federation, who is backed by Moxon and Laglon.

Externally, the formation of the kingdom of Ronis occurred in 208 when three city-states northeast of Umzatia united in the aftermath of the Quanexian Scourge plague. Given Umzatia’s hostile attitude towards them, Ronis sought aid from Pextoglazia, who agreed to let them be a protectorate, as long as the leadership of Ronis converted to Purist Lathvy. This draw the ire of Umzatia during the Ponmash Crisis war, where Ronis annexed some land from Moxon’s former colony, and Umzatia acquired two tiny vassals.

In conclusion, the current state of the Lathvy world is one of high tension between the two churches, which affects politics around the Gomic as a whole in major ways.

Beliefs
Lathvites believe that the two Gods Ara and Loys oppose each other. If Ara is strong, good things come, but if Loys is strong, bad things come. The only way to keep Ara strong and Loys weak is through prayer.

Unlike religions like Oppian, Ga Xalian or Mak, Lathvy is portrayed as a simple religion that can spread very easily, needing only the teachings of Romal Anohar, the Yarosmy book, and the basic prayers to function.

Known Leaders

 * Prophet Romal Anohar: 169 (Born in Pomlen, Pextum, Died in Pomlen, Pextum)
 * Protector Jolan of Pextoglazia: 19? ~ 203 (Purist Lathvy)
 * Protector Thirel of Pextoglazia: 203 ~ Present (Purist Lathvy)