The Water Religion,
or The Way of Pure Water
Dou-Lluora

        The Water Religion of the Atlanteans is a strange thing to many who do not follow it. It is as fluid and as hard to grasp as the element for which it is named, being practiced in an almost innumerable number of ways. With no central temples or priesthood, each region has developed its own forms of worship, though all are connected. The Evangelists liken it to the waters of the world: though there are many oceans, all are in truth one, and so it is with the Way.

Beliefs:
        Practitioners of the Way hold that there is an underlying reality behind the world of physical forms and senses that we are most familiar with. They call this reality Pure Water, and claim that it alone is real, while the rest of the world is but a distracting shadow. Pure Water, to the followers of the Way, is unknowable. The human mind, grounded in physical reality, can never fully come to understand it, though a Sage may come close after years of training. Coming close to Pure Water in thought and deed is the aim of all those who follow the Way.
        Becoming like Pure Water, however, is incredibly difficult conceptually. Since it is Truth, Pure Water is also unvarying. Since it cannot change, it cannot cause changes in other things. Therefore, Pure Water never acts. However, since it is the basis of all reality, all that is done is done through Pure Water. So to be like Pure Water, one must act through inaction, yielding and yet inexorable. A metaphor commonly used to describe this is how water resists nothing, flowing wherever the land takes it, yet in time can cut through a mountain. In accordance with this, the practitioner seeks a state of acceptance of how things are, reached through a lifelong series of meditations and exercises aimed at eradicating all desire. Only when all desires have been eliminated, the Sages, teach, can Enlightenment be achieved. The Enlightened Sage is perfectly content and at peace, because he chooses at each moment to be such. At the same time, the practitioner, believing that all are connected, must work towards the slow, gradual betterment of society, guiding those around him to the point where they too can work towards Enlightenment, where they can come closer to understanding the Way, and becoming like Pure Water.

Rituals:
        The various personal rituals of water worship vary greatly from area to area, but all seek to subdue the individual's ego and desires. In addition to these, however, there are festivals that are relatively common, despite some purist evangelists claiming them to be holdovers from Pasiphae worship.
        The Festival of the Tides is one of the more popular holidays in water-worship. Worshippers gather in the depths at high tides in the spring, and surrender themselves to the currents. The goal is to reach the surface, without ever struggling to do so.

History:
        The Way of Pure Water has always been practiced quietly by Atlanteans, taught in out of the way places and studied in solitude if not in secret. In the past few decades, there has been a revival of the Way that's been seen as nothing short of miraculous. The younger generation of Atlanteans have taken to the Way, causing no amount of consternation among the older Sages, long used to their solitude, and now suddenly in great demand.
        The rapid spread of the Way has taken most older Atlanteans by surprise. It started out as a fad on among young, educated Atlanteans, and quickly gathered force like a sea-storm, displacing the worship of Pasiphae in most Decemvirates almost before the priests and priestesses of that religion knew what was happening.

Sects:
        There are two main sects that stand out among the general mass of water worshippers. Neither of them form a very large fraction of the total followers of the Way, but their unity and strident evangelism more than compensates.