Borderlands: The Illuminated Church

The Holy Church and Order of the Divine Faith of the Illluminated, or more commonly the Illuminated Church, is the majority religion in the Borderlands. The faith was founded by a group of monks who were said to be given divine visions and guidance by celestial beings called the Illuminated. What the Illuminated are, where they are from, or what they want with humanity is only guessed at, but those monks were able to derive an oppressive doctrine from their visits that would form the foundation of the Church today.

The Illuminated Church doctrine revolves around the holiness of suffering, obedience, purity and the fact that all humans are sinners who must spend their existence atoning for their curse of birth. Most large settlements possess at least one church, while rural villages either have small shrines or are visited by wandering Mendicants. Plenty of commoners - actually the majority of them - don't favor the Church's teachings, but criticism or disobedience is deemed heresy worthy of at least imprisonment. Thus, most people observe the rituals and holidays of the Church, attending sermons and kowtowing to priests out of fear.

The Church doesn't directly worship the Illuminated, as they are seen as nebulous and almighty beings who are too far beyond the comprehension of mortals to understand. Instead, a variety of hero saints receive most of the devotion. There are literally hundreds of saints who are patrons of things from mothers to carpenters to gravediggers. Most people or churches will focus their worship on one saint or a small collection of them, and some may even possess a holy relic such as a severed finger or a defleshed skull.

In addition to ruling over the Empire, the Emperor is also the head of the Church and is seen as a living saint (saints are usually only granted sainthood after their deaths). Emperor Magnus is not exactly the most pious Emperor, as he'd rather spend time drinking and philandering than at the altar. The Church leaders in the Orthodoxy don't particularly mind this however, as it allows them to do what they please with little backlash. Thus in recent years, the Church has become especially militant and fanatical.