The blood sacrifice of the Nerathi Emperor by his children was an event that brought a new race into the world: Tieflings. Not a true race, but humans warped by a demonic pact, the souls of their entire bloodline sold for an alliance too foul for words.
While many tieflings were changed by their own choices, including the Nerathi Imperial Family and those who became tieflings in separate pacts, the pacts were enacted through bloodline, not per soul. In the initial pact, not only did the Imperial Family become tieflings, but so did every bastard who had Imperial blood in them.
While the Royal Tieflings, as they were known, fought against Evernia and the Alliance, and were mostly wiped out by the awesome power of the dragons, the bastard sons and daughters scattered to the wind, overcome by changes they never asked for.
Most Tieflings today are the descendants of those bastards, though some Royal Tieflings survived (and given the longevity of the Imperial Family, potentially still survive), and some Tieflings are kin to lesser magistrates who performed similar pacts.
In the years since, it has been noted that the tiefling curse is spreading, after a fashion - any child of a tiefling, regardless of the other parent, is born a tiefling - it is not blood, like elves, half-elves, and humans, but rather a question of the dark contract: The entire bloodline, however attenuated, has its souls owned by the forces of hell.
Or so it was, until less than a century ago.
Orianna, as the story goes, was a holy cleric of Sol Almae who tried to exhort her fellow tieflings to do good acts. She travelled from town to town, but all tieflings knew that no matter their actions in the world, their souls were damned to hell for eternity regardless. And so the tieflings lived their lives for sin and pleasure, not unlike their Imperial ancestors.
Orianna, after great efforts, became frustrated with the unwillingness of her kin, and decided to seek out the root of the problem - the contract of the demonic pact itself.
She threw herself into hell with an old scroll of the Empire, and brought the burning light of Sol Invictus against the infinite legions of hell. So strong was the power of the sun and so true her convictions that she was able to burn her way to the demonic contract, and through the power of Solis Incindia, she burned the scrolls to ash.
There is, alas, no way out of hell, and she remains trapped there, doing battle with the demonic host for eternity.
That is what the Church of Saint Orianna teaches. That Orianna was a saint, and that she sacrificed herself so that the souls of all tieflings were free. Free to go to heaven or hell, based on the actions and virtue of the tieflings themselves.
The Church of Saint Orianna asks Tieflings to do good in the world, to live good lives, and keep Orianna's sacrifice from being in vain.
In the world today, the Church of Saint Orianna is popular among the growing population of tieflings in Nerath, and is one of the main forces helping rebuild Nerath after the devastation of the Great War. Smaller churches exist wherever Tieflings go, and are generally encouraged by the authorities to help keep tieflings out of trouble.
There are, of course, dissenting views - in particular, there are a variety of holes in the story the Church provides, and some people say that so-and-so knew Orianna, and she was not like that at all. However, even those who criticize the Church's description of Orianna recognize that the Church of Orianna is a vitally needed force for good in Nerath.
(The Church of Saint Orianna is, of course, theologically related to the worship of Solaris.)
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