Thar Shaddin

Here is something I wish to work on. Designing the moral system for Aorle & the Lightswords... and their future converts.

Any help, thoughts or ideas are welcome. The whole point of posting here is looking for suggestions or advice.

Followers of these teachings (I need a name the practicers) pray to the Virtues themselves more than named dieties. And of course live by these Virtues. Dogma serves to aid in living by the Virtues in practice.

Core Virtues:

Prowess: To seek excellence in all endeavors expected of the Faithful, martial and otherwise, seeking strength to be used in the service of justice, rather than in personal aggrandizement.

Justice: Seek always the path of 'right', unencumbered by bias or personal interest. Recognize that the sword of justice can be a terrible thing, so it must be tempered by humanity and mercy. If the 'right' you see rings agrees with others, and you seek it out without bending to the temptation for expediency, then you will earn renown beyond measure.

Loyalty: Be known for unwavering commitment to the people and ideals you choose to live by. There are many places where compromise is expected; loyalty is not amongst them.

Defense: The ideal Faithful is sworn to defend his liege lord and those who depended upon him. Seek always to defend your nation, your family, and those to whom you believe worthy of loyalty.

Courage: Being among the Faithful often means choosing the more difficult path, the personally expensive one. Be prepared to make personal sacrifices in service of the precepts and people you value. At the same time, the Faithful should seek wisdom to see that stupidity and courage are cousins. Courage also means taking the side of truth in all matters, rather than seeking the expedient lie. Seek the truth whenever possible, but remember to temper justice with mercy, or the pure truth can bring grief.

Faith: The Righteous must have faith in his beliefs, for faith roots him and gives hope against the despair that human failings create.

Humility: Value first the contributions of others; do not boast of your own accomplishments, let others do this for you. Tell the deeds of others before your own, according them the renown rightfully earned through virtuous deeds. In this way the world before Heaven is well done and glorified, helping not only the gentle spoken of but also all who call themselves Faithful.

Largesse: Be generous in so far as your resources allow; largesse used in this way counters gluttony. It also makes the path of mercy easier to discern when a difficult decision of justice is required.

Nobility: Seek great stature of character by holding to the virtues and duties of the Faithful, realizing that though the ideals cannot be reached, the quality of striving towards them ennobles the spirit, growing the character from dust towards the heavens. Nobility also has the tendency to influence others, offering a compelling example of what can be done in the service of rightness.

Franchise: Seek to emulate everything I have spoken of as sincerely as possible, not for the reason of personal gain but because it is right. Do not restrict your exploration to a small world, but seek to infuse every aspect of your life with these qualities. Should you succeed in even a tiny measure then you will be well remembered for your quality and virtue.

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Certain deeds combine multiple virtues, and these combinations result in advanced virtues. Eg: Amaranda is the angel of Sacrifice, which combines Courage (for acting in knowledge of the cost), Faith (believing in the worth of what you do), Humility (the willingness to put aside one's own needs for the sake of others), Largesse (generosity at personal cost is very generous) & Franchise (the personal cost demonstrates sincerity).

It looks like you have the moral system pretty much under control. One thing though that I'm not sure if you included or not that would be good. Flexibility of mind. What I mean is that one's faith should be unshakable, but opinions (of the world, the way it works, and the people in it) should be able to slide linear. As example, it is a good thing to be able to hold to your faith in the face of adversity, but it is not good to continue to sing a man's praises once he has been discovered as a rapist and a murderer. One of the virtues you've already stated may cover that efficiently and I read it wrong, but I just wanted to suggest that.

Now for something I can be of more help with. A name.

Alright, first question to ask, is this a new (created by Aorle and Lightswords) belief system/religion? If it is not, what type of language would the originators have spoken? Would they have used a Finish language, something more resembling Greek, or something completely different? If this is new, what languages do the founders speak? Is all of their primary language English (or whatever the main language of Pal is) or did a lot of them originally speak another? Answer that for me and I can probably help you throw together a name for them.

The Teachings of Angels are very old, from when angels first came into contact with mortals. The originators were angels, who had their own language although chose to use mortal tongues for ease of communication. So I assume people would use the language of their homeland - we can all use English for this purpose, Aorle would use German and Celenon would use Latin.

An important point. Here, for these, angels are effectively embodiments of a virtue. So there are Justice angels, Defence angels, Largesse angels, etc.

Generally Faith is intended to apply to believing in the worth of what you do. IE: That helping people and trying to make the world a better place is worth doing. Your example (discovering someone is really a villain) I think is covered by Justice.

What I need help with are names for...

The followers themselves.
The organised body/church.
A general name for when several Virtues combine together.

PS: I am also thinking the reverse of much of this (Vices instead of Virtues) may be applicable to demons.

So do you have any idea of the history/legends of the group in your head? Because just having a handful of those, or even a few for that matter, would help greatly. You could always use a formulaic method for naming the main body of the religion. ______ of/of the ______. *Shrugs* That's all I got, so essentially I got nothing.