Religion in Ovaicaea

**Religion in Ovaicaea** is a complex and interrelated array of beliefs, practices, and organizations, and has been a major influence on society, art, culture, philosophy and law. Broadly, the religions of the continent can be categorized under four groupings: Western Ovaicaean religions, Tethro-Mocric religions, Gastrinian religions, and Eastern religions, with a few smaller outliers such as Orcish shamanism.

In all of these instances, folk religion exists in a vibrant tradition alongside formal or organized religious expression, and the interaction between peoples across the continent have led to some overlap in religious practice and belief.

## Western Ovaicaean religions

The religions of Western Ovaicaea are polytheistic and generally agree on the identities of some of the major deities. While there are differences between common elven, human, dwarven, and gnomish views of the gods, by and large they share the belief in a multitude of gods and spirits and devotional practices at varying levels towards these supernatural beings.

The predominant religious tendency is **Ovaicaean folk religion** or more specifically **Human-Dwarven religion**, the everyday religious practices of human, dwarven, and eastern moon elf tribes, clans, settlements, temples, and households across Ovaicaea north of the Tethar mountains and west of the Great Wastes, with regional variation. This is the vernacular tradition that developed organically from mixed human and dwarven folklore and folk practices, as well as the traditions of the eastern moon elves. The folk religion is overall a combination of animism and polytheism, at varying levels. Household practice has a greater emphasis on local spirits, household spirits, and fae; however, it is still polytheistic, and centered on honoring household and patron gods from the syncretic Ovaicaean pantheon. Beyond domestic and local practice, the Ovaicaean religion is organized into ecclesiastical institutions, such as temples, monasteries, and municipal priesthoods, often funded by city and provincial governments, or else operating as independent temple-states.

In some states, such as Lithuar or Tolossia, these are organized into a kingdom-wide *ecclesiarchy*, a hierarchical structure led by high priests, with subordinate priesthoods to service municipal and parish temples. These enjoy a varying degree of government patronage, and to some extent operate as their own governing body, with clergy considered a separate social class in many dwarven and human kingdoms. Over the past thousand years, a standard structure has emerged where each national ecclesiastical body is led by a Council of Prelates chaired by a *Hierophant*; each *prelate* governs an ecclesiastical community called a *diocese*, some of which are grouped into *archdioceses*, led by an *Archpriest*. Each diocese roughly corresponds to the civil provinces, and are composed of several *parishes*, often corresponding to civil townships or hundreds. Below the diocesan level of administrative ecclesiarchs, the parishes are serviced by colleges of priests, each of whom focuses on the worship of a particular deity, centered on one or more temples in the local area; in poorer parishes, they serve a *pantheonic temple*, dedicated to all the gods, with separate chapels or shrines dedicated to specific gods.

A concurrent tendency is **Confessorism** or the **Confessor Way**, the most popular theological and philosophical approach to the Ovaicaean gods. Confessorism does not exist in opposition to the folk religion or the ecclesiarchy, but represents a formal theology and philosophy, and aspects of religious practice, that has been ovarlaid onto it. This "philosophical religion" and religious movement was developed by the Confessor Order, a monastic and mendicant order of enchantresses in the Tethar Mountains, in the 7th century in response to disorder and disunity following the Orcish conquest of the West. The Templar Order emerged in the late 600s as a companion military and monastic order with the goal of defending the Confessors, who were some of the first to adopt their theology and practice.

The Confessor Way differs from the folk religion in that it places an emphasis on developing a personal, devotional relationship with one or more gods by everyday people, not just by priests. For some, this has meant pursuing a monastic lifestyle, living communally with others and committed to a contemplative life of study and devotion to a particular deity. For many more, the Confessor Way has influenced popular piety with an emphasis on personal devotion, mercy, peace, and charity in everyday life. The Confessors themselves are seen as prophets of this new spirituality, and their leader, the Mother Confessor, has semi-divine authority. Confessorite theology largely views all gods from all cultures as potentially existing together, neither denying nor elevating one pantheon over another. However, most Confessorite institutions tend to focus on human-dwarven gods, in part because the Confessors themselves are all of human or half-human ancestry. Confessorite cosmology envisions the universe as a great wheel, with an infinite number of realms on an infinite number of spokes, each with their own material, astral, and ethereal planes of existence, all connected together in interwoven webs of magic, guided towards an axial divine realm of pure light. Confessors teach that after death, one can be reincarnated to any of these realms and planes, and that over time, the soul becomes more and more pure, and may eventually rejoin the cosmic axis in the Pure Land at the center of the wheel.

As temple-states, independent monasteries, and entire national ecclesiarchies converted to Confessorite theology in the 600s and 700s, both independent abbots and state prelates requested the advice of the Mother Confessor on ecclesiastical appointments, and determining canon law and religious matters. St Sibylla the Wise began the practice of investing prelates with their ecclesiastical authority in the 680s, sparking a long conflict with royal and civil authorities who patronized the temples and considered the ecclesiarchy a branch of government rather than an independent institution. The controversy was especially troubled in Eldunari, Ripania, Tolossia, and the Tudescan kingdoms, and at times provoked armed conflict between Confessor-aligned temple principalities and the central governments. The investiture issue only came to a close in the 720s, when most civil authorities in the West assented to the Mother Confessor's right to invest prelates.

