VoK Prompts

Prompt A6 - What sort of faith does your pride have? Do they have gods? 150 word minimum
Word count - 1147 / 150
Exp: 100

Throughout King Intukuthelo's journey, he developed a strong, unwavering faith that he passed along through his pride. To them, its importance is undeniable, and any who bluntly and publicly refused to participate in religious actions without good reason would be punished. With that being said, Kuth was kind and understanding and let all refugees keep their previous beliefs.

Religious Figures
The faith of the pride is basically a unified, generalized, and undebated version of Christianity. They believe in one God who has complete power over everything and commands and powers everything, who they call "uNkulunkulu," or "God." They also believe that He is all and is in all, which brings about His other names, similar to the Trinity Christians believe in, but less seperated. When referring to uNkulunkulu's presence as a physical animasl, it is referred to as "Ungcwele," or "the Holy Being." When referring to uNkulunkulu's presence inside all creatures, it is referred to as "UMoya oNgcwele," or "Holy Presence." These three names, uNkulunkulu, Ungcwele, and UMoya oNgcwele, are mostly interchangeable.

Like most belief systems, uNkulunkulu has an opposing force, known as "UDeveli," or "the Devil." He is all the evil in the world and influences creatures to follow his cruel ways. The beasts he created are known as "idemoni," or "demon." They do not have a certain appearance or trait symbolizing their inner evil and can be very deceiving, as lying is part of their nature. For artistic purposes, they are drawn as black bats or other animals with bat-like features, such as a lion if the designated demonic animal was a lion. If a lion passed on and was not under uNkulunkulu's favor, they would also be drawn in this way.

To contrast and defend against the idemoni, uNkulunkulu is also accompanied by host of angelic beings, known as "ingelosi," or "angel." Similar to the idemoni, these do not have any specific features in their physical state to show that they are an ingelosi, although they are normally drawn as pure white hawks (if they were created as angels) or as animals with white hawk-like features (if they are angelic-seeming or deceased under uNkulunkulu's favor.)

According to tradition, Ungcwele (the physical form of  uNkulunkulu) is a male lion, with a silky coat as white as the purest snow and a matching enormous mane softer than velvet. He has kind, gold-colored eyes may be illustrated with a halo. UDeveli is also a male lion, but instead scrawny and mangy. He looks unkept and chunks of hair or skin may be missing. His black mane is like wires and instead of fur, he is covered in matching black scales. While Ungcwele radiates warmth, UDeveli is always as cold as ice.

uNkulunkulu resides in the perfect world of His creation, known as "Izulu," or "Heaven," while UDeveli promotes his evil ways from the dungeon-like realm uNkulunkulu confined him to, known as "Isihogo," or "Hell."

Religious Teachings
Ungcwele was born into the lowest rank of His pride, although He was a direct descendant of their founder. At a young age He left to spread the truth of His being. He was completely pure and never once sinned. He lived off the land and the generosity of His quickly growing following. As He traveled the land, He preformed miracles, which also brought about skepticism and jealousy. At one specifically large pride He visited, He was arrested for blasphemy, and instead of being helped by His followers, they stayed away, afraid of the same being done to them. After days of brutal, relentless beating and torture, He was put to death. This moment is illustrated by a war of the ingelosi and the idemoni. Ashamed, a group of His followers took His body away to be buried in a secure stone tomb. In a dream three days later, Ungcwele revealed Himself alive and breathing (and still showing the scars of His beating) to the betraying pride's king. Unbelieving but curious, the king raced to His grave and discovered that His body had been taken from its tomb. The Ukusizana Pride believes that though His body ascended into Izulu, His followers guided by UMoya oNgcwele were created to continue His purpose of spreading His message.

His teachings while on Earth became the basis for the lives of all the lions of the Ukusizana Pride. Everyday they do their best to live up to His perfect image, although they know that none of them are perfect as He was.

Religious Actions 
Their is no written text of their beliefs (since there is no paper or way to write), but instead it's taught through the stories shared the priest. Through them they are preached and passed down through the generations.

Unlike some modern denominations, the Pride does not have any specific prayers. They instead pray generally for what ails them, in addition to giving thanks and citing what they have been taught.

Like traditional Christians, the Pride gathers on Sundays in the Temple Chamber where they receive a weekly rundown on what the Priest has observed, a teaching/reminder, and a communal blessing and prayer. Certain holy days, such as Ungcwele's date of birth, death, ascension, and miracles, are celebrated similarly, but instead with specific ceremonies.

Specific Beliefs
While they don't believe that uNkulunkulu brings natural forces against them to symbolize His anger, they do believe that He created these forces and could stop them if He so wished. For this reason, they may pray that these forces be stopped, but they do not have specific rituals devoted to stopping them. As an example, if there was a drought causing their prey to be weak, they would not perform a rain dance, but instead might pray that God blesses them with rain. Another might be if they were being attacked, they might pray that they stay safe and that uNkulunkulu might change their attackers' hearts, but they would not expect Him to strike their attackers dead with a bolt of lightning.

Because they believe that uNkulunkulu is fair and equal, they do not pray for selfish things. For example, it is frowned upon to pray that one may be promoted ahead of another, because that would be hurting their opponent, which is against what they have been taught. Instead they might pray that uNkulunkulu guides them to do what is right and that they would be loving and grateful no matter the outcome.

All members of the Pride are urged to pursue their own godliness and salvation, because they believe that the only way to redemption is through uNkulunkulu. This is not just doing what He says, but holding themselves to a higher standard and seeking forgiveness and wholly trying to live out every commandment. Therefore, they cannot get to Izulu by going off of other's faith, but have to take the initiative and begin to live His way on their own.