Noireverse religions! · 1:42am Jul 1st, 2021
Hi all!
I know it's been radio silence from me for a while, but rest assured, it's not because I've lost interest in writing. It's because I'm hard at work writing Ponyville Noire 4 (which I hope to be ready for release come September or October). I'm glad for all the attention and comments that my previous stories have gotten; thank you all so much for all the support that you've given me! It really does mean a lot!
Anyway, I wanted to write this blog to explain some details, backstory, and history to the various religions of the Noireverse, since I'm not sure that that's something I ever explained thoroughly. Enjoy!
Navahism
Navahism is the largest religion in Equestria. Navah (which comes from the Hebrew word for "home") is named for the village in which it was founded, long before the founding of Equestria. Navahists worship the Holy Mother, which they believe to be the embodiment of all positive magic in the world, who gifted ponies magic to free them from slavery to the Old Gods (more on those guys below). The founders of Navahism are Emunah, Chesed, and Tiqvah (Hebrew for "faith," "hope," and "charity"), who were allegedly the first ponies to learn how to harness their natural magic to do things like move the sun and moon, control the weathers, and aid in the growth of crops. Navahists live up to the ideals of Kindness, Loyalty, Generosity, Honesty, Hope, and Friendship; their holy book is the Covenant Journal. You can read their Genesis story here!
Alicorn's Witnesses
Alicorn's Witnesses, or Alicornistics as outsiders sometimes call them, worship the alicorns as deities. In Noireverse, there have been six alicorns. Alicorn's Witnesses believe that each embodies a different ideal:
- Faust, one of the two first alicorns. A scholar who became an alicorn by accident while experimenting on more effective ways to move the sun. She became the first Princess of Equestria and mothered Celestia and Luna by Starswirl the Bearded. She embodies wisdom and knowledge.
- Speranza, Faust's best friend who transformed in the same accident. She founded the Crystal Empire by uniting several nomadic northern tribes, codified their laws, and founded the Empire's capital, Cuore. She embodies justice and peace.
- Celestia and Luna. In this universe, they were both born in the year 1000 AE (Age of Equestria), which makes them 950 years old currently, and ascended to alicornhood in the twelfth century. (Note: alicorns are long-lived in this universe, but not immortal). Naturally, they embody day and night, and together represent balance.
- Amore, Speranza's daughter and Cadenza's mother, borrowed from the comics. She created the Crystal Heart that produces the Empire's warmth and protects it from hostile weather. She was assassinated by Prime Minister Sombra to trigger the Crystal War in 1941. She represents home and family.
- Cadenza, the current Crystal Empress and the youngest alicorn, born in 1921. Ascended to alicornhood in 1944. She represents love and hope.
Alicorn's Witnesses were originally an offshoot of Navahism. While mainstream Navahists believe that the alicorns are divine miracles of the Holy Mother, a Navahist priestess named Apocrypha declared in the twelfth century that the alicorns were embodiments of divinity and should be worshipped as gods. Apocrypha was declared a heretic after her death and until recently, relationships between Navahists and Witnesses have been tense.
Witnesses are more common outside of Equestria, as worship of alicorns had already spread beyond the borders of Equestria even in Faust and Speranza's time. Their holy book is Apocrypha's Testimony, which has a chapter dedicated to each alicorn. Each Witness carries a rosary necklace with them; the beads, each marked with one of the alicorn's cutie marks, aid in prayers and meditation.
Griffon religion
I've mentioned the two primary griffon gods, Kriga and Fantisera, but have never really explained what they are. According to griffon mythology, Kriga and Fantisera (whose names are Swedish for "war" and "dreams") were the first griffons, husband and wife who mothered all other griffons. When their home was attacked by monsters, Kriga led an army against them, but was struck down in battle, his body burned to bones. Fantisera knew that his soul was lost in the Dreaming Sea, where all dreams dwell, and so she donned a blindfold so she could stay asleep and tied bells to her wrists to guide her husband's soul to her before venturing out into the Dreaming Sea. She found her husband's soul and returned him to his skeletal body, and he rose again, immortal and just as determined, to lead griffons to victory against the monsters. Kriga guards all griffons and their home, while Fantisera wanders the Dreaming Sea, guiding the souls of virtuous griffons across the sea to paradise. Kriga is a god of not just war, but also home, farming, and crafting; Fantisera is a goddess of death, but also travelers, the sea, weather, and dreams.
