The Order of the Fall is a monastic order sited in the ruined stump of Kubii. Their name originally referred directly to the Fall of Kubii, but now carries a broader meaning relevant to their apocalyptic belief system.
History
Origins
The Order almost entirely consists of the descendants of the survivors of the Fall of Kubii. As the original survivors had depended heavily on the tree and its attached symbiotes, the early years were an arduous ordeal of re-learning how to survive under an open sky.
The early years of the Order were beset by neighbors' Forays, who generally considered the absence of a tree as the absence of a territorial claim. But fortunately, they also considered this to mean there was little there to conquer.
Formation of the Order
Present
Organization
Like most Haaru monasteries, the Order of the Fall is not one branch of a greater religion, but an ecclesiastical structure and religion unto itself. Since the unusual structure of their tree (a stump) has no place for a Kormarch to rule them temporally, this is one of few examples of a fully sovereign monastery on Bodue, and certainly the only one that rules a tree itself, stump or not.
In other respects, the Order follows a very conventional structure for the Haaru: a strictly branching hierarchy. They retain the common titles of Kormarch, Cladarch, etc. despite lacking the physical referents in the titles (trunk and branch, respectively).
Sub-Organizations
The Rootless Priory is a sect of nomadic ascetics who seek to combat the process of entropy in what small ways they can. As nomadic lifestyles are nearly unheard of among the Haaru, the Rootless are often met with a suspicious reception wherever they go.
<This group is practically tailor-made for a do-gooder protagonist, much akin to the The Hitchhiker's Guild of Earth A.>
Belief System
Cosmology & Eschatology
Most Haaru religions and cultures tend toward belief in eternal cycles of cosmic rebirth and renewal. In contrast, the Kubiyan belief system considers the normal state of the universe to be one of decay and disorder rather than growth and symbiosis. Any semblance of order and safety is merely a lull in a cosmic storm of infinite descent into chaos. To value order and safety risks overbuilding and undermining, just as the Kubiyan people did. In sum, their vision of the future is infinite hell. Some modern Kubiyan sects believe that this future is not inevitable, that we were born with intelligence to fight the universe's decay.
Praxis
Praxis tends toward asceticism, nonattachment, and the cultivation of an orderly lifestyle.