Carnivàle

Carnivàle was an American dramatic television series produced by HBO. Created by Daniel Knauf, it starred Nick Stahl and Clancy Brown. It ran from 2003-2005.

The Gospel of Knauf (Avataric Rules)

This information was dispersed to the fanbase on the internet by the show's creator, Daniel Knauf around the time of the end of season 2. There was much online debate going on about the offical "rulebook," if you will, of the show's underlying pseudo-religious battle between Good and Evil, or as it turns out, Light and Dark, before the rules were finally laid out through and through by Knauf. Some information was added with this addendum to Wikipedia.

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• One Blood
• Two Avatars per generation - eldest males, one light, one dark;
• An Avatar's nature is random - dark can beget light, light, dark;
• Two Houses, Light and Dark;
• One Prophet (Dominant/eldest male) per House;
• One or more Princes (Ascendant males), depending on the number of generations alive at any time; (The whole thing is not altogether different than the ascent of royal families, except...)
• A Prince must kill the Prophet with his own hands in order to gain his full measure of power (per Wilfred Talbot Smith, who knows a thing or three about these things).
• Free choice is operative.
• Though tougher and more resilient than normal humans, Avatars are still mortal.
• The Usher of Destruction - An Avataric Prophet who has been foretold as a harbinger of the End Times (again, per Talbot Smith); as for the TRUE function of the Usher, it has yet to be revealed.
• The Alpha was the first Avatar - a female. Her story has been lost since the destruction of the Royal Library of Alexandria by Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria (incidentally, the patron saint of arsonists). The Omega (which had erroneously been considered synonymous with The Usher by most scholars) is the last Avatar - also a female. Her story has yet to be concluded.