I enjoy adding additional details to the settings I play, especially if they’re based on history. A while ago, I made detailed armies for several of the polities in the Scavenger Lands using actual premodern militaries. This time, I had a different idea.

The various Immaculate religions (the Philosophy and its heterodoxies) are fairly well fleshed-out in the official sources. One area that is frequently mentioned, but rarely explored, is the Immaculate scriptural tradition. I’d like to dig into that here.

What we know

To summarize what we know about the Immaculate Texts: they’re a corpus of scripture used by the Immaculate Order and Philosophy. They include various histories, which blend fact with Sidereal fiction. It isn’t explicitly stated, but it can be assumed that the various Immaculate heterodoxies (such as Lookshy’s Immaculate Faith, Prasad’s Pure Way, and Gentian’s Intou Creed) use different scriptures - though the level of overlap is uncertain. However, I don’t think we know the name of even one work in the Texts - we only know broad strokes about the Texts as a whole.

Unless I’m mistaken, that’s essentially all we know. If any of that is wrong, or if I’ve missed some relevant lore, feel free to correct me.

Real-World Inspirations

To make our own Immaculate Texts, there are two real-world scriptural traditions that we can pull from:

Confucian Classics - In many Chinese dynasties, specific works of Confucian philosophy were used for imperial bureaucratic exams (either the Four Books or the Five Classics, depending on the era). Test-takers would need to memorize the books and be able to recite them and/or write essays on their contents (such as the very formulaic Eight-Legged Essay form).

Buddhist Canons - Buddhism produced a staggering amount of scripture. Several traditions attempted to standardize which scriptures were considered valid by assembling “canons”, or collections of scriptures pronounced by authorities to represent Buddhism. Several of these were organized into three categories, or “baskets” - one with rules, one with general teachings, and one with more esoteric materials like philosophy and metaphysics.

I’m simplifying a lot with both of these, but there’s lots of material online about these if you want to learn more.

The Immaculate Texts - Expanded

I pulled from both of these traditions to add detail to the Immaculate Texts. There are two main groups of the Texts: the Five Holy Classics and the Grand Corpus.

The Five Holy Classics

These are used for basic Dragon-Blooded education and many examinations across the Realm. They are:

The Ascendancy Scroll - History of the Great Reclamation, the Dragon-Blooded account of the Usurpation

The Pattern of Elements - Cosmology of Creation, Heaven, Malfeas, and the Underworld

Treatise on the Dragon-Breath Blade - Theory of just warfare and military command

The Tenfold Discourse - The Five Noble Actions and Five Diligent Practices for general spiritual welfare

Lives of the Righteous Shogun - Lessons on rulership through the reincarnations of a fictional shogun

The Grand Corpus

There are hundreds of books in the Grand Corpus, both small and large. Many are simply commentaries of other books, and the makeup of the Corpus is frequently revised by the Order’s leadership at scriptural councils.

The three “baskets” of the Grand Corpus - and some of the most popular works in each basket - are:

Basket of Discipline - Rules for clergy and laypeople

The Way of Simple Truth - Fundamental monastic rulebook listing key vows and penalties for transgressions; most copies include the additions of several commentators

Discourse on the Coils - Hierarchy and ordination

Xiyue’s Handbook of Daily Joy - Descriptions of proper ritual and worship

The Peach-Blossom Dialogues - Series of conversations between the Immaculate Dragons and disciples concerning how to guide mortals’ worship of spirits, including the design of Ritual Calendars

The Five-Elements Armory - Introduction to the five elemental martial arts, along with a dissertation on moral combat

Basket of Virtue - General instruction and exempla

The Yuyani: Lives of the Dragons - Hagiographies of the Immaculate Dragons in the form of a collection of short stories

The Farmhand and the Field - Parable where a farmhand’s interactions with a harvest god are used to teach about the proper relationship between mortals and spirits

Discourse on Love and Duty - Describes proper social relationships within the Perfected Hierarchy

Basket of Essence - Philosophy and metaphysics

Mofai’s Hidden Tome - Practical thaumaturgy and Emerald Circle sorcery

Book of Inner Secrets - The dual nature of the soul; modern versions require extensive glossing to explain old terms

The Jade Mind Treatise - Describes meditation and cultivation through comparison to different types of jade

The Epiphany of Siwang - One monk’s visions of death and reincarnation; includes several commentarial exegeses

Steps of Rising Perfection - Equates kinds of righteous and unrighteous conduct to different reincarnation results

On Reason and Action - Formal ethics, including virtue taxonomies and thought experiments

Lessons from the Demon’s Face - Demons and the Anathema

And that’s it! I’d love to hear your feedback, including any ways that my Texts conflict with official material (I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed something).