Immaculate Order vs Immaculate Faith

[Epee102]

Sorry, what's Prasad/Parsaad?

Satrapy of the Realm on the coast of the Dreaming Sea that practices the Pure Way, a heterodox version of the Immaculate faith.

As to Piff s question, I'm not sure the faith out paces the Dragonblooded by that much. Places where there aren't any dragonblooded (which personally are restricted in my eyes) tend to simply not practice the faith that they veiw as part of an empires path to power. The IO endorses the Realm (and maybe Lookshy?) as the proper rulers of the world, as opposed to gods and mortals. This, um, makes me doubt many citizens of foriegn empires find it persuasive enough for wide scale adoption. Alternatively, rulers who were immaculate but not dragonblooded might claim to be higher then their surrounding mortals. Probably jockeying to marry into a Dragonblooded family .

The bigger problem then is...well, why aren't they in the Realm? The IO justifies the realm and Dragonblooded supremacy, and if one was a true practioner of the IO, it seems like you'd want to be under dragonblooded rule.

[Roswynn]

But why would that happen? DBs aren't a finite number like Celestials - you can always produce more DBs by sex.

... Of course at a certain point the genes would get too diluted and practically no one would exalt. But it would take some time. Perhaps it might never occur.

Assuming no one does exalt for a time, I'm thinking it becomes ancestor worship of the DBs. Or someone says, "I'm a DB", and produces some trick (Charms, Sorcery, smoke & mirrors, artifacts, glamour... whatever) that convinces the populace (who now doesn't really have the means to say, "No you're not", b/c who the heck remembers what DBs were like?).

Can the faith survive without Exalted? It would fare no better or worse than real world faiths. Lots of people believe in Jesus, but it's just beliefs. He's not there physically. At the same time, Zeus isn't worshipped anymore, not really. It would make the faith much more vulnerable, that's for sure.

Also, would the Sidereals ever allow something like this scenario? I mean, they invented the Philosophy so as to legitimize DB rule over Creation (with them as secret puppet masters). They'd probably try to keep the DB population from going extinct. Otherwise they would need to look for another proxy. And another religion.

[The Wizard of Oz]

I think it's worth noting that the Immaculate religion/way/message was the state religion of the entire world, until 768 years ago. Both the Immaculate Philosophy and Immaculate Faith are offshoots/evolutions of that.

So:

I'm not sure the faith out paces the Dragonblooded by that much. Places where there aren't any dragonblooded (which personally are restricted in my eyes) tend to simply not practice the faith that they veiw as part of an empires path to power.

I think elements of the Immaculate religion are going to be found all over the place. Not the whole thing (it was admittedly a long time ago, before an apocalypse, and as we were saying on the other thread, the Hundred Gods Heresy and Ancestor Worship are so widespread because they give such obvious benefits in a way that worshipping the Incarnae or the Dragons does not), and certainly the Realm is going to give it a bad name, but elements of it are likely found within local religions. For example, a fair amount of veneration of the 5 Great Elemental Dragons is likely done through an Immaculate-esque lens.
Plus, of course, DBs aren't that uncommon. I mean, uncommon enough most people have never seen one, but common enough that countries ruled by a local DB Queen who's quite happy to re-open a ruined Immaculate temple under some local Dragon-Priests isn't going to be really unusual or shocking.

Anyway, I think there's going to be a fair few places that follow their own, local version of the Immaculate religion, and complain that the Immaculate Philosophy is a corruption of the truth, a way for the Empress to take control of the true religion and turn it into a tool of imperialism, which is not what it's supposed to be about at all (they claim).
Obviously, the most famous example of this is Lookshy.

Not to say this is going to be the majority religion in most places, but Immaculate-esque religious groups (for example, monasteries of fire-worshipping monks, DB pirates with icons of Daana'd on their ships, caste-based systems that preach reincarnation up to DB-hood, etc) are going to be found in most parts of Creation, as small sects.

