Altavir is dominated by five major cultural
groups, including the dead culture of ancient Hapath and Vidari, so powerful in
their ways that even long after their civilization was destroyed the memory of
their gods lives on.
The religions of each region are not
characterized by any sense of unity, though a number of gods are found in each
region, the worship of such deities crossing cultural and political boundaries.
Soragul is an ancient Vapari god, worshipped by the long-dead citizens of that
ancient city, his grandest temple now in ruins…..but scholars across Altavir
still present sacrifice to him before carefully kept shrines to this day.
The gods of Altavir are enigmatic and
distant, but oracular communication, possession and even the summoning of the
gods (or their aspects) is not uncommon. Sometimes charlatans pass themselves
off as diviners, but other time there are those born with what appears to be a
unique tether to the gods.
There is no consensus on the relationship of
the gods to either man or other divinities, other than that such knowledge will
always be beyond the ken of human understanding. The gods of Satras in the
North are believed to be ancient spirits bent on destroying the world, frozen
in their own wave of ice that will one day destroy the land. The Ekasian gods
are benevolent spirits of growth and progress, while the Ugandan monotheism
suggests a capricious, mad god rules all. The Vidari believe in many gods and
spirits, but feel that they are not so powerful as to destroy a world. Behind
all of this are the old gods of Hapath and Vapari, regarded as cruel demons of
the outer void who would be best left alone, had the Hapathic sorcerers not
drawn their attention to Altavir.
Vidaric Pantheon
The Vidari have a surprisingly mixed
cosmology of the divine. The lead god of the Vapari is Sitarnos, a wizened patriarch of the gods who’s temples grace most
Vidari cities as a center of commerce, trade and politics. They have Ateinas as the goddess who is both protector,
fighter, child-bearer, a patron of women and the family. Heiros is the god of death, gate-keeper of the dead and the sole
deity to hold back the demons of the Outer Darkness at bay. Other lesser gods
include Ouduan, the god of the great
sea and patron of sailors; Merecres, the god of secrets; Adreis, the goddess of love and tranquility, Eris, the goddess of chaos and discord, Targoaes, the god of soldiers and war; and the adopted Hapathic
deity Soragul, god of scholars and
magic.
Northern Satrasian Beliefs
The northmen of the Satras Steppes are a
dour, stern lot who face an army of ancient, evil gods who are slowly engulfing
the world in ice. Their tales of old speak of a cosmic battle in which the
Death Gods won, and the old pantheon of light was destroyed. The four key death
gods are Yzach, Vexor, Mavag and Thesha. Each is believed to have a legion of
lesser undead gods, all undead servitors enslaved to them from prior worlds
which they visited and slew all life on. The stories of Satras are that these
four arrived as an army, and fought the old gods to a standstill, and the
protector god Malevig fought them to a standstill before freezing them in
perpetual ice….but as he did they struck and slew him. Now the death gods are
frozen in the deep north, slowly awakening. The ice encroaches, for it has been
taken over by the will of these destroyers, but one day they will shatter their
prison and be free to wipe out humanity.
Most Northern homes and hearths have a
shrine to the memory of Malevig and the old gods, and they believe that a
candle or flame must burn at all times to keep his spirit alive, prolonging the
inevitable creeping heat-death of the world that much longer.
Hapathic and Vapari Pantheon
Little is truly known of the old gods worshipped
by these enigmatic and very dead sorcerers. The Hapthic belief in Soragul was
found and restored in modern times by Vidari scholars, but other gods such as
the elephantine Zaggal-Suun and the rapacious thousand-armed Mother of Darkness
called Sibasha-Rei remain enigmas, with occasional misguided cults rising up to
seek power from these lost beings.
Most concerning of all were the later cults
which worshipped seventeen devils, the so called Sons of the Dark, possibly the
children of Sibasha-Rei. It is believed this latter period of devil-worship and
summoning was what led to the downfall of Hapath and Vapari. The seventeen are
mostly lost to memory, but three devils in particular still have worship in
hidden covens today, including Raggus the Black Goat, Simidasei the Lamia Queen
and Policari the Breeder.
Sacred amulets, lost tomes and religious
iconography are highly prized in the ruins of old Hapath and Vapari.
Adventurers regularly plunder such relics to make a quick buck in their home
ports. Occasionally one of these relics contains enough data, or some dark
spirit, which accidentally rekindles the lost cult of one of these infernal
beings.
Ekasian Gods
The Ekasian culture is believed to have
grown from indigenous nomadic tribes out of the plains of the dead, the Oklos
Emanos. Many ancient ruins of a lost civilization are found in that region, the
name of which is lost even to memory, and the language of which is mysteriously
untranslatable. The Ekasians believe they have a direct lineage to this lost
people who likely predated Hapath by thousands of years.
The Ekasian belief system pays reverence to
ancestors. Specifically they regard the ancestors of the ancient dead as guides
in the afterlife and even the present lives of their people. The lead ancestral
deity is called Nevuar, believed to
be the first king of Ekasia, and spiritual guide to the Ekasian kings. Second
is Mahulos, a spirit of magic and
lost lore. Third is Tynorath, the
spirit-goddess of wrath and justice. The fourth and final elder spirit is Makamion, the “maker of better things”
who is said to be the ancestor to create all great works of man, the forger.
Lesser spirits include Shanasia, the
fertility spirit of women, Yamereth,
the hearth-protector, and Trialion
the spirit of mercantilism. There is a distinct evil ancestor spirit as well,
known as Makkod, believed to be the
last of the forgotten kings, the one who “brought ruin to the old age of men.”
Ugadan Belief
The Ugandan worship the “all force” of the
being called Sadaqua, which is simultaneously a benevolent and evil being of
multiple “faces,” a sort of monotheistic being with pantheistic personalities.
Sadaqua manifests as a devil, a savior, a trickster, a caretaker, a warrior, a
sage and other roles, all represented within his dark, circular temples dug
deep in to the earth.
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