Ritualism (concept)
Ritualism (also known as Sophocoism) is one of the two primary historical religions in Sarradon (as opposed to their rivals, Wardenism), and is regularly agreed to be the longest practiced religion in the known world. Focusing on worship of the 1001 Steps of Sophocos - a stairway leading up to a massive and inert Tower in central Sarradon, the only thing the famously sectarian Ritualists agree upon is that their faith is based around the possibly mythical journey of several pilgrims up the steps, where they faced a new trial upon each and an Angel taught them a life lesson that assisted them in making it to the next.
Whether or not the journey happened, an angel or god was involved, if the tower is material or metaphorical, if the religion has many gods or not, whether the religion has angels or does not, whether the angels or god(s) are human, a higher power, humans who have become a higher power, forces of nature, and so on, are hotly debated by several hundred competing sects who regularly come to blows for reasons as basic as whether a passage about pouring tea was about pouring tea or if the tea is symbolic for humanity's latent desire for discovering the third hand of the forty-seven gods of sand and moon (as preached by the Mahadakist sect, who famously butchered the Lulawadii sect for agreeing with them in every point besides that the forty-seven gods were actually of the sand and sun).
It is hotly debated whether Wardenism, along with dozens of other major Sarradonian religions, is actually its own religion or yet another Ritualist sect that has broken off from the whole.
Aliases: Ritualist, Ritualists, Sophocist, Sophocist