Partly because this is just interesting, and gives STs plenty of scope for interesting twists on the Immaculate Philosophy! I've done and seen several. The Fivefold Path, the Guardians of the Immaculate Dharma, the Dragon-Priests of Al-Misrah, etc.

[DraMaFlo]

... Of course at a certain point the genes would get too diluted and practically no one would exalt. But it would take some time. Perhaps it might never occur.

If it works remotely the same way our genes do then they would get more common instead
People who exalt would have an enormous advantage over people who don't.
They would live much longer and also be much better off which generally translates into more and better cared for children
Give them a few hundred thousand years and they'll pretty much completely replace normal people

[Epee102]

... Of course at a certain point the genes would get too diluted and practically no one would exalt. But it would take some time. Perhaps it might never occur.

If it works remotely the same way our genes do then they would get more common instead
People who exalt would have an enormous advantage over people who don't.
They would live much longer and also be much better off which generally translates into more and better cared for children
Give them a few hundred thousand years and they'll pretty much completely replace normal people

Dragonblooded exaltations are inherited, but are not genetic IIRC. If your related to a dragonblooded, by any means, you have the potential to exalt.

[Blaque]

Prasad is a new locale in the Ex3 core. It is by the Dreaming Sea and is home to a Dragon Blooded aristocracy. That is from memory, maybe a bit off. But I'm sure it is a Db run Society and pretty sure that it is in the Dreaming Sea.

The big corrections is they're actually pretty inland, not actually much on the coast. Their capital is Kamthahar. They also apparently have a pretty strict caste system, partially based on a person's household, and their variant of the Immaculate Philosophy, the Pure Way, places the Dragon-Blooded not just as more enlightened but outright divine and as living incarnated beings of worship. So instead of quite squelshing the Hundred Gods Heresy, they basically turn it into something that has to put DBs first rather than protecting quite gainst divien protection rackets I think.

They're notable to mea s well in that not only are they a satrapy, but due to the Realm being as I gather really laissez faire on things, they have gone and carved out a nice empire in the Southeast.

[Isator Levi]

Genes do not "dilute", and human population dynamics are driven by more complex factors than the mating habits of most animals.

Why, large numbers of genetically viable people never have any children at all.

[glamourweaver]

Satrapy of the Realm on the coast of the Dreaming Sea that practices the Pure Way, a heterodox version of the Immaculate faith.

Has it been canonically stated that the Pure Way involves the direct worship of the Dragon-Blooded as divinities by mortals, or did I make that up too?

[Isator Levi]

Has it been canonically stated that the Pure Way involves the direct worship of the Dragon-Blooded as divinities by mortals

More or less.

[Elfive]

'Course, just because mixing with too many mortals won't dilute the bloodline and prevent exaltation, that doesn't mean the DBs don't think it will.

[Isator Levi]

If the logic of the previous games holds up, then the descendants of Dragon Blooded having children with people who aren't sufficiently descended from Dragon Blooded will ultimately greatly reduce the odds of Exalting.

The notion of genetic dilution is just technically inaccurate.

[Elfive]

Mechanically though, the effect plateaus at 30%.

[Isator Levi]

Do you mean the mechanics of rolling a single d10?

[The Wizard of Oz]

Surely it'd be 10%, rather than 30%.

Though that's really just for PCs. I mean, if you're playing the mortal granddaughter of a DB with moderate breeding, who has a kid with a regular bloke, and the ST/you feel like rolling a dice for whether they exalt when they are a teenager and get kidnapped by the bad guys (as opposed to just deciding it'd be interesting/not interesting), it might be "they exalt if you roll a 10", but that doesn't mean the demographic chance is 10%, it might be like 3.985% or something.

Unless you're referring to the 1st ed table? Though I thought that went down to 10% for a DB with no breeding who breeds with a mortal. Maybe it was 30%, it's a long time since I read it.

[Elfive]

No, I was using the numbers from Scroll of Errata. For a dragonblooded and a mortal of no particular lineage the kid will exalt on a roll of 1-3, or 30%.

Two dragonblooded with no breeding whatsoever will see about 60% of their kids exalt, on average.