Archivism

Archivism was a scholastic, knowledge revering religion based on the pursuit and preservation of ancient wisdom, and the eventual initiation of the re-enlightenment when the world was ready for their stockpiles of knowledge. They believed the sacred books that their priests guarded with their lives would bring the world back to its pre-flood glory and innovation. The red-cloaked priests of this religion worked tirelessly searching for, translating, copying, and archiving ancient texts and manuals. These priests were the only known beings able to read and write the lost language of the ancients, Anglish, which they believed was a sacred language that they had preserved ever since the Great Flood. Because of this, the Archivists are the only people in Merika who know the truth about the worlds ancient past.

The Archivists believe that it is their life mission is the attainment of Acumen, so that their wisdom may blot out the superstition and ignorance perpetuated by rival faiths. The Archivists preach that if enough people embraced their personal Acumen, the world would enter a great explosion of learning known as the Re-Enlightenment. In order to attain Acumen, one must devote his life to learning, and become a monk and then a priest, studying in solitude for many years. Non-clergy were known as followers and were encouraged to attend the lecture sermons at the religions Archive-temples.

Archivism is a atheistic religion, and its followers do not worship any supreme deity or god, instead they believe that nothing is more powerful than the human forces of reason and logic, and that each individual has the ability to embrace their own divinity through learning. They reject the gods of other faiths as false idols which are solely based on the superstitious misinterpretation of the ancient past. Their lack of Gods has often made people of other faiths disgusted by, or paranoid of the Archivists perceived arrogance. As a result, the followers of the faith have been subjected to numerous different occupations and persecutions throughout their long history.

The Faiths holiest book is known as the Cyclopedia, which was constantly being expanded as new things were relearned. The Cyclopedias contents are all summations of knowledge learned from the decoding of ancient Anglish texts. The book was originally only written in the early archivists Koloradian language, but was later translated into multiple different languages after the scattering.

The Archivists would go from being a small clandestine religion closed off to outsiders, to a persecuted religious minority, and finally to become the dominant religion of the Empire itself.

Founding and days of Linus and the wise ones.
In the days before the Great Flood, a group of Scholars and Scientists known as the Wise Ones warned the Princes who ruled over the civilization of the Ancients- to halt their destruction of their worlds environment. The Wise ones were ignored and eventually the poisonous gasses the princes machines pumped into the sky tore a hole in the thin velvet that protected the world from the wrath of the suns full power.

To the Wise ones expectations, the hole in the sky allowed the sun to beat down without mercy on the Earth, turning its once fertile lands into salt flats, and killing billions of souls who died from cancer or starvation from the global crop failure. The Wise ones knew that the unrestricted heat from the sun would melt away the few remaining glaciers of the far north and south, which would trigger the Great Flood.

The Wise Ones congregated high above the rising sea in the mountains of what is now Kolorado. There they decided to construct a large bunker inside of which they planned to store the most important writings and books of their civilization. This bunker became known as the Ark, which was constructed inside of a small mountain overlooking the ancient resort town of Aspen. The Wise Ones then sealed themselves inside the Ark and awaited to finally emerge as their civilization was destroyed by itself outside the Arks safe confines.

After 300 years the ancestors of the Wise Ones finally emerged from the Ark, led by a man named Linus. Linus commanded his followers, who became known as the Archivists, to convert the Koloradian people of the surrounding valleys to the pursuit of wisdom. Linus and his followers converted the Koloradians Archivism, and ordered his people to construct a temple at the entrance to the Ark at the top of the mountain it was within. The Temple was constructed, and shortly after the Koloradians began to carve new homes and chambers into the side of the mountain, which eventually became the city of Ark Mount, Holy city of all Archivists, who made pilgrimages to the Ark at the core of the mountain.

Eventually the Koloradians united and formed a new kingdom which was ruled by the High Priests of Ark Mount, who held spiritual and political authority over Kolorado. They were the head of the original Archivist priesthood, and held massive influence over the people of Kolorado.

