Union of Mecholife/Religion

Choice and Chance
The leading philosophy of the UM is the Choice and Chance philosophy. Basically, you as an individual can Choose any path you want, but Chance will alter how your Choice works with the world. Only by accepting that some things are beyond your power can you achieve true happiness.

Iron Church
The Iron Church is an Iron Giant Religion. They worship metals and believe that throwing away a metal object, regardless of age or appearance, is blasphemy. They have the best smiths and metalworkers of all the Wentals.

The Pattern
The Pattern

The Hand of Fate
The Hand of Fate is the name that the Meta have given to whatever being or thing directs fate. All random events are said to be touched by the Hand of Fate. For example, when meeting a new species, they generally say something along the lines of "The Hand has brought us to another species. Welcome." and if a volcano goes off they would say "The Hand has a plan here." and accept it as a part of reality.

The Pattern
The Pattern, also called "Fates Weave" is made up of everything. It is created by the choices we make and by the random actions of the Hand. Very few beings are capable of seeing the weave as its woven, but those few that can are considered gods. Among them is a being they refer to as "The Watcher", though details on them are hard to find, even for the Worldforest Mind.

The Watcher
The Watcher is said to be a great prophet, but thats about all that anyone can say as fact for them. It is unknown if the Watcher is male or female, or what his or her true name even is. Not even the Metamind and Worldforest know for sure.

The Old Gods
The Old Gods

Dreams of Life
The Dreams of Life say that life is nothing more then a dream. Some immensely more powerful creature is dreaming, and when you die they wake up. Children who are "born" are simply others of these great beings who have fallen asleep for the night. Since these beings create the universe, they are gods in the truest form. This religion doesn't require you to make sacrifices, it merely makes death less frightening. It's not death, you're just waking up.

The One God
The One God, also called Spode, Almighty, Kalar, Dyeir, and Oiru, among other names, is the collective religion of all those who believe in a single creator who built the universe. This all powerful god is recognized by over 700 thousand religions, each with their own name and particular ideals. They generally go like this, though: you were created by this god in a warped form of his image, and when you die you will be judged as good or evil. Good go to his realm, evil are sent back to this one and given a new start. The One God is benevolent, but doesn't alter reality to make life better for people because he believes it is up to you to make your own life better. Helping you out would be cheating.

The God Who Will Come
The God Who Will Come states that there is a god that has yet to arrive, and will do so when the universe is ready for him. Most followers believe that means when everyone follows this religion, though few force it upon others. The God Who Will Come will save this universe and all those in it from all evils, taking them forever to a better place. When you die, you are reborn as a new lifeform, so killing people is fine, their immortal souls will simply be placed into a new body until the God Who Will Come arrives and saves everyone.

Trivialitism
Trivialitism is the idea that everything you do is unimportant in the grand scale, and that your fate is predestined. Most of the people who follow this religion believe in reincarnation at death as well as that your actions in past lives dictate your fate in this one. This religion also believes that if you are cruel or mean to anyone, regardless of age, station, or beliefs, your next life will have you suffer just a tiny bit more. Needless to say, few in this religion hurt others, and many care for those who cannot care for themselves. Besides the reincarnation, they believe that your fate is sealed. If you die young, it's because you were predestined to do so. If you end up crippled, it's because you were predestined to be so. It takes away to "it's my fault" factor of life.

Brutalism
Brutalism is a cruel religion to follow which requires the loss of limbs and blood sacrifice to satisfy the gods. Everything from child sacrifice to giving the gods your enemies blood is included. The main rule is that you must always send your enemies to the next world, where they can learn the stupidity of their ways in this one. Dead enemies are given to the gods by spilling the blood onto the ground and then taking the body apart and assembling it as the various layers (bone, muscle, skin, nerves, organs). This is a very brutal religion followed by the warmonger species that are part of this Empire, but is forbidden to be forced upon others of the DNA. You can, however, force it on enemies of the DNA, which makes it the main religion followed by the army.

Kudism
Kudism believes in Fate. Everything happened for a reason. Your living on the streets? Well, maybe your meant to find you future lover there. You just lost ten grand in a bet, well, you did so to learn to respect money. This is the fasted growing faith in all of the Confederacy, and for good reason. It offers honest reasons for where you stand in life, and your only way to get out of those places is not through death (to the other world) but though hard work. Their famous saying is "Aim for the Stars and you will Touch the Sky." and they are known for helping the less fortunate, which has gotten them a vast following among the lower and homeless classes, and even among the slaves and middle classes. Only the upper class choses not to believe in them.

Raitri Gods
The Ratri Gods are almost a joke. They are often thanked when things go right, or blamed when things go wrong. "Thank the Gods of Traffic, it's all clear today" or "Oh mighty Gods of Luck, please let this roll have me win the game" are common ways these gods are recognized. The saddest thing about them is they they are considered an official religion.

Nikki's Chosen
Sadly, even in religion there have been those who took the name "Nikki". These people think they are the chosen of Nikki, and believe fully that they can hear her will even though she's been dead for 1430 years. They are mostly considered nut-cases and lunatics, but they aren't going anywhere soon.

The Flawed Mirror
They beleive in a Creator, from which all life and energy comes. This creator loves all it's creations, but those creations are imperfect, images of the Creator reflected from a flawed mirror. Only the Creator is worthy of judging people, and shall judge everyone when they die. If you fail judgement, they will be sent to a realm of endless torment where all evil and unworthy souls go. In their nation, you have to follow their ways or die, regardless of your personal opinions in the matter.

Dait Blicht

 * This is a Kwaad Religion

"Dait Blicht", meaning "Pain of the Fallen" or more literally, "Fallen Pain". The main practices of this religion are child sacrifice (usually of the children from a different species), general sacrifice, giving of pain (torture), and the taking of pain (self-inflicted wounding). They have a decent number of ways they do this.

Sacrifice
The KIWI are big on sacrifice after torture. They usually skin the sacrifice alive and let them dies slowly of blood loss, regardless of the age of the sacrifice. However, sometimes they choose to do other things, like finding inventive ways of causes the most pain for as long as possible. Another detail is that they always sacrifice in the same order. First, they sacrifice all the adults without children. Next, they sacrifice the children, then the adults with children.

Giving and Taking of Pain
The Giving and Taking of Pain is an old ritual. The Kwaad believe that by trading pain they can come to truly understand another being, however that means the other being must be tortured. Since not many creatures out there have the same pain tolerance as the Kwaad, they often die of sheer pain before the Kwaad have even begun to feel more then an itch or slight stinging. The few that can survive to the levels of the Kwaad usually end up with severe brain damage or dementia due to the torture, again, not something that a Kwaad can suffer from. Once they have determined a creatures pain tolerance, they generally start to give pain without taking any, as giving pain is considered to be more honorable and less greedy. The Kwaad will gladly accept all forms of torture, to them it's a gift of pain, and they will actually increase their liking of an empire that gives pain freely. The Giving of Pain is, however, considered by most empires to be a horrible thing and often starts wars with those empires. Not that the Kwaad care, they happily go to war with anyone who offers up such a lovely gift as the ability to give and take pain.

The Gods of Pain
The Gods of Pain are unnamed, but they are the beings that the Kwaad pray to (Gods, give me strength and give me pain) as well as the ones they worship in their bloody religion.