Religion on Egradus

"Not at all similar are the race of the immortal gods and the race of men who walk upon the earth."

Homer, Iliad, Book V.

Source unknown.

Every setting needs some gods, whether real or false. Belief and faith are powerful things and the forces directing them can wield incredible influence over the lives of their followers. I considered a few options for Egradus - Skerples has gone for monotheistic pseudo-Catholicism while Goblin Punch has opted for monotheism-but-also-polytheism - but eventually decided on a polytheistic approach for my setting.

Gods and Angels

Egradus has a staggering number of deities. Most of them have virtually no power at all and are little more than glorified village harvest spirits capable of granting a few minor boons or bringing good weather. Towns have their own gods that they pray and give offerings to though some more organised regions and city states have whole pantheons of gods with a wider worship. Some few have followers spanning continents and while all gods have priests, very few have clerics - it takes a lot of power to create a cleric and few gods can afford to take the risk of investing such power.

The gods are capable of setting foot on Egradus and some do so to mingle with their worshippers at important religious festivals. Some of them even spend most of their time on Egradus, squirrelled away in some distant part of their domain. Generally, they don't particularly care for the mortal world beyond being worshipped, and it's generally not wise to seek them out unless you have a very good reason. Otherwise, many of them carve out their own fiefs in the Red City at the centre of all realities. They tend to be the least disturbing thing there.

A god can be killed in one of two ways. The first involves cutting off its supply of worship - gods rely on the beliefs of mortals to fuel their power, no mortal worshippers = no power. Sometimes an army conquering a city will burn down shrines and temples and massacre worshippers as they go if they believe that a city's gods have been working against them. This rarely works as it is nigh on impossible to prevent the remaining citizens from backsliding in their religious habits, and shortly down the line the occupiers usually find themselves stricken with strange curses or attacked by freakishly strong zealots until they permit worship of said god to resume.

What most people don't know is that killing a god's worshippers only works up to a certain point - a low or middling god might fade into nothingness with the deaths of their faithful, but beyond a certain point gods seem almost indifferent to mortal belief. These gods tend to be even more removed from mortal concerns than normal, though they become ingrained in much of the fabric of life in Egradus. This is a topic of great debate among certain scholarly circles.

The second is by outright killing them in combat. This is even harder. First you need to find them, and seeing as they can step through the walls of reality almost at will this usually requires intricate and dangerous binding rituals. Then you need to somehow weather the rain of curses, elemental forces, crushing blows and otherworldly presence of a god-in-flesh and strike a killing blow with a weapon so enriched with chaotic magical energy that the wielder has maybe 30 minutes to live after picking it up. Even the Church of the Sacred Fire has not made use of this against the other gods of the Black Coast, though there are rumours that they are attempting the creation of such a weapon.

Angels are the beings that attend to the gods and carry out their commands, mostly as intermediaries to the mortal world (see the above about not caring for mortal concerns). Angels are either created by gods or spontaneously manifest around them, not even the gods are sure which, and their appearances and demeanour reflect the personality and powers of their god. Unfortunately for mortals neither of these tend to be very pleasant, so they do their best to announce their arrival with the proclamation: "BE NOT AFRAID".

This has varying degrees of success.

An angel's power corresponds to its god's - an angel of Xixher, Fire God of Amon-Klar and worshipped by all on the Black Coast, will be orders of magnitude more powerful than an angel of Old Greenthicket, harvest god of Melside village.

Credit, Alexey Rudikov

The Three

Though most of the deities on Egradus have a very limited geographic reach, there exists a trio of deities with worshippers throughout the world (at least to the knowledge of Izoa and Oloris, the two continents I have mapped so far). With such widespread worship, they possess incredible power. I'll write some more about them in further posts.

Xixher, Fire God of Amon-Klar

The cult of Xixher originated in the city of Emberseat, previously Veloran, in the nation of Amon-Klar. The cult never numbered more than a hundred members or so and was never out of place among Emberseat's plethora of temples. This changed when the Plague of Illysin ravaged the nation a couple of centuries ago. The people exhorted their gods for salvation from the tide of sickness that threatened to drown their cities, but were met with silence.

Xixher's cultists were struck with a vision - the gods of Amon-Klar were unable or unwilling to deliver the faithful from the plague. The fires of Xixher could aid them, but the fire required fuel. The cult's members found themselves fortified against illness and filled with unnatural vigour. They started storming the shrines of other cults and burning their artefacts and members in holy fire.

With each sacrifice, their strength and numbers grew. Soon the cult was several thousand strong and the message spread from Veloran. The pyres blazed all across Amon-Klar as the cult waged the War of Light - a campaign of theocratic extermination - and the Church of the Sacred Fire was left standing in the ashes. Amon-Klar had found deliverance from the Plague of Illysin.