Early History and Californyan Exodus
The Archivists maintained their strict policy of isolationism and forbade any interactions with foreigners, whom they labeled "Dunces", due to their perceived inability to learn, and obliviousness about the distant past. They also mocked and rejected their neighbors polytheistic Idol-worshiping cults, which they knew were solely based on their ignorant priests and their misinterpretations of the past. This caused neighboring nations to view the Archivists as arrogant and strange, with some believing their fascination with books and reading to be the very sorcery they believed brought on the Flood.

This led many to take up arms against the mysterious Archivists, and their mountain homeland was repeatedly attacked by warlike tribes and nations. The first people to conquer the Archivist kingdom was the Empire of Californya, which razed Ark Mount but were unable to take the Ark itself, which the priesthood sealed before the city was taken. In spite of this, the Archivists were deported west to Californya itself where they were enslaved and forced to construct monuments and palaces for their masters. They were forced to sacrifice to the Californyans Hollywood Gods and Goddesses, despite their traditions which forbade this.

However, an Archivist women known as Emry discovered an ancient map of Meruka and its pre-flood geography, and showed her people how they could return to their homeland and reopen the Ark. Inspired by the map, the Archivist slaves rose up in rebellion and burned the Oracle of Hollywood to the ground, they then fled from the pursuing Californyan forces into the inhospitable deserts of the Great Basin. They wandered for a decade, searching for any landmarks on Emry's map that they could identify. They finally found their way back to their mountainous homeland after 15 years of wandering, and on the verge of starvation.

They returned to Colorado find it depopulated, and returned to the ruins of Ark Mount. Once there, they found that their homeland had been taken from the Californyans by the growing Empire of Aztlan. The Mexica Emperor was impressed by Emry's leadership and her peoples bravery, and decided to give them their kingdom back, as a gesture of good will. The Archivist Kingdom regained its independence, and Emry was made High Priestess. She spent the lest of her life rebuilding her people kingdom and repopulating its empty valleys.

The Second Archivist Kingdom
The Archivist Kingdom then remained independent for the coming centuries, remaining neutral during Gunnar the Greats conquests of their Aztlani allies territories in the southwest. But the High Priests of the Ark grew more and more corrupt and became apathetic to the state of their people, this led many to adopt foreign Gods and give up on their faith.

The Kingdom became a client state of the Chikago Republic, after the high priest at the time accepted a large sum of money from the young Don Wabash himself, who would later go on to form the Empire of Chikago. One of the first things he did was absorb the Archivist kingdom, turning it into the province of Colorado.

Chikagoan Rule
The Archivists in the province of Kolorado were allowed to continue to practice their Religion and keep their High Priest, as long as the Priesthood paid their taxes and didn't incite any form of unrest. The people of Ark Mount became more and more distant from their corrupted priesthood, which had brought them under Chikagoan influence in the first place. Radical sects of anti-imperial Archivists known as the Zealots began to form across Kolorado, assassinating imperial officials and ambushing caravans.

The Zealots grew more and more powerful across Kolorado, and became more openly aggressive against the Chikagoan occupation. They sabotaged important military facilities and their assassins frequently killed imperial officials in the streets before fleeing. The Zealots saw the Chikagoans as oppressors and wished to liberate the Holy land from them, by force.

Eventually, their influence grew so large that a large portion of the Koloradian population began to support them. Their opponents, known as the pacifists, chose to resist imperial authority in non-violent matters. This caused great social conflict among the Koloradians, and Zealots often murdered Pacifist families and forced their children into their ranks.

Eventually the Zealots overthrew the High Priest and installed their leader Lucien as his replacement. Lucien then ordered his mobs to storm the imperial governors palace and murder him and his family. Later, the Chikagoan legions surrounded the city and began a lengthy siege.

