Aqualogy

Aqualogy is a religion dating back to 1583, in modern day Dreston, LC, based in Ytoke and Bonshu custom.

Ancient Origins
In ancient times, the Ytoke tribe developed agriculture by digging irrigation trenches from the Margiban River deep inland. However, since the Margiban was largely made up of glacial runoff, it very nearly dried up during the cool months, which could have drastic negative effects on the day-to-day life of the Ytoke people. Because the River was capable of moving and changing all on its own, the Ytoke people came to believe that it was alive, and worship it as one of their gods. In an attempt to appease the Margiban, during dry seasons, the Ytoke began building ornate reed sculptures through a process similar to western basket weaving, which they sent down the river as offerings, in the belief that the sculptures would reach the Margiban's head, which Ytoke legend claimed to be somewhere in the Fraboja mountains.

The Bonshu, in turn, who had cultivated land south of the Fraboja mountains, took up a similar but separate worship, when battered reed sculptures began appearing in the Margiban, heralding the coming end of the dry season. In worship of their god, the Bonshu people built numerous deep cisterns, in attempts to draw water up from beneath the earth, including the now-famous Cistern Chapel, where special hallucinogenic water that the locals believed to have healing properties called "The Waves of Renewal" could be extracted.

Connection
The Bonshu people have no written language at all, and the Ytoke written language consists only of numbers and sequential pictures that would go on to inspire modern-day comics, so the exact events that followed from the above are not fully clear. While something brought the two tribes into contact with one another, the story that the tribes tell of the event has been greatly fictionalized. The legend of Arimrocres details a particularly rough winter where the titular hero set off to find the river's head to bargain for his people's lives, and fights 11 monsters of increasing ferocity before discovering the Bonshu people on the other side of the mountains. Although the 2011 movie adaptation ended with a war between the two tribes, no version of the original tale contains this part, and instead details that Arimrocres was able to broker a strong friendship between the two tribes, getting enough food for the Ytoke people to survive the winter, and hauling it all the way back to the Ytoke settlement, only to tragically die of cold only a day's walk from his destination, leaving his daughter to bring the supplies the last leg of the journey and tell the tribe of their findings.

As the years went on, trade routes between the two tribes were built and as relationships improved, Ytoke and Bonshu custom gradually merged, including the Ytoke's temperamental interpretation of the water god and the Bonshu's more generous one. Explorers from the two tribes were able to confirm that the river went straight from northern ocean to southern ocean, and their belief grew to one that the whole world rode on the water god's back. By the time Prussian settlers landed on the shores of Zag'aal, the two tribes were still separate, but largely only in terms of distance. The settlers were impressed by Ytoke inventions like the Astrolobe, as well as their ability to tame the strange fauna of the Dreston area, and particularly enamored by traditions like the holiday of Baj'maat and the sport of Kantu. In spite of their horrid treatment of the native population, some beliefs of the Ytoke and the Bonshu made their way into Prussian culture, and have remained major components of the area's religious makeup for centuries.

Modern Day Aqualogy
Although practiced throughout The Lost Continent for a long time beforehand, the first official record of Aqualogy by its modern name is in a letter written by then Prussian king Fredrick William II to the area's regional governor, pondering whether the locals could be convinced to follow him if he constructed a dam in the shape of his own face at the point where the river met the sea. Aqualogy, over the course of the coming decades, became so widely practiced in the area that it began to be seen as a legitimate religion by the western world, and freedom to follow it was a major part of the Lost Continent War of Independence.

In the 1980s, The Five Oceanic Elders of Aqualogy orchestrated a movement to begin to try to spread Aqualogy to the western world. A difficult task, since its origin point in the lost continent had to be covered up completely. An enterprising young Aquological Monk named Eddie Wowell had the most success on this front, with his congregation briefly turning the county of Socks, California into a majority-Aqualogist county following the success of America's first openly Aqualogist band, Noxious Nancy & The Heart Attack Boys, as well as his own revolutionary new invention, the Water Wow. Additionally, a congregation lead by now-disgraced Aqualogist Monk Steve Parmesan became notable for popularizing an invention of his own, the Water Pik, in the Americas. While many other Monks and Missionaries rose to prominence during this period, only the inventors among them were able to acquire a significant following.

In 1988, a conference was held with the Five Oceanic Elders and the preeminent Aqalogist figures from the rest of the world about growing concerns over the abundant use of Gun Water abroad, and what was to be done about it. The conference concluded that Gun Water was a perversion of Aqualogist scripture, and switched Aqalogist missionaries in the field from conversion missions to lobbying to have it banned in as much of the world as possible.

In 2003, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham became the first openly Aqualogist member of the U.S. Senate, though he would later go on to claim that he'd actually been "a good Christian" the entire time.

In 2014, Aqualogist missionaries were finally allowed to return to recruitment mode, however Aqualogy has largely struggled to reclaim its lost foothold in the United States.

In 2018, Noxious Nancy & The Heart Attack Boys made a startling comeback, and in 2020, struggling with a worldwide pandemic, many all across the world have turned to the waves to drown their sorrows.