#khait

The dominant religions of the north of cynozepal centers around sun worship, ancestor veneration, and appeasement of restless spirits, and the balance between an evil cthonic earth creator-god and a benevolent sky god.

The solar dragon travels from east to west every day with the sun on his beak. He is a loving god, but cannot come down to the earth to intercede with his people directly, as it is the realm of a greedy underworld serpent who seeks to devour the sun at the end of time (some variants hold that he is devoured every night and reborn each morning). 

The moons are the lands of the blessed dead. In order to reach this afterlife, one’s soul must be delivered to the solar dragon. This can be potentially accomplished by all flying flesh eaters, (even flies may be psychopomps) but only proper ritual handling will ensure the dead safe travels to the lunar lands. Those who miss out remain earthbound as wandering spirits, which can cause troubles for the living. Most such souls will wander restlessly until the world’s ending, but will be reincarnated (and given another chance at salvation) in the next world.

Multiple religions follow variations of this core belief, and almost all of them utilize Lunar Emissaries in their funerary practices. 

-----

Lunar emissaries are an ancient all-caelin priesthood who serve the solar dragon by ferrying the newly dead to the afterlife, and appeasing and soothing wandering spirits. They take strict vows of nonviolence, and will not knowingly harm even the tiniest of insects. As caelin are obligate carnivores, Emissaries must consume meat, but will refuse any meat slaughtered intentionally for their sake (they take gifts, or find carcasses in their travels).

When serving the dead, they process the body in preparation for its journey. The skin is removed and burned along with the ‘unclean’ organs, the soul-vessel organs (the brain and liver) are eaten by the Emissaries, and the rest is given to sacred vultures. The skulls are cleaned and preserved for the family shrine. Whatever is left behind is deposited in open air graves far from the settlements. This ritual is completed before dawn, at which point the priests will follow the sun in its journey across the sky, thus delivering the souls to the Dragon.

This method of elaborate sky burial is thought to be the best guarantee of reaching the lunar lands. A body left to open air serves a good chance, should it be eaten by flies and birds. A body too decayed to be eaten will be burned so the soul can travel via smoke, though this method is not ideal. The worst possible death is to be buried or drowned, as the soul will be claimed instead by the world-serpent and become twisted into an evil spirit.

-----

The Lunar Travellers or ‘Missionaries’ are an annihilationist offshoot of the Emissaries, originating as a folk tradition developed in the Singing Steppe. They focus on the religion’s eschatological aspects, believing that any wandering spirits left at the end of the world will cease to exist, and that the extinction of dragons heralds the world's imminent doom. They believe it’s an imperative to take the religion to other lands in order to save other peoples from impending annihilation.

They travel along trade routes outside of Cynozepal, and spread their message and perform rituals at battlefields. They are far flashier than their emissary counterparts and their rituals are accompanied by costumed performers dressed as spirits of horses and khait, (frightens off evil spirits). Like their counterparts, they take strict vows of nonviolence, but may hire mercenaries as guards in foreign lands. They will recruit anyone regardless of species, and rely more heavily on vultures as psychopomps (to make up for many of their number being flightless).