During the Second Orc War, many autonomous monasteries and their accompanying monastic states converted to Confessorite theology and organized themselves in imitation of the Confessor Abbey, out of a concern that the Confessor Order was threatened with eradication. These organized themselves after the war as the *Order of St. Ilhandriel*, bringing most monasteries in dwarven and human lands into a single organization, though each monastery maintains autonomy. While they don't directly answer to the Mother Confessor, they heed her advice and submit themselves to matriarchal prelate investiture.

A third major tendency is **Seldarism**, the high elven traditional religion most popular among sun elves, western desert elves, and lake country moon elves in coastal Western Ovaicaea and in the Eldun river valley, though variations of it are also practised among sun, moon, and desert elves south of the Tethar mountains. It is named after the elven term for the collective fellowship of the gods, the *Seldarine*. It contains some similarities to Human-Dwarven religion and to Confessorite theology, especially in terms of domestic practices, honoring of fae spirits alongside gods, and public rituals. Seldarism is generally organized on the basis of civic religion, with elven city-states and freeholds possessing their own priesthoods and temples infrastructure, each generally independent from each other and not part of a national hierarchical ecclesiastic institution. Independent monasteries and abbeys are a prominent part of elven religion, with the calling to monasticism being a historically important aspect of religious expression. Seldarist philosophers have asserted that their monastic tradition is the source of Confessorite devotional theology and laid the groundwork for human and dwarven monastic institutions in the centuries prior to the fall of the Old Empire.

Seldarist theology differs somewhat from Confessorite theology in that it views their gods as the highest, and as direct ancestors of the elven race. Under Seldarist belief, the elves are the mortal progeny of the fae, themselves the earthly children of the gods, placed in a great forested glen in northern Ovaicaea. The elves committed some transgression and were cast out, made to wander the earth and form into varying tribes; the nature of this transgression varies from tribe to tribe. Seldarist religious rituals focus on private acts of penance, public rituals of sacrifice and atonement, and holy days commemorating elven history. The highest elven god is Corellon, the creator of the elves, who is also the god of magic, art, poetry, and war. However, Seldarists also believe in the Great Wheel cosmology alongside those adherent to the Confessor Way; in this respect, they are viewed as sister traditions, with similar perspectives and beliefs.

Seldarist views practices are also common among elven communities in Tethar, Mocryae, Gestrin, and West Aendrilad, though it is significantly blended with the local religion. Historically, the elven communities of these southern regions held to local religions with some common root with Seldarism, but were significantly different in how they were practiced, and how they viewed the gods. During the late period of the Old Empire, elven missionaries from the western coastlands spread a particular form of Seldarism to these far-flung elven communities, attempting to foster a common religion. The military hegemony of the Old Empire's dragon-riders enabled them to operate with relative safety even in nations that were not formally part of the Empire, like Mocryae and Gestrin. With the collapse of the Old Empire, and the gradual hegemony of Gestrin over these regions, southern Seldarism became blended with a superstructure of Gastrinian religion.

The fourth tendency in Ovaicaean religion is **Gnomish druidry**, which is mostly practised in Balendor and the northwestern lake country. Druidry is shaped primarily by the unique Balendrian ecclesiastical institution, the Gorsedh. The religion is led by the Archdruid, and is hierarchically defined by several classes of priests and learned gnomes. The social class that participates in the Gorsedh, the *nemheadh*, are not only clergy, but also judges, scholars, healers, poets, and advisors. Druidry has some similar roots as dwarven religion, despite the closeness of gnomes to elves; however, it has developed in its own way. Druidry is much more focused on gods of nature, local spirits, and hero-cults, and the practice of magic drawing from the power of the natural world. The most important gnomish gods are Baervan, the principal deity of the woodlands and pastures, and Garl Glittergold, an ancient gnomish culture hero and trickster who became apotheosized after his death.

## Tethro-Mocric religions

Tethar, Mocryae, and neighboring Qasir are distinct polities, but their ethnic groups and languages have considerable shared history. Consequently, their cultures and religious expression are part of an interconnected system, even as these political entities have fallen under the sway of other nations and empires. Some aspects are similar to the folk religion of human-dwarven society to the north, such as a polytheistic and animistic worldview, public devotions at temples, private devotions to local spirits and personal gods, systematized practice and study of magic, and a contemplative theology involving the gods and cosmos. Where Tethro-Mocric religions differ is in having complex eschatological views, and what is considered by others to be a superstitious focus on demonology and warding off evil spirits.

**Tethari religion** is the folk practice common across the Kingdom of Tethar and within the Tethar provinces of the Empire of Gestrin. The nomadic Tethari tribes, alongside the related urban Suroyites, share a religious tradition venerating the animistic spirits of the local environment, including river spirits, desert spirits, and oasis spirits. The Tethari and Suroyites uniquely worship some of the same gods that the ancient Dragons once did, viewing the primal dragon-gods Tiamat and Bahamut as twin creators, and as a divine couple whose splitting caused a primordial devastation as they warred upon one another, sundering continents and torching forests. Many of the Tethari gods are described as destructive, vengeful, or angry, and public rituals are mainly done to assuage them.

**Mocryish religion** is the array of religious practices and beliefs common to Mocryae, and across the southern Mocryae peninsula and Crab Bay provinces of Gestrin. The Mocrish, Khalaties, and Salati peoples are more settled than the Tethari, predominantly in port cities and market towns, and their religion is likewise focused on municipal ecclesiarchies and temple institutions unique to each settlement; every city has their own patron god alongside the higher beings such as Amartu,