The Heritage is the name of a faction of clerics and followers of Kragnux that take up residence in the Fang Fu Monestary where Kragnux was raised as a child.
History
Foundation
Before it took on the name of The Heritage, the faction of Kragnux followers at the monastery were composed of Thwack (the founder of the religion) and a group of a dozen followers who had joined him on a failed mission to set up the first church on Kiston. When the original missionary quest failed, they tried to create a church on the nearby island of Cof. While this colony (known as Thwackville) can be technically considered the first church of Kragnux, Thwack left the island and made his way back to the Fang Fu Monastery in 693, where he properly set up a church that he personally oversaw.
Thwack would continue to be the leader of this faction of Kragnux until his disappearance in 707 PR, when the leader of a rival faction (now known as The Friends of Kragnux) imprisoned Thwack and took command of all sites of worship. Although Thwack was now gone, the followers at Fang Fu continued to house and sanctify Thwack's iconic weapon Rumblewood.
Civil War
In 719 PR, various factions of the Kragnux religion began to splinter off from the megachurch known as FoK, causing a series of violent interventions to take place between the massive and well armed megachurch and the various small factions, including the clerics at Fang Fu. To distinguish their differing ideology, the followers at the monastery began to refer to their place of worship as The Heritage, in reference to Kragnux's mortal upbringing on their grounds.
The Heritage were heavily against the Fingers of Kragnux, and would ban them from the property on the various occasions they would come in to intimidate the local monks. In on such stand off, the Fingers returned fire and after having reason to believe the Heritage was housing refugee dragonborn, set fire to the establishment, marking the second time Fang Fu had been razed.
Immediately before the razing, however, they created a list of "trusted allies" that would be fighting on in their name against the church. The list of Trusted Allies in the Fight for Kragnux included:
- Attie
- Fia
- Torna
- Lavinia
- Stumblebum
- Callum
- Brak
- Darya
- Lue Ceed [sic]
- Gorin
- Axel the Red
- Areesi
- Verik
- Connie Lingus [sic]
- Jim
- Michael
- Sand
- Deckard
Recovery
After the razing of Fang Fu, the surviving members of the Heritage moved what they could save down the river to the base of a nearby mountain. It was there they carved out a small sanctuary for themselves, unknowingly close to Wyvern Mountain. When the occupant of Wyvern Mountain, a dragon known as Sorventh, emerged, an physical fracture was created in the mountain that allowed some of the heritage to fly into the mountain's chambers and reinforce their allies (The Best Around) in finally stopping Sorventh, as well as the old regime of The Friends of Kragnux, for good.
Principles and Beliefs
Like other Kragnux churches, the Heritage operated under the mantra: "There's no room for caution in a life lived to the fullest." Unlike the megachurch known as The Friends of Kragnux, however, the Heritage operated a grounded view of the prophet Kragnux, devised from artifacts and stories they were able to recover about his life as a mortal.
One major set of beliefs that separated the heritage from other factions was their belief that Kragnux himself was a Dragonborn, a belief that was systematically removed from other churches at the dawn of the religion. When the second crusades were underway, no church could consolidate their genocide with the fact that their prophet was an unholy race, so Kragnux was rewritten in all holy works as a male human. The Heritage was the one exception to this, keeping a secret belief of the truth, while masquerading publicly to go along with the 'new truth'.
Membership
The members of the heritage are primarily made up of Aarakocra descendants of original Fang Fu monks, notably these specific aarakocra typically had names with an "-ard" suffix such as Flitchard.
From 783 PR until its razing by the Friends of Kragnux in 791, the Heritage was run by an aarakocra named Peckard. After that, an aarakocra known as Gorin would take over as leader of the Heritage until his death in 795 PR.
New members to The Heritage are quizzed with questions about Kragnux's life to determine whether they have been brainwashed by the false narratives of FoK, or whether they follow the true stories of Kragnux. The quiz included several of the following questions:
- What Year was our savior Kragnux Born? 630 PR
- What elemental power was favored by the Fang Fisted? Water
- What was the name of the arboreal weapon Kragnux sacrificed to save the world? RumbleWood
- What happened to the mortal corpse of the savior after his ascension? It became a sacred artifact
- From where did Kragnux hail as a mortal? Fang Fu
- What was the name of Kragnux's founding Archcleric? Thwack
- On what year did Thwack recluse into the shadows only to deliver Kragnux's word through the Royal Xoniface? 707 PR
- What is the name of Xoniface's son, and the current leader of the "Friends of Kragnux"? Felix
- What powerful artifact does our Heritage keep safe within its walls, only to be seen and used by the truest followers of our king? The Spine of Kragnux
