Just as all Tsis are subject to the will of the One who Arises in Might, Typhojem the Inexorable, the Unquenchable, the Everlasting; so too are all non-Tsis subject to the Tsis, to be bent to their will and broken at their millstones...
—From the "Four-Pointed Star," a Faith text
The Faith of Typhojem was the dominant, state-sponsored henotheistic religion of the Sith League and the Sith species following the fall of the Rakatan Empire. Primarily focused on the worship of the ancient Sith god, Typhojem, the "Left-Handed God," the Faith incorporated a fair number of additional, lesser deities, either borrowed from earlier Sith traditions, or outright stolen from other cultures and religions.
Deities[]
Typhojem[]
The central deity of the Faith, Typhojem, known variously by any number of epithets including "the inexorable" and "the unquenchable," was an ancient Sith god connected to the Sith's vague understanding of the Dark side of the Force, the spirit-diety Qyâsik or "life-force of Typhojem." Typhojem was given a wide variety of physical descriptions in various texts since the earliest days of the Sith, though by the time of the fall of the Rakatan Empire, He was described as a red-skinned, four-armed humanoid with the head of a Korriban vulture.
According to certain texts, Typhojem often walked among His servants, watching them and evaluating their behavior, and punishing those who served as poor representations of His ideal. The Sith League eventually capitalized upon this widespread belief, and often employed it to justify the arrest and execution of anti-state insurrectionists who opposed the League and its actions.
Qyâsik[]
The other major diety of the Faith was the incorporeal Qyâsik, the "life-force" or "living will" of Typhojem that created and sustained the Sith and to a lesser extent, the rest of creation. Qyâsik was a representation of the Sith species' vague awareness of the Dark side of the Force, which permeated many members of the species and was seen as the mark of Typhojem's presence in their lives.
Korriban Hadzuska Koshûjontû[]
Though not technically a deity in the conventional sense of the term, the world of Korriban itself was considered terra sancta in the eyes of the Faith, and worshiped as "Korriban Hadzuska Koshûjontû," meaning "Korriban, Born amid Shadows." As the homeworld of the Sith species, and the first world created by Typhojem before the birth of the stars, Korriban was viewed as a sacred site. Thus, non-Sith outlanders were forbidden from walking upon its surface, leading to the creation of the Korriban Gates space station to house off-world embassies.
Adas Taral[]
Along with conventional deities taken from folklore or legend, the Sith also worshiped certain individuals of note as part of their pantheon. Greatest among these was Adas, also known as Adas Taral, meaning "the Protector" in Low Sith. As the famous king remembered for driving the Rakata off Korriban, Adas was worshiped as a manifestation of Typhojem in the flesh. His cult was headquartered at the Temple of Adas Almighty in Dreshdae.
Rhea Nwûl-kaar[]
Against her wishes, the first Tsis'ari of the Sith League, Rhea, was made a living demigod of the Faith. She was named Rhea Nwûl-kaar, Low Sith for "Rhea, Preserver of Peace," and the Faith declared that her father, a lowly human Grotthu slave, was actually Typhojem masquerading in human form. As the Council of Kissai loathed Rhea, whom they saw as an interloper who cost them their power, they sought to use her demigod status as a means of controlling her behavior, tying her to the Sith people's lofty expectations for a being of demigod status.
The Scorekeeper[]
The Faith was not above simple theft and re-appropriation of other religions' deities and beliefs. With the discovery of the Hsskhor Syndicate and the Trandoshan religion called Jagannath, many Sith began worshiping the Scorekeeper, the goddess of the religion charged with the dispensation of points for good behavior. The Faith simply incorporated her into their religion as the bastard daughter of Typhojem.
Doctrine[]
Central tenets[]
The Faith taught that the Sith were the perfect race of beings, created by Typhojem to serve as his representatives and instruments in the corporeal world. All other races were simply servants to be used as seen fit or enemies to be eradicated. Just as the Sith were servants of Typhojem, so too were other races servants of the Sith.
