The Catastrophe

Description & History
The inhabitants of Catalia and Medi-um understand that the Catastrophe, which brought about the end of earlier civilisation over seven-hundred-and-fifty years earlier, is a historical event. As is widely understood, the global event saw the ground opening up, on fire; and earthquakes which razed whole nations to the ground. While many of the educated characters understand that this was a natural phenomenon, volcanoes (twelve, to be exact, three of which were super-volcanoes), earthquakes and tsunamis, perhaps some of those in the peripheries take the religious teachings - which feature allegory and metaphor - more literally.

No one, apart from the Initiated, at the Twelve Temples in Primam and each respective Face of the Faith, knows what came before the Catastrophe. What was lost, is so secret that most do not even know to bother asking. The world had been industrialised, relatively high-tech (early 21st century level): but almost all evidence of this had been lost. What was left was old enough that most knowledge had been lost anyway; civilisation had begun almost from the beginning again.

Legacy, Tradition & Customs
The Faith teaches loosely of the events of the Catastrophe, but largely focuses on the story of the so-called "Twelve" god-kings. The Twelve are legendary leaders, led by the first Face of the Faith, who united the survivors of the Catastrophe in the years following the events. Each succeeding Face of the Faith must be a direct descendent of His line, making each in their own right an incarnation of the god-kings (at least in the eyes of uneducated masses, this is not the case for educated elites in the major cities, nor necessarily the communities in Medi-um, where they have a looser connection to the Deputan leadership).

The Twelve Temples are in Primam, the largest island of the Medi-um peninsula. They were built where the Twelve, including the Face of the Faith, first landed as emissaries following the Catastrophe and are the centre of worship for the religion of the two continents. When all others had still been in hiding, They went out into the world to search for other human survivors. The Faith teaches that the Twelve were incarnations of the twelve 'Old Gods' (we would know them as the Olympians, but this knowledge is lost to our characters), sent to bring humankind back together and rebuild what had been lost to them.