Contrary to the traditions of the Venikans, who maintained that the highest aspirations of the living was to deny purchase to any spirits whatsoever, Sarthía introduced a rich mythology of recognizably humanistic deities and encouraged her followers to treat with each one on specific terms. The reward she prescribed for righteous conduct is swift entry of the soul after death into the domain of Tshayéa, Goddess of Dreams and first daughter of the creator Zeltetéa, where those who have retired from life may entertain each other and themselves by weaving endless tales and what-ifs without consequence, only some of which the sleeping glimpse in passing.
The Ksreskézai had long believed in an intrinsic association between death and dreams—for so often did they encounter in their dreams the dead. But they had learned not to put stock in these visions, or at least not much stock, for their history was replete with instances of unreliable prophecies, and already their culture was accustomed to blaming erratic or extreme behaviours on the influences of spirits. In Sarthía's estimation, with the vanquishing of so many of these spirits during the Grand Holocaust, what remained to greet the (already less-sensitive) Lilitai each night was likely the theatre itself, bereft of its actors—yet visions of the dead remained.
So came about the Sarthían tradition of the Realm of Dreams, the domain of Tshayéa herself, built by Zeltetéa for her beloved daughter in the aeons before the physical realm was constructed. It was a "rough draft" of what would become reality—a place where causality exists but not permanence, where time is only meaningful in a moment-to-moment sense, and there are no stakes or consequences, for any contrivance or amusement may be imagined, if only for a brief second before mutating into something else.
Sarthía taught that the dead who dwell in Tshayelía are brought there deliberately, as a reward for obeying the Goddesses' code of conduct. She reasoned that this code is intelligible, at least in part, from examining the very nature of dreams: most importantly, as nightmares cannot literally kill the dreamer, it must be the case that a pure soul is not capable of killing, either. From this she extrapolated and interpolated other principles, either by considering what would be necessary to create a well-behaved individual or, indirectly, to create a society that would produce well-behaved individuals. More often than not, she relied on the wisdom of the Venikans to provide a template; later theologians sometimes debate the necessity of these more esoteric and ascetic virtues.
It is accepted that not all Lilitai achieve Zeyeta (inner balance) in their lifetimes. Those who fail are not condemned, but instead have their arrival in Tshayelía arrested, doing penance in Neptarlekína at a ratio of 5040 to 1—that is, for every 5040 years that pass in death, only 1 year of concerted effort to achieve self-improvement would have been necessary in life. Sarthía presumed that others, particularly the Ksreskézai who so often appeared in the dreams of the early tribe, went through a similar process, but could not speculate as to how such things were arranged.
It is also taught that the sighting of a person in a dream is not proof they are dead—rather, as Tshayelía does not obey the direction of time, anyone who ever will die may appear in a dream. Later theological traditions split hairs over this subject:
The early Darikans (theosophists) put it forth that an association with a spirit increases the likelihood of dreaming about it, by attuning the dreamer's own vanshúa. Karina Etessidta was sympathetic to this notion, despite having a scientific Lyran-sponsored education, and so it also appears in the modern Illeran literary tradition.
Certain Venikan and semi-Venikan traditions (including the early Alestéans of Kowako) theorise that the soul is stripped of its individual identity in death, and that any soul in Tshayelía (or no soul at all) might be responsible for the appearance of a familiar person in a dream. This also explains the abundance of anonymous people in dreams. This tradition later became widely-accepted by the Lilitina proper during the era of Masadéa worship.
Introspective Sarthíans take the Darikan idea to its logical extreme and assume that the Tshayelía exists entirely within the mind—any access to the afterlife is limited to dreams and (in more mystic, non-secular conceptions) for a brief moment at the time of death, which is perceived as eternity.
Later Alestéans of Kowako, including the Wanisinese, abandoned the Tshayelía as the final destination of worthy souls. They assigned it a physical location—the accretion disc of the Hava supermassive black hole—and declared that the truly good become lieutenants of Alestéa herself, who assist in the allotment of good fortune via the Etharine, and exist as part of the Alestéan life force.
Modern Lilitu societies maintain various 'traditional' beliefs, which are those they use in a literary or cultural sense without putting any stock in them. The Wanisinese continue to speak and write of Alestéan virtue; the Illerans continue to tell stories wherein dreamers are visited by the ghosts of the familiar; the Thessian Lilitai (though we are few in number) continue to allude to the interchangeable faces of necromantic messengers.
The Ksreskézai had long believed in an intrinsic association between death and dreams—for so often did they encounter in their dreams the dead. But they had learned not to put stock in these visions, or at least not much stock, for their history was replete with instances of unreliable prophecies, and already their culture was accustomed to blaming erratic or extreme behaviours on the influences of spirits. In Sarthía's estimation, with the vanquishing of so many of these spirits during the Grand Holocaust, what remained to greet the (already less-sensitive) Lilitai each night was likely the theatre itself, bereft of its actors—yet visions of the dead remained.
So came about the Sarthían tradition of the Realm of Dreams, the domain of Tshayéa herself, built by Zeltetéa for her beloved daughter in the aeons before the physical realm was constructed. It was a "rough draft" of what would become reality—a place where causality exists but not permanence, where time is only meaningful in a moment-to-moment sense, and there are no stakes or consequences, for any contrivance or amusement may be imagined, if only for a brief second before mutating into something else.
Sarthía taught that the dead who dwell in Tshayelía are brought there deliberately, as a reward for obeying the Goddesses' code of conduct. She reasoned that this code is intelligible, at least in part, from examining the very nature of dreams: most importantly, as nightmares cannot literally kill the dreamer, it must be the case that a pure soul is not capable of killing, either. From this she extrapolated and interpolated other principles, either by considering what would be necessary to create a well-behaved individual or, indirectly, to create a society that would produce well-behaved individuals. More often than not, she relied on the wisdom of the Venikans to provide a template; later theologians sometimes debate the necessity of these more esoteric and ascetic virtues.
It is accepted that not all Lilitai achieve Zeyeta (inner balance) in their lifetimes. Those who fail are not condemned, but instead have their arrival in Tshayelía arrested, doing penance in Neptarlekína at a ratio of 5040 to 1—that is, for every 5040 years that pass in death, only 1 year of concerted effort to achieve self-improvement would have been necessary in life. Sarthía presumed that others, particularly the Ksreskézai who so often appeared in the dreams of the early tribe, went through a similar process, but could not speculate as to how such things were arranged.
It is also taught that the sighting of a person in a dream is not proof they are dead—rather, as Tshayelía does not obey the direction of time, anyone who ever will die may appear in a dream. Later theological traditions split hairs over this subject:
Modern Lilitu societies maintain various 'traditional' beliefs, which are those they use in a literary or cultural sense without putting any stock in them. The Wanisinese continue to speak and write of Alestéan virtue; the Illerans continue to tell stories wherein dreamers are visited by the ghosts of the familiar; the Thessian Lilitai (though we are few in number) continue to allude to the interchangeable faces of necromantic messengers.