However, some races, like the warlike Trandoshans or the vicious Taungs, were deemed more "Sith-like" in culture and temperament than others, and thus the Faith taught that relations between the Sith and such races were not contrary to Typhojem's will. Such cultures served as suitable foils against which the Sith could compare themselves, learn, and hopefully improve in the process.
Though the Faith supported the enslavement of "lesser races," it did not condone the abuse of slaves, once taken. Typhojem treated all Sith as His servants but gave them rich, long lives and treated them well, and thus expected all His Sith to treat their own slaves the same. Those who did were more closely akin to the Sith'ari concept, the ideal of the perfect Sith being.
Typhojem and the Sith'ari[]
The Faith and the concept of the Sith'ari were closely linked. The Sith'ari, Low Sith for "Lord of the Perfect Beings," was originally an epithet of Typhojem, used to describe His divine right to rule over the Sith, though over time it evolved to refer to an ideal to which the Sith species strove as a whole.
By the time of the fall of the Rakatan Empire, the Sith'ari was the perfect Sith being, in control of his basest desires and thoughts, and thus a true carbon copy representation of Typhojem. Thus, those Sith who attained the Sith'ari ideal were equally representations of Typhojem in all His glory, and were held in high regard in Sith society.
Religious evolution[]
As the Faith taught that all religions and belief systems were placed by Typhojem to serve as foils or obstacles for the Sith to encounter and overcome, the Sith were not above stealing from or adapting the teachings of other faiths and cults and applying them to their own.
For example, following the discovery of the Trandoshan Hsskhor Syndicate in 11 AFRE and the signing of the Charros Accord, the Trandoshan religion, called Jagannath, was brought to Sith space by Trandoshan traders and garnered a significant following among the Sith.
Rather than eradicate the converts or name them apostates or heretics, the Faith simply stole parts of the Jagannath religion and meshed them into the Faith of Typhojem. The Scorekeeper, the Jagannath deity charged with awarding and detracting points from believers based on good or bad behavior, was declared a Sith minor deity and named a bastard daughter of Typhojem. Her creation story involved her bursting from Typhojem's head fully armed and armored.
Rites and ceremonies[]
The Faith celebrated the Day of Rebirth, an annual tradition held on new year's eve on Korriban, during which the Sith, in preparation for another year, would humbly beg Typhojem to prolong their lives a year more by dipping their left arms into sacrificial Tuk'ata blood. As the clocks ticked down to a new year, the Sith would take turns ceremonially bathing in the large reflecting pool outside the Temple of Typhojem Chirikyât, symbolically rinsing away their imperfections in sight of the god.
In times of war, Sith soldiers would often take the left hands of specific enemies with whom they had some sort of history or rivalry, and would present them at the local temple to Typhojem as an offering. According to some texts, doing so would earn them some future favor at Typhojem's discretion. Though barbaric rituals, such as the symbolic slaughtering of sentients, were generally forbidden by Sith League law, such rites did occasionally occur discretely during times of war at Faith temples and shrines.
Reception[]
As a religion built around Sith folklore, legends, and traditions, the Faith did not cultivate a wide audience beyond the Sith species. Though the Voss Gormaks and a handful of Hsskhor Syndicate Trandoshans followed the religion, the bulk of its practitioners were of Sith origin alone.
Many cultures considered the near-xenophobic doctrine of Sith superiority espoused by the Faith as racist and bigoted, and the justifications the religion gave for state-support slavery provided further fuel for the fire. The Faith provided little room for religions of different belief systems, apart from the surprisingly compatible and symbiotic Jagannath religion of the Trandoshans.
Behind the scenes[]
The Faith was developed by Firedance as a vast composite of the god Tash from the Chronicles of Narnia, Melkor/Morgoth from The Silmarillion, and canon Typhojem from Star Wars. The story of the Scorekeeper bursting from Typhojem's skull was a direct reference to the birth of the Greek deity Athena, who was born similarly from Zeus's head.