Only the Gilded House of Auric was untouched, protected by its vast wealth, once the fires had burned out.

The Church has consolidated its position in Amon-Klar and expanded across the Black Coast by waging several Cinder Crusades against faiths in its neighbouring nations. While the Crusaders destroy and convert the non-believers they are careful to leave the political powers intact, lest their efforts be confronted by the armies of the kings and despots of the Black Coast. This has led to the region sharing the same faith, while still being riven with political divisions. Autocrat Harua of Amon-Klar has recently been making efforts to declare himself Protector of the Faith, leading the other states of the Black Coast to band together in opposition.

Arch-Lector Mehr Fereydoon heads the Church from the Cathedral of St. Emil, the first martyr in the War of Light. St. Emil still guides the Church as its spiritual head from his urn made of the scorched bones of his murderers, but the Arch-Lector is the de facto leader.

Credit, Piotr Uzdowski

Auric, God of Coin

Auric's church - the Gilded House - is incredibly old and has existed in some form or another since shortly after the arrival of humanity on Egradus and the collapse of the old orcish empires some several thousand years ago.

The Gilded House has outposts in every major settlement and acts as a banking and mercantile exchange. It is said that no coin passes hands in Egradus without Auric’s consent. Offerings are made by merchants and those seeking good fortune, and anyone who banks with the Gilded House pays a yearly tithe to the church. Adventurers are often hired to find valuable artefacts and new sources of wealth.

The church is tolerated in Amon-Klar due to its incredible wealth - any move against them by Xixher's disciples would cause a financial catastrophe. The Gilded House funds efforts against the Church of the Sacred Fire, which is an open secret, as is the fact that the Church occasionally unleashes gangs of zealots on unsuspecting priests of Auric. Reports that the Church of the Sacred Fire are seeking to create a god-killer have been met with alarm by the faithful.

The faith is headed by the High Usurer, who is selected by a popular vote of the Priest-Treasurers after nominations based on personal wealth pledged to the church. Bribes, contracts and loans between candidates and voters are an accepted and encouraged part of the process. The current High Usurer is Teunis Chantal, though she rarely leaves the Vault - the Gilded House's main stronghold in the mountains of Shaxecan.

Priests of Auric are known to be honest and independent witnesses to legal and financial matters. They wear black robes embroidered with metallic thread - copper for the Counters (the lowest ordained rank), silver for the Abacai (bishops), gold for the Priest-Treasurers (archbishops) and platinum for the High Usurer. Priests ascend through the ranks by accruing wealth for the church and themselves. A bit of embezzlement is tolerated, and even expected, so long as customers are not harmed by it. Any sign of a defrauded customer is swiftly and mercilessly dealt with - the church has the finest mercenary companies and assassins on retainer and makes liberal use of them when its interests are threatened.

Credit, Manticorra Mioro

Yenta, Goddess of Silence

Yenta is a deity with a widespread following across Egradus, save Amon-Klar. Her church - the Grey Halls - is a peculiar one, preaching cryptic, esoteric rites and extolling the virtues of knowledge and secrecy. Its main headquarters lies in the upper reaches of Ramliya, the towering City of Whispers, and a church representative sits on the Council of Thirteen who control the city. The Grey Halls in Ramliya are rumoured to contain untold knowledge and secrets, including some of the Nine Billion Names of Creation. Anyone who fears the unknown prays to Yenta.

The church’s tithe is paid in secrets and rumours and thus the Grey Halls are perhaps the largest intelligence network on Egradus - secrets can be traded for other secrets and once the trade is complete the previous secret is literally forgotten by the church. Priests of Yenta are thus prized as diplomats and couriers.

Priests give up their names when they join the church - these names are literally destroyed in a divine ritual. Some survive the ritual, others are reduced to Thralls and spend the rest of their lives mindlessly performing simple tasks. The survivors start out with the rank of Forgotten, rising to Brother- or Sister-Cognisant when they have learned their secret name whereupon they also take a new public name. They next ascend to Remembrancer after curating a suitably impressive list of secrets. The final tier is Whisperer, which they ascend to after uncovering the secret name of one of the current Whisperers, who is then ritually compelled to suicide. Above that lies the Reticent Pope.

The Reticent Pope ascends to the position by learning one of Yenta’s own secrets. No-one seems to know who actually holds the title; it is possible that their previous identity was a secret that was forgotten by the church. It is possible that the Reticent Pope may not actually exist.

Crows and cats are engaged in a constant Cold War for the affections of the Grey Halls, as they naturally seek to hoard secrets for themselves. The church knows this, but the beasts always provide a good trade in secrets. The cats are currently ascendant.