The Scattering
After the destruction of Ark Mount by the Chikagoan Legions, the surviving Archivists fled the city through a secret tunnel, with whatever books they managed to save from the fires. A council was held in the mountains between Damian's closest followers, the Advocates. Each Advocate decided to go to a different region of the Empire, so that if one group were discovered there would still be others to keep the faith going. The survivors then followed the 7 advocates to the far corners of the Empire. After finding a suitable hideout in the wilderness or urban back-alley, each Advocate established their own sect of Archivism, which was now a religion thinly spread across Maruka.

Before Damian, Priests would only recite lectures in the Archivists native Koloradian tongue, and therefore only Coloradan Archivists could participate in Temples. But after the scattering, the Archivists had to adapt to their new environments, in order to maintain a low profile. Over time the various sects abandoned their own Koloradian language, and began to speak the native languages of the regions they fled to, in order to blend in with locals. They began interacting with the locals, and even convincing some to join their cause. After they had all mutually forgotten their native Koloradian, the different Archivist sects were forced to communicate in their sacred language, Anglish.

The Various sects of Archivists would hide out in remote monasteries or low-profile urban meeting places. Each major city or region often had a sect which was led by a High Priest, they were initially hesitant to accept new followers into their faith but slowly began to allow more and more outsiders to become followers or monks. Eventually the Koloradian identity of the Archivists dissipated and it became more of a universal religion with followers from numerous different ethnic groups. Archivism became more and more adaptable and came to be embraced by people all around the Empire.

However, the Archivists lacked any central leadership, and was instead made up of several different regional sects, each led by their own clergy and each with their own distinctive beliefs, which were often influenced by local tradition. It wasn't until the conversion of the Emperor Gordun and the Council of Chikago that a formal central administration was brought to the faith in the form of Order of the Archivists.

Priesthood
The Priesthood of the Archivists was very hierarchical, consisting of several different ranks of Clergy. For the first half of its existence access to the Priesthood was strictly only for Denverites, and its positions were hereditary. After the reformations of Damian and the Great Scattering, the priesthood was opened up to any who wished to spend their lives studying as a monk.
 * Follower: Was not a member of the priesthood, but someone who decided to embrace the Archivist faith. They were permitted to enter the temples and attend teaching sermons, but were not educated in the sacred Inglish language, and therefore could only gain knowledge through the words of a Priest. Before Damian only the Denverites were allowed to be followers, but when Archivism spread across the empire anyone who converted was considered to be a follower.
 * Monk: Was a Follower who had given up all their material possessions to live in a monastery of a scholar, and dedicate their lives to the pursuit and preservation of knowledge. After studying for 20 years at a monastery Monks had the chance to take the ordination exam, if they passed the exam they were ordained into the priesthood. Monks were made to live a life of solitude and quiet, spending countless hours translating and copying ancient texts from Inglish.
 * Priest: Was the lowest rank of the Clergy, they were the administrators of a Library-Temple, and gave sermon classes to followers. They were in charge of the maintenance of the temple, and its archives of books.
 * High Priest: The Highest rank of the Archivists before the creation of the Archivist Order under Gordun. They were high ranking priests who were in charge of the priesthood of an entire province. They were based at a large Academy-Temple, which had the largest archives in the territory. High Priests also resided over councils of their districts Priests, with whom they discussed scholarly and administrative topics.


 * The Primates: Was the highest position in Archivism. After the foundation of the Imperial Priesthood under Gordun, there was one Primate. But following the war of the Schism and the formation of the Eastern Archvist Order.

Temples and Monasteries
Archivist places of worship were known as Archive-Temples, which all had a library which contained hundreds of manuscripts that were copied from various Ancient texts by the Monks of the religion. The Temples were places that followers could go to ask questions to the priests, whom were literate in the ancient Inglish language.

Every week, the Priests would give classes to any followers willing to participate and sit through them, there were known as Lectures. During Lectures the clergy would recite ancient literature and attempt to teach the followers important things relating to logic and morality.

Temples often included the Priestly quarters, the hall of learning, which was a large room with seating in which the lectures were given. There was the Archive library,