Before the age of the three races, it is believed that the Ancients’ religion had something to do with venerating the Celestials, the beings whose physical forms are believed to be the stars dotting the firmament. In hauther today, the veneration of the Celestials has been displaced by the different beliefs of each race, but their legacy endures in the form of the Hautherian calendar. Outside of this common component, each race’s beliefs systems differ.
Human Beliefs
Daeism
The the Church of Daeus originated in Thyrell, and with the conquering of Hauther, it became the official state religion imposed upon the populace. Even though the Casperians considered themselves archenemies of Thyrell, they were the most accepting of the Church because it shared the basic principle of monotheism with their own religion. The most significant difference between the two religions was that the Thyrellan Church of Daeus preached there was only one divine power, “Daeus,” whereas the Casperian religion had a vast “holy hierarchy” of subservient divine beings under the all-powerful “Abba.” When the Thyrellans imposed Daeism upon Casperia, the Church tried to suppress the holy hierarchy of Celestials, angels, demons, saints, and other divine entities, but it was too entrenched into the Casperian identity to eliminate. Casperians simply maintained their beliefs over the generations in private.
With the fall of the Thyrellan empire, the Casperian beliefs found their way back into the Church. Today, the Church of Daeus is an amalgamation of the Thyrellan Orthodox Church, with Daeus keeping his spot as the omnipotent creator, and the Casperian Church, placing its holy hierarchy underneath Daeus. There is still some resistance by a small orthodox sect within the Church who feel it has gone astray. However, with the Church’s base of power now residing within Casperia, the adoption of the holy hierarchy is likely to remain.
Similar to the holy hierarchy of divine beings, the Church today maintains a rigid hierarchy of priests and administrators. In addition, the Church has established a peripheral hierarchy of ordained “advocates” who act on behalf of the Church’s interests. The most prominent advocates are the Church Templar, Magi, and Inquisitors who are tasked with investigating or protecting matters of concern to the Church.
The Jovaran Pantheon
The Jovar don’t have a formal religion with standardized rituals and ceremonies like the Daeists do. Instead, they venerate individuals within a pantheon, known in Jovaran as Rhyehall, that developed over the centuries into a family of hero and nemesis deities, all of whom rose to godhood through their deeds or misdeeds. Most of the gods in the pantheon began as patrons of a particular clan or family, and over the centuries of raiding, interbreeding, and exchange, the tales of each deity were spread and woven into the pantheon as it is today. It is believed by the Jovar that once elevated to godhood, their patrons took their places among the Celestials in the heavens to watch over them. Some of the most commonly revered deities within the pantheon are Mirth, the god of strength and battle, Saraf, the god of independence and cleverness, and Olam, god of wisdom and heritage. Some of the most reviled deities include Riff, god of guile and deceit, and Bahn, god of shadows and secrets.
The Jovar never truly adopted Daeism when the Thyrellan empire came through and conquered their lands. Instead, they equated Daeus to Goramin, their preexistent father god over their hero gods, and continued venerating the hero gods for their specific divine domains. The Thyrellan Church of Daeus wasn’t satisfied with this, but they could do little to impose their will since most Jovaran clans became nomadic raiders, making it difficult to convert them.
The only recognized role within the Jovaran religion was the Chivar, a priest who would tend to the spiritual wellbeing of the entire clan. A Chivar was as likely to bless dwellings, conduct prayers, or preside over weddings as fight beside warriors in battle. Though it wasn’t necessary for a Chivar to be a magician, the most renowned Chivar were magicians of some sort, using magic to enhance their effectiveness on the battle field. Today, their are outlanders who claim to be Chivar, though there is no telling if such a person truly follows the old ways or is even of Jovaran descent.
Huduun
Known as Huduism by the uneducated, Huduun is the ancestral religion of the Hudu, the original inhabitants of the Southern Swamplands. The basic tenet of Huduun is the existence of a supreme creator spirit that plays no role in the lives of the living today. Instead, countless lesser spirits roam the aether, the spirit world, with desires and motives of their own. According to Huduun priests, these spirits, who vary in type and power, can be contacted and either compelled or coaxed into performing deeds for mortals.
