Yukacan

Yukacan is the main religion of Rauratoshan. While it is technically the official religion of the ŋation, Rauratoshanian citizenship does not involve any Yukacan rituals, and in general the Crown views membership in such as optional.

Beliefs

Deities

Main article: List of deities of Yukacan

Yukacan is typically described as henotheistic. This means that while there is a large pantheon of deities in Yukacan, an individual person is expected to view only one or a few of them as important. Most shrines are therefore linked to a different deity.

The crown family of Rauratoshan is said to be aligned with the chief of the Yukacan pantheon, Selshan Téshika Téraza Télíta. The ŋation has, historically and in the present, expressed a divine right to rule for its quing regent. This is why Rauratoshan formally does have a state religion. However, Quing Nozomi is not particularly interested in religious fidelity of Rauratoshan's citizens; prior regents have demanded that government officials pledge allegiance to Selshan.

Shrines and shrinekeepers

As stated, shrines are a common occurrence in Rauratoshan; these typically are linked to whatever deities the local people around the shrine worship. For example, Rhetaleta Shrine in Remulapola is linked to the moon, particularly Rhetaleta herself and "the kawil in the moon" Monasagi.

Shrinekeepers are those designated to care for the shrine; their duties typically involve ensuring the shrine is clean and hosting important rituals. Shrinekeepers may also have aides; often this includes an apprentice that is training to become the shrinekeeper after the current one retires. The shrinekeeper is simply the person in charge, not the only person involved.

However, some Yukacan rituals are deemed more personal, so there are also so-called "personal shrines" in many Rauratoshanian homes; these are typically a small area in the house decorated with items related to the deities that those in the house worship.

Spirits and spiritspeakers

Spirits typically are formerly-living beings, but need not be directly so. Many spirits are associated with specific landmarks; modern theologians consider this to be an incorporation of ancient animistic beliefs. Still, the incarnate form of a spirit usually resembles a living being, even if they do not remember being a living being (or are directly stated to have no such history).

Another type of Yukacan clergy is the "spiritspeaker." A spiritspeaker is someone who has "taken on the soul" of a spirit; often the spirit in question is a minor deity or a servant of the deity of the shrine they work for. A spiritspeaker often is said to have "phases" where they speak for the spirit, and "phases" where they speak for their mortal self.

This practice is understood in the modern day as a form of ritual plurality. The rituals involved in becoming a spiritspeaker are generally described as hypnotic in nature, and it is documented that hypnosis can induce feelings of multiplicity. Correspondingly, more progressive spiritspeakers have taken on the -zal series of plural-focused neopronouns like  ayazal to refer to themselves, even though the -zal pronouns were coined by other groups.

On the Nether

While the Nether is clearly some kind of underworld, as it is hot and has tons of lava, both of which are clearly part of the guts of the world, the typical understanding of the Yukacan afterlife (mainly Tókaumi) differs significantly from the Nether in several key ways:

1. The Nether has lava oceans. Tókaumi does have an ocean associated with it, but it is explicitly a water ocean; the Yukacan belief is that since people came from water, they return to it when they die.

   While there are lava lakes elsewhere in Yumilan, they typically are not the first destination of souls.

2. The Nether's primary inhabitants are swine; while Tókaumi does have residents that aren't ancestors of Yukacan believers, they are typically fairy-adjacent.
3. Gold is the most important metal in the Nether, while the most important metal in Tókaumi is arguably bismuth, the material that the Castle of Ages is said to be built with.

With this in mind, Yukacan priests consider the Nether to be, at best, a subset of Tókaumi, possibly an addendum to existing literature on the subject.