Liverlessosity

Liverlessosity is a religion that worships a god known as the Great Ape and maintains a number of highly specific beliefs, described in detail in a series of twenty-three thick volumes known as the Texts of Deliverance. These beliefs fall, for the most part, into one of two categories: Those that emphasize the importance of adhering to the highly specific daily routine laid out in the texts, and those that attempt to describe the natural world in a highly specific and largely false manner. A typical example of the first type of passage describes the first part of the ritual for getting out of bed in the morning:

"When waketh thou in the morning, riseth thou when the sun can be measured as one foot from the horizon as you hold a ruler out in front of thou at arm's length. Stepeth thee first thy left foot onto the floor, unless thy toenails be of greater weight than thy fingernails, in which case, steppeth thee thy right foot first."

Guidelines for weighing one's nails follow, and take up the better part of the remaining chapter.

An example of a passage in the second category is:

"Verily, plants be capable of growing backward if planted upside down. The Great Ape doth say so. Doubteth not the ape!"

Much of the Texts of Deliverance are devoted to exclaiming about how wonderful the ape is as well as how true the Texts are, and to threatening nonbelievers in vague terms.

Perhaps the most well-known passage in the Texts is this one, however:

Yea, for Sunshine Eraser Apes have no livers. I say unto you now: If those selfsame aforementioned apes did possess of livers, and verily those livers did suddenly explode, those apes would die. Yet the apes are delivered from death, for by the grace of the Great Ape, they have no livers. Hallelujia!

The Great Ape, who actually is without a liver, appears in the form of a what is for some reason called a Sunshine Eraser Ape. Despite claims to the contrary, however, these apes do indeed have livers. Such a liver, packaged in a highly heretical manner, is shown below:

The Texts of Deliverance also emphasize what is called "de-liverance" from evil (though evil is not so well-defined), and advance the importance of self-deprivation and solitude. The Texts of Deliverance are considered to be the first and last words of the Great Ape, who no longer communicates to his mortal followers in words, but instead only excitable primate gestures and sounds.

The Texts of Deliverance describe complex proceedures for putting to death anyone who does not act in accordance with them. This has caused some citics of the Liverlessosity to call the religion brutal. Historically speaking, however, the religion has been relatively harmless. Virtually all the beliefs described in the sacred texts are generally ignored by Liverlessositans in general, who do not seem to have any accompanying cognitive dissonance, despite their claim that their religion is of utmost importance to them.

The main exception to this uncritical defiance of the Texts of Deliverance can be found in the orders of orange-wearing monks who exist to protect the Liverlessositans from evil. Not even the monks practice all the rituals proscribed by the Texts, but they do live lives of simplicity, solitude, and highly specific obsessive-compulsive rituals. They are also trained in the ancient if apparently silly martial art of Eepo-Ord.

Liverlessosity is the state religion of Norfacordia.

Character Interactions

• In accordance with the Texts of Deliverance, Bog was named King of Norfacordia after pulling the axe from the stone (which he did by virtue of his great strength rather than, apparently, actual divine providence). His deeply divisive reign was abruptly cut short, however, when the castle was destroyed by gunpowder smuggled in wine barrels in a plot to undermine him.

• Suppel Gans is a former Liverlessositan monk who lived in the basement of the castle in Noliver, the capitol of Norfacordia until it was destroyed in the aforementioned plot. The resulting explosion scared Suppel horribly and sent him on a series of adventures that caused him to challenge his former belief in the Great Ape. After becoming a heretic in the eyes of his former religion, Suppel later had occasion to meet the Great Ape at Kale's Tree in the year 999 4A just prior to Frigid Doom, where he tried unsuccessfully to kill it. Supple encountered the ape again approximately two millennia later in Hinkerville, and had a very similar reaction.

Other Established Tenets of Liverlessosity