Rastram Kanaqa

Themes: Imperial India, solarpunk, glass & gold, Sanskrit language

• "The Golden Empire" made up of six of the nine planets of the system, though they control all nine (the other three are a colony world, a penal world, and an uninhabited protectorate).
• Advanced civilization that produces and uses most of the thevaqan in the Four Suns.
• Once a solar theocracy, their culture has long since separated its thevaqan-technologies from its religious orders, forming the Suryavarna faith, and the Sunwrights, the engineers who craft thevaqan into useful ships and tools.

Cultural Mores

• Favor androgynous appearance. Garments are culturally unisex.
• Men tend to wear their hair long, and if they grow beards at all, they are close-shorn; "longbeard" is a term denoting savagery, barbarism, or even insanity.
• Women occasionally have long hair, but most often wear it cut short or even shorn completely.
• Rastramal opinions on nudity are not shame-based; the body is considered a gift to oneself and those whom one is intimate, and showing it to others without their consent is a violation.
  • The breasts, however, are not considered nudity - only genitals are. It is not uncommon for women's fashions to artfully bare a breast, or for women to strip down to the waist while working.

Religion

Suryavarna

• Main holy text is the Ravimarga, which uses the metaphor of the lemniscate solar winds to describe the Path To Brilliance, the inevitable spiritual path of spiritual fulfillment.
• Its central tenets are solar in themed: light is goodness, from light comes love, and from love comes life - a progression referred to as the Three Suns (the Sun-in-Sky, the Sun-in-Breast, and the Sun-in-Union)
• Teaches ascetic practices to be done in sunlight, including prostrations (yoga-like body limbering performed at midday), fasting during the day and the wearing of thevala (henna-like paint made from the leavings of qamani that heats up to quite hot temperatures in direct sunlight, providing a low level of burn)
• Adherents never wear hats or other head-coverings
• Spirit Pyres: Injected with a substance that causes the skin to ignite and burn away the body entirely, leaving behind a weird statue of golden glass. Fate of all "sainted" folk in the solar religion, including all Emanations.

Rastram Kanaqa Concepts

• Sunwright Engineers who shape thevaqan
• Qamanari human and gevana glaziers who learn to craft qamani solar glass from the sands of Adhivirajate
• Lustremen, munitioneers who build the war-engines of the Rastram Kanaqa
• Damara of the Golden Sun: Glass-armored and white-cloaked knights that wield glass weapons in service to the Rastram
• Damara of the Sands: Gevana templars who protect pilgrims and other holy folk of the Suryavarna.
• Warden of Bandipala - prison guards of the prison complexes of Bandipala.
• Rastram Kanaqa nobility
• Martial artists

Ravibija

A tradition of strange mystical powers very much tied to sunlight, the practitioner of Ravibija (which is simultaneously a name for the practice, the discipline itself, the practitioners, and the organization) is capable of weaving his consciousness into the sunlight itself and projecting his awareness anywhere that sunlight may fall. Though this is usually only planetary in scale, the Ravibija mystics have been known to join their powers to project awareness and messages to other planets within the same system. They are considered wise and have taken a vow to not participate in politics for themselves, so it is typical for many nobles to employ one of them as messengers and advisors. They wear actual gemstones implanted across their brows to indicate their rank and proficiency within the order, a trait fostered not only among the gevana adherents, but those humans with the gifts as well.

• Suggested Race: Gevana, Human (Rastramal)
• Suggested Culture: Kanaqar
• Suggested Caste: Any
• Suggested Class & Specialization: Mage • Ravibija
• Suggested Talents: xxx
• Suggested Gifts: Gifts of Fortune, Gifts of the Sight, Gifts of the Aura, Gifts of Soul-Flight, Gifts of the Sun

Refulgent

An ancient tradition of solar magic found originally in the Golden Sun system, the Refulgent use sunlight to weave illusions and amplify light with their arts. Though they were once only capable of such feats in direct sunlight, they now often mount imani stones to their head, breast, and arms to draw upon for power.

• Suggested Race: Human (Rastramal), Gevana
• Suggested Culture: Kanaqar
• Suggested Caste: Savant, Noble
• Suggested Class & Specialization: Mage • Refulgent
• Suggested Talents: xxx
• Suggested Gifts: xxx

Yajata of the Suryavarna

The worship of the Varijaia - the Golden Sun at the center of the Rastram Kanaqa - is an ancient religion that began with the gevana but inevitably spread to the sun-faring folk of the system. Its clergy are distinct from the Ravibija, for they are not ascetics and they are most decidedly political. And while all gevana are considered to be part of the priesthood of Suryavarna, the majority of its yajata (priests) are humans. They are known to employ sun magics that dazzle and enchant the minds of others, and to weild light as a terrible weapon or defense.

• Suggested Race: Human (Rastramal), Gevana, Amagari
• Suggested Culture: Kanaqar
• Suggested Caste: Any
• Suggested Class & Specialization: Mage • Yajata
• Suggested Talents: xxx
• Suggested Gifts: Gifts of Fortune, Gifts of Heroism, Gifts of Bedazzlement, Gifts of the Sun