Fiction:Lazeroth Unity

The Lazeroth Unity is a religious order, strongly unified under a rigorous social structure based on merit, age, and deeply rooted in tradition and religion. It is led by a Matriarch and her Consort.

Society
The Unity, as might be divined by its name, works like clockwork. Individuals speak rarely to one another, as there is little need for it. Solitude is valued, for it gives one time to think, to ponder ones existence and to better one's physical form. Feelings, whether it be of pain, anger, or joy, are repressed, as to show signs of any of these would declare one's flaws to the universe. It is therefore considered polite to turn away when a Lazeroth displays feeling, and grievously insulting to keep on looking. Authority commands unquestioned obedience, as instructed by the Scriptures. The reasoning behind this is that those in the higher echelons of power have acquired enough experience and wisdom that they would know what is better for the Unity.

The head of Lazeroth society is the Matriarch, a hereditary position occupied by female Lazeroth. Ruling alongside her is her Consort. The two have the same status, but the Matriarch-to-be is the one to choose the next Consort, her mate. In this way, the Unity can be considered to be a strict meritocracy that sometimes borders on Darwinism. Those who rise to the top are often competent, strong, loyal, but the quality that interests the Lazeroth the most is piety. Piety, in the eyes of the Unity, is the adherence to traditions laid out in ancient Scriptures, written long ago when the Lazeroth were still a grounded species.

Religion
Religion is the driving force that holds the Unity together. To it, it is not a mere set of beliefs, it is the way of the world. In fact, one might consider it more a philosophy than a religion.

Mythology
The Lazeroth believe that the universe was created on the whim of three adolescent deities, two brothers and a female. They are said to have created Duroth and the Lazeroth, beings which they molded in their own image, to amuse themselves. Duroth was a lush, swampy world in which the reptillian species thrived, engendering all sorts of stories in which they themselves took part. They indulged themselves ravenously. The elder brother was infamous for his flirtatious nature and the willingness with which he loved his female creations. Accounts state that those that he had his way with all of the females he approached, even those who resisted. The younger was of a more jealous type. He took pleasure in malice, demonstrating with glee his cunning and affinity for such things. Both of them vied for the attention of the Female, who was perhaps the only one of the three to possess any real virtue. To their frustration, she paid little attention to them, instead spending her time wandering the swamps of Duroth tending to those in need. It was to her the victims of the younger brother's plots prayed, and she did her best to answer those prayers without incurring the wrath of her male counterparts.

Soon, the two brothers began to get bored of the Lazeroth. They decided that they were too perfect. So, they unleashed sickness, disease, hunger, thirst, and all sorts of evils on to Duroth. The chaos that ensued was delightful to them for a time, but they again began to grow weary of their manipulations. As the story goes, the Elder began to grow obsessed with the female godess, who would not have him. Desperate, he tried to create mortal semblances of her, but they only served to further his obsession instead of quenching it. The Younger, seeing this, began to court her as well with even less encouraging results.

Finally, the Elder threatened to wipe out the Lazeroth if the Female did become his mate. The Female, caring deeply for the reptillian race, gave in to him, much to the younger brother's dismay. The Younger seethed in his jealousy until he could no longer stand it. He saw his chance to sever the union when the Female fell in love with young Lazeroth of many virtues. She would watch over him every night, never quite approaching him in accordance to her oath of fidelity to the Elder. The Younger manipulated circumstance to tempt her, to draw her in close until she could no longer resist. She and the young Lazeroth mated, an occurrence which was immediately reported to the Elder.

In his anger, the Elder grabbed the planet Duroth and hurled it at its star. Before the Female could react, the temperatures on Duroth had risen dramatically; the lush swamps had turned to desert and ash, and the zone around the equator rendered uninhabitable. A long war then ensued between the Lazeroth, led by the young lover and then pregnant Female, and the two brothers. At the end of it, the two lovers laid down their lives together to banish the brothers from the mortal realm. With his final breath, the Elder turned the universe, then a wondrous paradise, into a barren and hostile place that the Lazeroth would spend the rest of their existence fighting to surmount.

Beliefs
The Lazeroth religion itself centers around the belief that the universe was created intentionally by the gods as a living purgatory in which they could suffer. The Lazeroth therefore consider it their moral obligation to continually spite the gods by not only surviving, but thriving in the universe they created.

Creed
As outlined by the Unity's Creeds, a Lazeroth: I. must always spit in the face of the gods. II. must veil the gods' hated forms. III. must take ahold of himself, and master body and mind. IV. must listen to the council of those who came before, lest he repeat their mistakes. V. must not let himself fade away without leaving a piece of himself behind. These texts, thought to date back to the war with the gods, have engendered different and often contradictory interpretations throughout the ages. After much strife, a single view of the texts was adopted and has since been kept as the basis for Lazeroth existence.

Life
"If one hath no other reason to live than to live, then he shall live, for the gods hath said otherwise."

- The Scriptures

Life for the Lazeroth is a struggle for survival that is often interpreted as an extension of the battle fought between their deities over the survival of their homeworld. One has to remember that they consider themselves to be the purposefully flawed creations of incorrigibly flawed gods, and hence do everything they can to surmount those flaws. They take their defiance as far as to brave Duroth's most uninhabitable environments (supposedly rendered so by the gods) as a right of passage into adulthood. After one has passed aforementioned test of strength, one is officially inducted into the Unity. Life from there is a constant quest to prove oneself in the eyes of one's elders and, indirectly in the eyes of the gods. It is understood that those in the higher echelons of power know better than those in the lower, and therefore go unquestioned. One rises up the ladder given on his merits, such is the way of the scriptures.

Death
As with most cultures, the Unity considers death to be the end of life in the mortal plane. The difference for them is that death is the end of the struggle of the individual. It is not something to mourn or something to rejoice about, it