Hippogriff religion
Never brought this up, but I want to touch on this quick. Hippogriffs worship two gods: Eurybia, the goddess of the sea, and Aurae, the god of the sky (yes, those are named directly for Greek demigods, sue me). They are the children of the Storm King, an evil god who seeks to conquer and destroy the hippogriffs and must be regularly driven away with banquets and rituals. The prize of Hippogriffia is Eurybia's Pearl, an enchanted stone that allows them to transform into seaponies. Noble griffons, such as Duchess Silverstream, wear a piece around their neck as a symbol of status.
Crystal religion
Crystal Ponies are descended from nomadic tribes that once wandered the snowy, mountainous north. Their mythology states that they were born from the very stones of the Crystal Mountains and that they will return to the mountains when they die to be judged by their ancestors before being reborn again in their family line. Ancestor worship is a central tenet of the Crystalline religion, as well as strong faith in tradition and a sense of duty.
Dragon religion
This was created by my friend Olakaan Pellik; go check out his stories Strider and Flames! I'm going to copy his words down:
The Dragon Religion stems from their favorite legend: the First Dragon, Ladon Draco, the one and only true Golden Scaled Dragon. His powers of creation were unlike any other being before him. It is said after traveling the world east to west several times creating volcanoes, sulfur plains, and the tallest mountains, he created the Dragonlands on his own by tearing it up from the ocean floor with his talons and claws and setting the volcanoes aflame with his breath. He then created the first kinds of dragons from seven of his own scales, a different one with each scale: Fire, Ice, Sea, Stone, Shadow, Viper (Supposedly Extinct), and Chameleon Dragons (Extinct). Then after creating a mate for each of them and granting his creations the gifts of long life and ancestral reincarnation, Ladon Draco flew straight up into the sky and became the constellation now known simply as Draco.
While all dragons believe in Draco, he is not who they pray to. They pray to their ancestors to watch over them, give them signs of reassurance, protection, or pray that they grant a dragon a quick death if going into a battle. However, if a dragon feels a situation is dire and their ancestors have abandoned them they can be found praying to Draco directly.
Kirin religion
TheLegendaryBillCipher and I came up with this idea together. Kirins worship two gods: Jishin, a gentle earth god, and Haebak, a vengeful, angry sun goddess. According to kirin mythology, kirin were born from the land itself and were charged by Jishin to tend and care for the land and plants. However, evil spirits and monsters from the underworld assailed their homes, destroying their crops and plants. Haebak gifted the kirin with enchanted fire from the sun itself, as it was the only thing that could hurt the monsters, though he warned them that the fire would burn their whole lands if they ever lost control of themselves. Kirin religion is centered around harmony, emotional control, and tending to nature.
The Old Gods
The deities collectively known as the Old Gods are pagan gods that were worshipped in ancient times, long before Equestria was founded. The four main gods are Daybreaker, the god of the sun and weather; Nightmare Moon, goddess of the moon and dreams; Discord, god of tricksters and schemes; and Tirek, god of war and disease. These cruel, capricious gods demanded worship in exchange for moving the sun and the moon, maintaining weather and crops, and other basic needs that ponies were not capable of without knowledge of magic. Once ponies learned how to do these things themselves, worship of the Old Gods faded away to obscurity, though cults still survive. Many artifacts related to the Old Gods are believed to be cursed, steeped in dark magic. Their main "holy book," for lack of a better word, is the Kyaltratek, a rambling tome of spells, legends, bestiaries, and more; history has recorded the names of many ponies who sought the knowledge within it and fell to madness, despair, and death, not necessarily in that order.
I might come up with more stuff later, but this is a good start. I hope you liked!
Interesting, though I continue to hold that naveh is a most unusual word for home (which is usually bayit).
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You can blame Google for my choice of words. Maybe I should've asked you!
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Sorry. I didn't mean to come off as an arrogant know-it-all, but it just so happens that learning to read Biblical Hebrew is the one an only successful accomplishment in a life that otherwise consists of failure and frustration. And that skill isn't very practical, unfortunately (it has provided mostly personal satisfaction), so when I find that someone needs to know something from that field, I sort of become fanatical.
I have looked up the word naveh (נוה) in both Holliday and Brown-Driver-Briggs and both definitely list one definition as "home," though not the primary one. It seems to primarily refer to a pasture where a flock can settle down and rest after a hard day, and perhaps that is the idea a religion would want to convey.
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It's fine, you didn't come across as arrogant. I was trying to be a bit self-deprecating!
I think it's a cool thing to know. My old pastor was well-versed in the original Biblical languages of Greek and Aramic and Hebrew, and his talks about the Bible were always illuminating.