The array of spirits in Huduun is so vast that it isn’t possible to catalog them all. Most of the lesser spirits are known as the Maeya. They are the spirits of mortals who have died but have yet to relinquish their attachment to the mortal world and therefore haven’t obtained their autonomy. Mortal spirits who have attained some degree of autonomy and power, dubbed “presence” in the Huduun faith, are known as the Kutra and must be bargained with in lieu of compelled. Another echelon of spirits are those that were never mortal. Known as the Gahma, these spirits also vary in type, motive, and presence. Theologians have suggested that most of the divine beings in the Church of Daeus’s Holy Hierarchy fall into this category. In other words, Gahma is the Huduun name for angels, demons, Celestials, and the like. Theologians have also suggested that spirits of folklore, such as the banshee or djinn, fall under this category. Notably, even though the Huduun acknowledge the existence of animal and nature spirits, such spirits aren’t considered within their religion’s purview.
Similar to the Jovaran pantheon, there is no formal religious establishment in Huduun, but there are priests, called Mangu for a man or Lamaeya for a woman. Practitioners may seek the aid of different priests for different reasons, as many priests specialize in particular aspects of Huduun. Charismatic priests will often have a following of practitioners, but otherwise there is no formal organization or administration between such groups. Over the centuries, the Hudu and their practices were condemned by nearly all they met, leading to significant persecution and extermination of Huduun priests under Thyrellan rule. When the blood plague broke out, Huduun priests were once again met with persecution because of the striking similarity between a Huduun zombie, a person who is put into a fugue state through ritual trance and alchemy, and a plague zombie, a person who seems to have lost all sense of self because the blood plague subverts the will. Much to the relief of the Hudu, the Silver Order eventually determined that the two were unrelated. However, connections between Huduun zombies and plague zombies are commonly drudged up when groups, such as the Church of Daeus, wish to accuse Huduun priests of malefic practices.
Today, the most common face of Huduun are the fortunetellers, Huduun priests that ply their ability to contact spirits with the ability to prognosticate or read the auras of individuals. Typically, citizens seek fortunetellers for advice on personal matters. Anyone wishing for subtle, or even overt, intercession would be directed to the more traditional Huduun priests that operate in the underworld of the cities. While the Church of Daeus still condemns such practitioners and those who visit them, the Church seems willing to overlook the practice of fortunetelling so long as it remains on the fringes of society and out of public view. Ironically, this focus on the fortunetellers of the religion has allowed the traditional, more rigorous practitioners of Huduun to surge in the dark alleys and burrows of places like Casperia.
Elven Beliefs
Errow Shamanism
Accounts of the Errow beliefs and customs are few and quite disparaging since they were written by the Thyrellans who later committed genocide against the Errow in their initial push to conquer Hauther. Regardless, it is apparent that the plains elves practiced their own form of animism. The Errow believed that everything had a spirit, regardless if it was a being or object, animal or sapient, natural or manmade. Accordingly, the Errow treated everything with a degree of respect that other tribes and races didn’t. Animals were slain only out of necessity, be it for food or for protection, and then as much of the animal as possible was used in some way or another since leaving usable portions of the animal to rot would be to disrespect its sacrifice. Similarly, the Errow treated their surroundings with respect, making the most of the resources they scavenged. While theologians are satisfied to believe that such frugality had largely to do with the Errow’s respect for the spirits of all around them, scholars are quick to argue that such practices were born out of necessity, for the plains had little else to offer hunter-gatherers who had to make the most of the resources available and yet carry everything wherever they went.
The Thyrellans also described the Errow holy men, known as shamans, who acted as the spiritual advisors and links to the spirit world for their tribes. The Errow believed that shamans could speak with the spirits of animals, nature, and man to gain insight and make appeals for help. It was noted that the Errow as a whole had developed an impressive array of spirits of all kinds, but the Thyrellans never bothered to catalogue any of them. Shamans were typically men, but there are accounts of women shamans who usually had a specialized talent as seers or mediums with the “sky gods”, believed by the Thyrellans to be the Celestials.
Today, many Errow follow the beliefs of the Hautherians in the cities in which they live. However, there are reports of a small number of Errow who claim to be shamans and have a connection to their ancestral spirits. Whether true or not, the Errow today do not share any of their traditional beliefs or practices with outsiders either because some have lost their heritage and have nothing to recount or because some have rediscovered their heritage and keep it secret to protect it. This, of course, frustrates curious scholars, but considering the Errow’s history with humans, it is unlikely to change.
