Book of Visions

The Book of Visions is a collection of texts sacred to the Church of Titanius. There was no single canonical Book of Visions until 832, but various individual scrolls, oral traditions and inscriptions, which were all compiled into a single huge book in 832.

The Book of Visions is highly diverse in types of content: it contains Church laws, historical narratives (telling the history of the Proto-Elves, such as the Yeder Wars, and later the High Elves, such as the First Froturn-Etrandish War, ending on the eve of Froturn's reunification), parables, prophecies, poetry and epistles. In addition to being a holy book — the single greatest source of inspiration for the church —, the Book of Visions also had a heavy impact and influence on secular literature — a good deal of (now clichéd) tropes that would appear in later secular literature first made an appearence in the Book of Visions, and some of the stories within the book happen to be love stories and shaped Froturnish, Etrandish and Artaburran perceptions of love, especially for writers.

Even though the book was written by many authors, it is widely believed that the message itself — which was recorded by the writers — was sent by Titanius himself, as those most of those literate people who have had the fortune to read the Book of Visions consider it the single best book that exists, filled with the most epic stories one could ask for.

Another intriguing thing about the Book of Visions is that it also discusses issues that wouldn't be relevant until millennia later.

Language
The language of the Book of Visions was halfway between Archaic High Elven and Classical High Elven: the language was mostly Classical (stop + non—sibilant fricative clusters already coalesced into aspirated stops, schwa already merged with short, etc.), but the fricatives were still distinct, rather than merged as , as evidenced from the writing which rendered them as , rather than just. Sometimes, was written as  instead of, causing confusion with. Some believe that this confusion between and  is further proof that the latter had fricative release in Classical High Elven.

In later versions — after 600 BEKE —, would be replaced by, and the use of  for former  — causing confusion with  — would remain only in personal names and placenames, otherwise replaced by.

The original Book of Visions is the first piece of High Elven literature to use diacritics to mark long vowels, but even then, sometimes long vowels are left unmarked (most often when there are no minimal pairs to confuse with), or written either or  instead of  — once again, later copies would remedy all of these inconsistencies and use diacritics with consistency.

In the original version, no distinction was made between the vowels and the semivowels  — only after ~100 BEKE, when the Middle High Elven translations were made — would new copies start using the new letters to distinguish between the two, when copying the Classical High Elven version.

Ownership
While the Church of Titanius does not make it illegal to own a copy of the book, it is difficult for ordinary people to acquire the Book of Visions — due to the excessive length, most of the richer civilians only own a few parts of it, or an abridged version, due to the harsh price of owning a full copy — the Church does not spare any expenses at making sure every church and monastery has at least one copy though.

Hierarchy of life
The Titanist religion is a firm believer that there is a hierarchy to just about everything, although they also believe in mobility.

The Wild Man vs Civilized Man
One important concept to the Titanist religion is the dichotomy of the wild man and the civilized man. It is believed that:


 * the truly Wild Man is antisocial, therefore either doesn't form societies at all, or forms short-lived, makeshift pseudo-societies that only last for as long as the individuals who form it have a common interest and net benefit from co-operating rather than killing each other.
 * the transitional stage between the Wild Man and the Civilized Man — as the two are considered two ends of a spectrum or gradient, rather than a rigid yes-or-no categorization — forms egeletarian proto-societies that are usually elective, and as a result, not very stable.
 * the truly Civilized Man forms highly regimented and stratified societies. Division of labour gives way to specialization, and certain specialized tasks — such as rulership, governance, fighting — require specialists to be trained from an age as young as possible: hence the existence of hereditary nobility. The higher population density (which means more of the intelligence-reducing auras/pheromones) also necessitates the physical segregation of the classes.

The Wild Man
The "wild man" is described as utterly selfish, superstitious, materialistic, hedonistic, nihilistic, immoral, antisocial, unintelligent, lacking in sophistication. The wild man obeys only the laws of nature, which are that the strong shall reign supreme over the weak. The wild man is a firm believer in the "might makes right" concept — he revels in the youthful strength he may have, but also lives in constant fear that one day, someone stronger than him may come accross and defeat him: for this, he is also a nihilist and a hedonist, savouring every sweet drop of material joy he may acquire. The wild man has no morals — he wrongfully believes that he has no need for them. Yet at the same time, he is also very superstitious, attributing any failure he may have to a loss of favour from the spirits or divines — he interprets every thunderstorm as "the wrath of the gods/spirits"

As the wild man is utterly selfish and only cares about his own well-being, seldom he may form groups and societies, but when he does, he only does so out of self-interest: he backstabs his friends when ever he realizes that the gains outweighs the risks.

The Wild Man effectively represents the most extreme form of individualism, when the individual is literally everything, and there is no society (or if there is one, it is a makeshift and usually short-lived one, created solely for the convenience of individuals who would be perfectly content with backstabbing each other, if it wasn't for the perceived benefit of co-operating temporarily)

The Wild Man is a man who contradicts himself: he is materialistic to the core, valuing people only for the material goods they can provide. A man is only valued for how strong he is, a woman only for how many babies can she pop out. Yet at the same time, he is also very superstitious, interpreting every thunderstorm as "the wrath of the gods/spirits". The Wild Man considers himself free and master of himself, but in the end, he is slave to many things: slave to his instincts, slave to the limitations of his individual strength, slave to his ego, and last but not least — slave to a crippling fear that some day, someone mightier than him will kill or enslave him.

The Rise of the Civilized Man
There comes a time in every race's time, when the Wild Man must ascend, transcend, evolve into the Civilized Man.

The Civilized Man overcomes and transcends the selfishness, hedonism, nihilism, immorality, unsophistication and immorality of the Wild Man: the Civilized Man builds a long—lasting, permanent society, where the common good takes priority over the needs of the selfish individual, where there is a well-established set of ground-rules that regulate interaction, so that society may work smoothly. The Civilized Man realizes that some individuals are better at certain tasks, so specialized tasks are relegated to specialists. Societal contracts are made, where everyone must contribute, so that everyone may receive — where people are entitled to something of an equivalent value to what they provide.

The Civilized Man also realizes that there is more to life than just strength or material joy — he begins to search for higher meaning.

The Civilized Man also recognizes the inherent value of life. While the Wild Man only values people for what they can provide in material — disregarding an old man or a child as worthless, a woman as only valuable as fertile she is — the Civilized Man respects life, and dares not to even contemplate whether said old man would be better off dead — even if he is a net drain on society, he has a right to live, and society has a duty to keep him alive, especially if he spent his youth serving society.

The civilized man rejects the concept that "might makes right" — he recognizes that a crime is a crime, no matter how strong or mighty the perpetrator is, or how weak the victim is. Both the collective group's interest and the Divine Mandate dictate that the criminal must be punished for transgressions.

The Fall of the Civilized Man
However, there is a darker side of the fabled institution of civilization. Sentient beings that walk on two legs also have an invisible aura, or release pheromones that render those around them less intelligent.

Hence, when a civilization's population density grows too large, these auras or pheromones start to collectively lower the average intelligence, until at one point, the Civilized Man becomes too dumb to maintain Civilization — he reverts to the state of the Wild Man. The collectivism of the Civilized Man ironically gives way to the extreme individualism of the Wild Man.

When the Civilized Man reverts to the state of the Wild Man, he loots all the fruits of civilization his ancestors have produced. When there is no more left to loot, he re-embraces the idea that "might makes right", and begins attacking his fellow men for the scarce goods he desires.