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

On the environment

Yukacan stresses that sapient life is not seperate from the environment, but a part of it. Many passages of Yukacan mythology discuss that making space for kanvakind should not take away space from the environment without giving back to that environment. The expectation, then, is that settlements should incorporate natural life in some way. Particularly important is plant life, for this very reason - plant life is seen as the hallmark of a healthy area, as it is the base level upon which the rest of the ecosystem lives.

This cultural idea of environmentalism and symbiosis with plant life is the explanation for the following:

• The second floor of every Rauratoshanian embassy includes torchflowers and/or pitcher plants.
• Potted plants are a common decoration to have near the entrance of a building.
• The roads of Azeria are lined with nether wart.
• The homes of Remulapola are mandated to have gardens.

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. They may pray to the others as they wish, of course, but they are only expected to support their local shrine, which are usually linked to a different deity or a few.

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, but this isn't necessarily the case in Nguhcraft Rauratoshan.

The most important deities of Yukacan are usually perceived as inaccessible to mortals at most times; instead, one would pray to the spirits that serve them. In essence, it is only on holidays that one would expect important deities like Létakkíla to make contact directly with mortals. There are exceptions, of course: Ámpaya, for example, is said to guide romance among mortals directly. However, Ámpaya is also heavily characterized as keeping one foot in the mortal realm; generally, unless such is clarified, it is assumed that other major deities are more distant.

Shrines and shrinekeepers

As stated, shrines are a common occurrence in Rauratoshan. Shrines usually serve only one deity or a few deities, and may vary in size, usually based on how important they are to Yukacan mythology. For example, Rhetaleta Shrine in Remulapola is linked to the moon, particularly Létakkíla herself and "the kawil in the moon" Kuvilayu. These two deities are a large part of the canon of Yukacan, with Kuvilayu being one of the civilization-givers and Rhetaleta being her "so-called best friend", hence why it is the largest shrine in Rauratoshan.

Large shrines will usually have "shrinekeepers" - those designated to care for the shrine; their duties typically involve ensuring the shrine is clean and hosting important rituals. Shrinekeepers may also have permanent staff under them; generally including gardeners, event leaders, and an apprentice shrinekeeper 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 (unless it's a small village's shrine, to where the shrinekeeper doesn't need permanent staff).

Not all Yukacan rituals need to take place at the town shrine, of course. 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 spirits that those in the house deem as important.

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).

There is distinction between deity and spirit, but it's largely immaterial to this purpose, and has more to do with their domain - it is expected that you venerate both, lest you incur the wrath of the world. Spirits do generally result from dead mortals, while deities generally do not, but there are counterexamples in both directions.

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. These are usually not controllable, but there are rituals that can be used to induce either state.

This practice is understood in the modern day as a form of ritual plurality. The rituals involved in spiritspeaking are generally described as hypnotic in nature, including the use of psychoactive substances. Additionally, 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 and others, even though the -zal pronouns were coined by other groups.

Realms and the Nether

There are multiple described realms in Yukacan mythology, many of which take the form of afterlife areas. Tókaumi is the most well known, an endless sea said to lie in the far west of the world, where mortal spirits go while their mortal lives are remembered. After this, most spirits are recycled in reincarnation, but some are destined for other realms.

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.