Church of the Chosen Ones
The Church of the Chosen Ones is a belief system popular amongst many Vargr dwelling in the Vargr Extents and sometimes beyond.
- It is widely regarded as a religion.
Library Data Referral Tree
Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information:
Vargr Extents:
Description (Specifications)
A fanatical Vargr sect, which believes that the Ancients not only “invented” the Vargr race by genetic manipulation of Terran carnivores, but also that the Ancients also returned to the Vargr several times. These believers also assert that the Ancients improved the race to the point that it could take its rightful place as the leader of this part of the galaxy.Some Church members even believe that the Ancients will return again to bring this about.
History & Background (Dossier)
The Church has waned in influence since its founding 200 years ago, but it still has followers on many worlds.
History-Era: New Era
Non-canon: Vargr racial supremacist religion. The Chosen Ones are an unusual outcome of the Solomani Hypothesis. The revelation of the Vargr's uplifting by the Ancients convinced many of them that their race had been singled out for special treatment, perhaps as a master race over all other sophonts. The COTCO is the only Vargr group to attempt to apply this doctrine to the rest of the universe. The Church was younger than the Third Imperium, only being founded in the 600s after the popularisation of the Solomani Hypothesis.
In order that its gospel may reach the rest of the universe, the Church proselytizes to each and every sophont its priests encounter. But the bulk of its recruitment efforts were concentrated among less enlightened Vargr communities. Many corsair bands and opportunistic or expansionistic states became frequent partners of the Church, as its beliefs and theology were a convenient justifier for their operations, provided that they were concentrated upon bringing the faith to nearby sophonts and their interstellar polties.
But as with most Vargr institutions, the Church was rife with political challenge, internal dissent, ideological schism and outright heresy. In the last five hundred years of its existence it has been an institution in name only, with myriad congregations and individual world hiearchies held together only by the common cause of its theology, and even that is open to argument. Fortunately its theology lacked any genocidal or extreme xenophobic trends or doctrines, and most schisms within the church were either politically motivated, or driven by issues of the best method of outreach to other sophonts.
The Church is still active in many parts of the former Vargr Extents, and among several regions of the surviving Splinters. Its activities in the Regency are not prohibited, but they have been severely limited by political and cultural concerns. Most sects encountered in the Regency will tend to congregate along the coreward frontier, and are primarily splinter groups that resemble in organization and tenor the "storefront" Christian Churches of old Terra. Regency churches are dominated by two trends: either an active inclusion movement that welcomes all sophonts in exchange for a softening of the racial aspect; or a vehemently activist and nationalist church that nurses the anger, desperation and fear of unemployed and displaced Vargr.
Worlds & Sectors (Astrography)
This religion is primarily located in the following areas:
Charted Space - Vargr Extents:
World Listing: 1105
This religious organization is known to be found in the following systems and on the following worlds:
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Sources
- Marc Miller. Imperial Encyclopedia (Game Designers Workshop, 1987), 20.
- Gary L. Thomas. "The Church of the Chosen Ones." The Travellers' Digest 04 (1986): 43.
- Jason Kemp. "Alpha Quadrant of the Empty Quarter Sector; Empty Quarter Library Data." Stellar Reaches 04 (2006): 8.
- External Link: Gray Matter by Author & Contributor: Peter Gray
- Gareth Hanrahan. Secrets of the Ancients (Mongoose Publishing, 2010), 253.Gareth Hanrahan. Secrets of the Ancients (Mongoose Publishing, 2021), 253.