The Path and the Way

The Path and the Way was a faith combining both the Way and the Path of Enlightenment and veneration of the Celestial Bureaucracy. It originated in Kara-Tur on Toril but flourished in Realmspace and throughout the phlogiston. It was sometimes known by its component faiths, that is, as the Path or the Way. The Planar Churches were a not dissimilar merging of the Path and the Polyglots.

Dogma

While combining the beliefs of both the Path and the Way, of course, it had many conflicts between the different schools of thought within the respective faiths. These arose from how they were taught in different lands in Kara-Tur, and not from any divine feuds. While the faiths had universal core concepts, they espoused originality in achieving them, leading to the proliferation of approaches.

As in Kara-Tur, the Celestial Bureaucracy was still held to be well-organized and administrated, with each deity having specific duties and respecting each other's position. Moreover, the faithful held that every deity everywhere had a place in the Celestial Bureaucracy, though they might disagree on what that place actually was. While they might venerate every deity, they focused on none.

Any disputes they had did not stop any clerics receiving spells. However, while the faith was multispheric in scope, with some form of it being found in most crystal spheres, only faithful from heritages that respected some form of the Path, the Way, or both, would enjoy benefits of that. That is, clerics (not specialty priests), kensai, sohei, and others of the Path or the Way from Kara-Tur or from Bral would almost always receive their divinely bestowed powers wherever they went in space. They could never be cut off from divine powers, unless they went into a sphere utterly devoid of divinity.

Relations

Adherents of the different schools comprising the Path and the Way often fell into debates, disputes, and even violence over the finer points of the faiths. While on land these schools of thought were limited by geography, in space, there was little to stop followers of opposing schools from encountering one another and coming into conflict.

Conversely, they welcomed priests of other gods, being confident that they were accurate in their worship of their god, just only slightly unaware or mistaken of some higher matters. Followers of the Path and the Way were more than happy to correct them and explain where their deity served in the Celestial Bureaucracy.

Activities

For these reasons, they did not try to convert anyone.

Shrines

Every dragonship spelljammer had a shrine to the crew's deities and ancestors, the emperor of Shou Lung, and the Path and the Way.

A shrine, called the House of the Path and the Way, stood in Bral on the Rock of Bral.

History

The Path and the Way combined and adapted to space travel quite easily and early in Shou and Wanese exploration of Realmspace and beyond. It came to enjoy faithful of all races and across the known universe by the 1360s DR.

Appendix

Background

The Path and the Way as presented in 2^nd-edition Spelljammer sourcebooks appear intended to jointly discuss the Path of Enlightenment and the Way of the 1^st Oriental Adventures adventures and Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms. However, owing to the common contradictions between Spelljammer and Oriental Adventures lore, this article treats it separately to maintain the distinction and avoid confusion in the traditional terrestrial depictions of the faiths.