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Religions

Religions adhered to by mortals follow below. Note that faerie-kin (swaplings, grimalkins, and woodgrues) have no connection to the deities of mortals. While they can pay lip service, any powers, relics, or rituals from mortal religions are inaccessible by faeries. Many faeries are as powerful as deities themselves.

Pluritine Church

The dominant religion on Isurholm and the Continent, brought over originally by the Karselanders who had been converted by the Werriadi Empire’s encroachment. The Sword Brothers attempted to bring the Otani lands of the Myrdoom, which they dubbed the Dark Country, under the Pluritine heel, but failed, leaving the haunted Nightwick Abbey as a grievous scar on the world. Eventually the Otani would enter the Pluritine Church, syncretizing it with their folk practices.

Deities: The Exalted One, the Unnamed, a single male sky-father-like deity. Saints and demons abound in this religion as well, including the Lords of the Pit. The Exalted One does not act on the world, but rather acts through his intermediaries, including the Saints.
Origin: 1,600 years ago, beyond the Teeth of the Sun, the Lady (an unknown wife of the Last King of Mineos) received a vision from the Exalted One, a popular deity of the region. Being illiterate, she gave her testimony to the Five Scribes (Ogrimund, Hogrish, Eldine, and Lacrimyde) and they interpreted her visions into a book and created a new religion. Unfortunately, the Lady’s name and contributions are little known and most praise the Five Scribes (also known as the First Saints).
Cosmology: The god created the world, heaven, and hell; demons to torment sinners; and angels to serve him in heaven. He put mortals into the world and created Fairy to demonstrate life without faith and salvation.
Tenets: Life is sacred. Each person must choose the Exalted One or be punished in hell by the Lords of the Pit.
Practices: Daily prayer to the Saints. Weekly visits to church. Pilgrimage to holy sites once a lifetime.
Holy Symbols: The Chapes: A circle with five rays representing the Five Scribes. Effigies and scapulars of Saints.
Holy Texts: The Five Accounts, the five different versions of the Lady’s visions granted by the Exalted. Lesser deeds of Saints.
Membership: Archbishop (per nation-state). Bishop (per region), who has a Witch-Finder General, Master Exorcist, and Chief Regulator under them. Witch-Finders (Order of St. Sigford) find and eliminate witches and other illegal practitioners, Exorcists (Order of St. Pencarrow) expel demons, and Regulators (Order of St. Ormund) fight off infidel invaders and judge on heretics. Abbot or Abbess who serves an Abbey with monks or nuns. Archdeacon who serves a city. Vicars serve settlements with several curates under them. Friars wander the wilderness as hermits and preach the Five Accounts.
Relationships: All kindreds are welcome, even Fairies. Seeks to convert all, by book or by sword. All other religions are false or are the worship of demons.

Gwyrae

The old human religion of Otanslip (Isurholm), Ruislip, and Ambrine. It has mostly been supplanted in these lands by the Pluritine Church, though in some more rural areas, it is still worshipped, and on Ruislip and in the Myrdoom of Isurholm in the Otani Kingdoms, it is fully syncretized with the Pluritine Church.

Deities: Pantheon of dozens of deities, usually local, including the Green Man. Many Pluritine Saints are inspired or completely taken from local deities.
Origin: Lost to time.
Cosmology: A world tree with Fairy at its root. Reincarnation into plants and animals. Capricious deities.
Tenets: Honor, family, life is sacred, peace with Fairy is crucial to survival.
Practices: Offerings, blood sacrifices.
Holy Symbols: Cruciform oak (the Green Man) is still seen around. Small wooden effigies and symbols.
Holy Texts: Unknown.
Membership: Green witches. Family leaders.
Relationships: Fully suppressed by or syncretized with the Pluritine Church in most places. Some practices mesh with Swefana.

Attalander Religion

The religion of the Attalanders, closely related to the original religion of the Karselanders, the ancestors of the Karska inhabitants of Isurholm. It is followed by the Attalanders and their subjects in occupied areas.

Deities: Pantheon of a dozen deities representing various aspects of life and death.
Origin: Lost to time.
Cosmology: A world tree with Hel at its roots. Afterlife of warriors exalted over all. A secret world of Fairy infecting the trunk of the tree. An icy land of Giants to the far north. Apocalyptic final battle between the undead, fairies, giants, mortals, and gods.
Tenets: Honor, respect, power, death. Deep obsession with death and the eternal struggle of mortals against evil outsider powers. Those who prosper die in battle gather in an afterlife in the high branches of the World Tree, eternally feasting along with famous warriors, until the Final Battle is fought. All others go to Hel, a barren icy waste in the Roots of the World Tree until the Final Battle. Those who were craven, dishonorable, humiliated, or unworthy by virtue of their occupation are doomed to undeath.
Practices: Animal and humanoid sacrifice. Funeral pyres. Prayer and sacrifice as needed. Magic. Experimenting with poisons.
Holy Symbols: Each god has its own set symbol.
Holy Texts: None.
Membership: Priests and priestesses, seers, poison-eaters.
Relationships: They believe all gods are real and freely add them to their pantheon as needed. They do not suppress the worship of other gods in the lands they occupy.

Swefana

An ancient religion followed by the dwarrows of the Myrdoom in Isurholm. Some breggles and Otani humans may believe in the cosmology too while practicing their own religions.

Deities: The Thousand Thousand Sleepers.
Origin: Lost to time.
Cosmology: The Giants fought a great war in the Void. The war lasted so long that some giants slept and joined together in a pile and created the world. From the deepest of them was born the dwarrows while the ones on the surface birthed the other mortals of the world. The war will one day commence and the Sleepers will wake again. Prone to sectarianism.
Tenets: Ancestors are holy and deified (they become a Sleeper too and will one day wake), so the elderly are venerated.
Practices: Crafting, to honor local Sleepers. Mining, digging to wake the Sleepers (and bring about the Final Battle), or to destroy a Sleeper before it wakes (depends on the sect).
Holy Symbols: Picks, hammers.
Holy Texts: Rune stones are scattered throughout the underworld where the dwarrows delve deep, some carved by Dreamwalkers.
Membership: Dreamwalkers, those priests who claim to be able to enter the dreams of the Sleepers and communicate with them. Through them, people pray to the Sleepers. Dwarven Sign was invented to keep secrets from the Sleepers.
Relationships: Syncretized with Gwyrae in some places. Gods from other religions were also born from Sleepers. Fairy is a strange collective dream of the Sleepers.

Aud Frengd Hlerr & Mogba

Mogba is a mossling nature spirit religion with too many deities to count. Based on prophetic, drug-induced visions. Oral traditions. Refer to the Dolmenwood book.

Aud Frengd Hlerr is breggle ancestor worship, more a philosophy than full religion. Compatible with the Pluritine faith. Honor and family above all. Refer to the Dolmenwood book.

The personal-use-only print version of this document contains a fuller description of these two religions copied from the Dolmenwood books, which follow from here.