Krendiri
Like all else about the Krendiri, their beliefs and ideology are a mystery, as if shrouded by the shadowy forest in which they once lived. It is known that the Krendiri venerated their sylvan surroundings, but whether this influenced or was influenced by their religious ideology is only conjecture. Theologians generally accept that the Celestials played a part in their worship since accounts of Krendiri warriors include descriptions of pendants and trinkets in the shapes of the stars, sun, and moon. This is further corroborated by the accounts of the shrines with similar iconography the Thyrellans found in the woods after they drove the Krendiri from their homes. Whether or not the Krendiri venerated the Celestials directly or indirectly is unknown, but by the placement of stone markers in various glades throughout the Northern Woodlands, there is no doubt that at the very least, the Krendiri tracked the positions of the stars closely.
Dwarven Beliefs
The Nokhen are the only line of dwarves dwelling within Hauther, and as widely known, they are a notoriously reclusive people. Hence, knowledge of their customs is sparse. However, the Nokhen and various human tribes lived together in the lowland cities ruled by the Nokhen for a number of decades before they withdrew to their mountain citadels when the conquest-minded Thyrellans arrived. Naturally, this yielded some insight into their religious beliefs.
The Nokh Pantheon
Similar to the Jovar, the Nokhen spoke of their gods as a family of dwarves who were elevated to godhood through their deeds or scheming. However, not much is known about this pantheon except for one god, Hirol, whose namesake is the central mountain chain in Hauther. According to accounts, the Nokh bards spoke of an old tale that said the Hirols are the spine of an ancient dragon, supposedly fallen upon the lands after being slain in an epic sky battle by a single dwarf named Hirol. A common Nokh jest is that this is where Hautherians got their word hero because they didn’t have any heroes of their own and had to look to the dwarves for one. Naturally, such etymological conjecture of the word is rebuffed by human scholars, but it amuses the Nokhen to no end. Aside from Hirol, not much else was mentioned about the other dwarven gods within the pantheon. This has led human scholars to suspect that Hirol is the patron god of the Nokhen, and similarly, other dwarven lines across Ferron probably have their own patrons within the pantheon as well.
The Primordial Essences
In addition to the veneration of Hirol, the Nokhen have also shown a reverence for what they call the Primordial Essences: Essence of Air, Essence of Earth, Essence of Fire, Essence of Water, and Quintessence. In human terms, the first four Essences equate to the four known natural elements: air, earth, fire, and water. Quintessence, however, has no direct equivalent in human philosophy or science. As accounts describe from dwarven interaction, Quintessence is the living energy that connects all other essences together, simultaneously binding them, being the medium in which they interact, and acting upon them. Human scholars and mages have puzzled over the idea of Quintessence, and the closest principles to which they could equate it is as a mix of force, energy, and aether.
Regardless of what it is exactly, the Nokh dwarves believe that all their physical endeavors, be it craft, dance, or martial arts, are an invocation of the essences into form. Therefore, the act of performing a skill itself is the veneration of the primordial essences, and the pursuit of perfecting one’s skill is the pursuit of better understanding the Essences. So, it is common for all dwarves, from craftsmen to soldiers, to begin their work with a short prayer or “mantra” to align themselves with the Essences in order to invoke an ever more perfect form of object or motion.
Religious Organization
Unlike most other religions, the Nokhen don’t have priests and churches, at least not in the manner one usually thinks. The Nokhen have storytellers, or bards, that recount all the ancient tales of the gods and dwarven lines, and some even make a bit of coin at it in taverns. However, the tales are told both as a form of education and entertainment, to enlighten and the teach morals and the history of the dwarven lines. Aside from teaching that family and the familial structure are paramount to the Nokh society, the tales do not try indoctrinate listeners into venerating their gods, simply learning from their deeds.
On the other hand, there are numerous temples dedicated to one or more crafts or skills. At such places, dwarves may seek the advice and wisdom of artisans and masters who have learned how to invoke the Essences into their crafts. While their methods, prayers, and facilities may differ, all organizations seek to promote the alignment of the self and the crafts they teach with one or more of the five Essences. As a result, such temples have become the center of craft halls and academies where dwarves apply for apprenticeship and practice their trades.