Kluex

Kluex is the god worshiped in the sole organized Avian religion. This religion holds that, at the dawn of time, the Avian people were immortal and lived in the Aether with their god, Kluex. In this realm they had wings and could fly. However, they grew bored of their perfect lives and became jealous of the pleasures experienced by the mortal beings they saw in the realm below, and crossed into that realm seeking new pleasures. For this original sin, Kluex stripped the Avians of their wings and banished Avos to the mortal realm.

The belief system also holds that Avians may regain their wings and their admittance to the Aether by achieving absolution through worship of Kluex. This worship includes prayer and ritual sacrifices of defeated adversaries, led by the supreme priests of Kluex, the Stargazers. Worship culminates in voluntary ritual suicide, wherein the most devout Avians leap from their village's Celestial Stairway in the belief that their souls shed their mortal bodies and return, winged, to the Aether and the loving embrace of Kluex.

Players may find Avian temples scattered across the universe. Most Avian NPCs appear to believe in Kluex to some extent, but some do not. These non-believing Avians are collectively referred to as the "Grounded", and they have renounced the faith on the basis that they do not believe that Kluex exists. Necessarily, this results in tensions between the Stargazers and the Grounded.

The lore entry The Gift heavily implies that Kluex is the god-like entity otherwise known as the Cultivator. It is likely that ancient Avians passed down stories of the Cultivator, which later became the inspiration for the Stargazers' Kluex myths. The Artifact gifted to the Avians by the Cultivator was thereafter known as the Wheel of Kluex.

There are references to lesser Avian gods in the scan descriptions of the Solar System Models, but this may just be an accidental left over from before the Cheerful Giraffe lore rewrite. They include gods of agriculture, the underworld, and multiple sky gods.

The Avoscript

The Avoscript is the Avians' holy book that contains the Kluex creation myth. It is depicted as a green, ornately designed book, with some copies being gilded with gold. As with many other devout Avians, Tonauac carries a copy of the Avoscript everywhere he goes.

Verse	Contents
1:1:1	Avos was once tethered beyond the stars - This much is known. There was no beginning, for the Avian kind have lived eternally beyond the mortal realm. In the Aether they dwelt within the embrace of Kluex, the winged one above all. Kluex gifted them with true wings, and they worshipped in kind.
23:4:27	Deep within the heart of the Avians, a single spark of jealousy ignited. The flame grew until there burned the raging fires of greed, and so it was that the Avians crossed into the mortal realm, so that they may walk among beings of flesh and blood. But upon turning their backs on the heavens, all Avians were forever stripped of their ethereal wings, and must walk in darkness until they achieve true absolution in the light of Kluex.
81:1:6	Those who follow in the footsteps of Kluex are just better than other people.

Beta Lore

Beta-Release Canon The following material was introduced in the Beta and has since been removed or altered. As such, it is no longer considered to be a part of Starbound canon.

In the beta lore, Kluex was one god among many, collectively known as the Sunborn. According to the lore, the Sunborn stopped communing with Avians, and many were believed to have gone to sleep indefinitely in hidden tombs. Kluex, then a mortal Avian, flew up to the sanctuary of the Sunborn, a space station in orbit above Avos, and underwent apotheosis, becoming the last of the Sunborn. Subsequently, Kluex commanded most Avians to clip their wings, allowing only the Stargazers to retain theirs. As such, the Stargazers provided the only means for Avian society to commune with Kluex.

With the rewrite of the lore in Cheerful Giraffe, all of the references to Kluex's mortal origin, and nearly all of the references to other Avian gods, were removed.