Religion/Culture

The Structure of Fours
The Structure of Fours states that to each place there would be four rulers, as there are four courts and four seasons. To each Court, Province, Village, and Family, there would be four to rule. A King, a Queen, a Knight, and a Page. One to rule with strength. One to rule with heart. One to bring vitality. And one to protect. As it is in the highest of places, so too the lowest.

Heaven
Heaven is glorious. Heaven is perfect. Heaven is where the Great Bureaucracy of Spirits dwells. It's a shining golden city full of parks and rivers, that stretches for a hundred miles in every direction, beautiful and perfect, surrounding the Palace of the Court of Heaven from whence the Fountain flows. All manner of bureaucrats live in this place, spirits who purview covers all of creation, every stream, every raincloud, every city has a spirit and if they do not dwell in Heaven then they can be found on Azure doing their duty. This animistic protocol manages all the world, even though only few humans (mostly druids and their ilk) are even aware of it, having instead codified the pure power of the Fountain into the Arcana, for the purposes of understanding.

The Tian Shi (or Aasimar) are born and dwell here, their human souls having ascended the cycle of reincarnation and have been cleaned of any previous negative Dharmic weight. Most of them do dwell in Heaven, however, there are some cases where some are sent down to Azure, forced on an assignment. They're seen with a mixture of pity and admiration, much like the janitor whose job it is to clean the mess you dare not touch.

The Fountain
There is a source of power called The Fountain. It has always existed. It is metaphorical and literal, a font of pure water and light in the literal center of the universe. All things flow from it and all things return to its source. There were those born attuned to it, by their blood, by luck, or by some other means. Those who can conjure its light as "spells" and bend the world to their whim. Later, mortals and spirits alike learned to conjure effects of the Fountain's power by way of incantation and intense study. This path is hard, and requires a will most lack. So instead, humanity taught themselves a new trick - religion. Instead of devotion to the self, and mastery through that, devotion to an ideal became a means to bend and mutilate the magic of The Fountain. From devotion to The Fountain sparked different paths of worship, Twenty-two different steps of enlightenment, known as The Arcana.

There are rumors of magic of another kind. Those who bind themselves to other sources than The Fountain. But this is blasphemy most foul.

Dharma
Dharma is the overall quantification of the deeds one has done through their life, that carry onto their next lives. It is often said that the victims of this life have done something wrong in their past life to deserve this fate.

Dharma plays a factor at the end of your cycle, when your soul enters the halls of heaven to be judged. If you have accumulated more negative Dharma in this life, then you have a higher chance to reincarnate as something lower in the circle.

The Mara
The Mara are the demons of temptation and destruction that inhabit the continent. It has been taught to all inhabitants of Mingyun at a very early age that the Mara are the ones behind all the bad things that happen in life. A swarm of locusts invades your fields? The Mara. Your parents die an untimely death? The Mara. You stub your pinky toe on the corner of a dresser when you wake up? The Mara. Because of their association with all the bad shit, it has become taboo to even mention the word "Mara."