There is only one major religion in Deshret - the Church of the Nine, governed by Sepulchre.
The main doctrine of the Church of the Nine is that technology must be kept under strict control. Rampant misuse of technology (such as free-thinking machines, towers of light reaching the clouds, and attempts at reaching beyond the boundaries of the soul) led to the Burning that destroyed the prior world, after all.
Faithful individuals might adopt one of the nine Saints as examples, wear their relevant sigils or Seals, confess sins regularly to their priests, avoid cyberware, and be sure to prepare for splintering.
If you want more detail, read on!
SIN
Sin and heresy in the Church of the Nine do not resemble Judeo-Christian norms. Sepulchre does not preach about things like sexuality or relationships. Instead, sin looks like yearning for the damned and dangerous world above or the corruptive technology of the past. This is why the Church disapproves of cyberware: the sins of the ancient world were caused by the fusion of man and machine, after all.
There is also a lesser focus on making peace and avoiding feuds, as part of upholding a healthy community. Deshret survives only through complex networks of interdependence, and so the priesthood encourages the people to let go of grievances.
SPLINTERING
Sepulchre was created by Saint Marrow, also known as the Prophet. Saint Marrow was the leader of the Founders who first established Deshret. His death and miraculous resurrection in the first year after the Founding set the template for Sepulchre's most holy mystery: splintering, the revival of the dead. Through holy ritual, the clergy can preserve a shard of your soul and guide it back into your body. But as all human souls are inherently flawed, something is always lost in the transition. Only Saint Marrow was perfect enough to return unchanged.
To be more precise, splintering has three basic processes included in it:
- Splintering itself, which is dedicating a shard of your soul to Marrow;
- Fragmenting, which is updating your current splinter with your most recent memories;
- Awakening (to Sepulchre)/recombination (to Mythos), when your soul is returned to a new body grown from the prior sample.
In practice, many people often refer to all three procedures as 'splintering' interchangeably, even though they're quite distinct.
THE PROCESS OF SPLINTERING
To splinter, an individual goes to Sepulchre for a process that registers an impression of themselves at the given time. After death, someone who's splintered can come back at any chosen adult age as a version of themselves without any scars, injuries, or other physical remnants of their past. The real cost is likely mental. For one thing, people forget everything that's happened since the time they splintered - so if you last fragmented 5 years ago, you'll lose 5 years' worth of memory!
Beyond that, however, there are seemingly other issues. While the effects of awakening differ from person to person, people tend to come back fundamentally changed. After all, none are so pure as Marrow.
And the damage compounds: more of the soul is lost with each death. (This means that the Church eyes the ruling line of House Vesalius as increasingly degenerate, as one single soul is being awakened imperfectly in three separate bodies again and again.)
LIMITATIONS TO SPLINTERING
As splintering requires a procedure done in advance with some cost (S+S, sleeve and shard fees), not everyone can take advantage of it. Exceptions might include executions by the state and church, people who just can't afford splintering because they're too poor, people who don't have time to splinter again before they tragically die again... and, of course, some rare individuals who might simply choose not to splinter at all.
But it takes quite a serious case of heresy to be blocked from splintering. The church preaches that even the worst can be redeemed, citing Saint Cassius the Betrayer and his eventual penitence as an example.
AFTERLIFE
The afterlife isn't eternal bliss versus eternal torture. It's more you're either saved, or erased from existence.
Since Sepulchre explain the Hum as part of Saint Marrow, if you're one of the faithful, your 'soul' exists as part of that mass along with him. Your presence in the Hum and is what allows you to be cloned back into a body and come back from death.
Continued existence is salvation, and that IS 'heaven' - while the oblivion of dying without splintering/awakening is 'hell'. The surface and its damned, doomed inhabitants are often pointed at as a cautionary example of how terrible life and death look for the unfaithful.
SAINTS
The church venerates the nine Founders of Deshret as Saints. Each of the Saints has their own sect within the church, which determines how the clergy following that saint practice. Aesthetics-wise, these might bear some comparisons to real-world monasticism: so for example Marrow's order is very Orthodox, Vael's order is a hospitaller order, Ferro's is working monasticism, Cinder's are scholars, Vesper is eremitic, Severin martial, Wren would be mendicant, etc.
Laypeople also tend to adopt their own Saints to guide their behavior, and both clergy and laypeople alike might wear the Seal associated with their Saint in clothing or as a tattoo. The finest of these tattoos are administered by Sepulchre directly, though other artists are also permitted to depict them. Only the classic eight seals exist in official canon and their basic form is sacrosanct, though it is not uncommon to perhaps contextualize them with differences in location, decorative borders, etc.
CLERICAL DUTIES
While the Inquisitors of Sepulchre root out heresy, the clergy handle the daily duties of the church. These include overseeing education, tattooing the Seals of the Saints, taking confessions, offering blessings, general community building and shepherding the flock. Other duties might depend on the priest and their sect - for example, charity in some cases, perhaps nursing for those who follow Vael, etc.
OTHER RELIGIONS
No other religion has a meaningful foothold in Deshret.
It isn't necessarily heresy to try and preach about other religions, but it isn't looked on positively. Of course people know that other religions existed and that this isn't humanity's first rodeo, but Sepulchre wouldn't want all the exact details to distract people or lead them astray. In essence, people trying to talk about other or older faiths can expect to get weird reactions... and potentially attention, because people may end up asking why you care so much.
FAQ
Does splintering destroy or damage the soul, or is that just awakening?
Sepulchre teaches that to splinter the soul does not have any negative consequences on its own; it is merely committing a part of yourself to Marrow, living in communion with him. It is the awakening process that causes damage, as the rest of the soul will not always adhere faithfully to the remnant Marrow holds in his bosom.
Certainly the reports of consequences and side effects do seem to come only after awakening, not after splintering.
Is an awakened person still viewed as the same person post-Splintering by the church?
Yes. This is the idea it all rests on - splintering and awakening allow for the theoretically eternal salvation of immortality.
Are the Saints divine? Is Marrow?
Marrow is the only fundamentally divine entity in the Church of the Ninefold. The Saints are more like exemplars on how to live one's life, and holy but not deified figures. People pray to their favored Saint, but they aren't expecting some kind of direct intervention in their lives out of it. At most, if something DID happen, it would be seen as Marrow's grace working through the Saints (i.e., a form of intercession.)
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