The Dead God

The **Dead God** is the deity worshipped on the Stone Islands. He is known by his followers as the God. He is worshipped in few other places, if anywhere else. The Stone Islands are one of the few regions of Equis which do not follow the official national religion of the White Faith.

## Beliefs

The belief system of the Dead God justifies warfare and killing as the only true use of men's ability. War itself is not a holy act, but one of necessity. Followers believe that each time they go to war against outsiders, they are working closer to avenging their god.

The practices of piracy and raiding are also justified beneath the Dead God. Any ways his followers may bring more suffering onto mankind are allowed beneath his hand.

Followers of the dead religion believe that they are the inheritors of the Districts and will eventually be given all the land in Equis by their God. They uplift themselves as both the true rulers of sea and land. Most of them look at the . Many refer simply to the continent of Equis as the Land.

To followers of the Dead God, the Land is the center of the world. The sea and stars rotate around it. The other continents do not matter to them and are not worth any attempts to conquer. It is likely that some followers do not believe the members of the continents beyond the seas are as deserving of annihilation as the inhabitants of the Land, as it was within this region their deity was murdered.

Followers believe their God was killed in battle and resurrected himself in order to annihilate the Land's nations. At the time of his death the Kingdoms of Light were rife with warfare and the entire continent of Equis was drenched in blood. The early ancestors of the Islanders, a nation of isle-dwelling warriors from the outskirts of Sethre, sailed across the sea to raid Equis and were brought into the wars by the God they encountered on the Stone Islands.

At his death the God was much in the appearance of a mortal man between seven and eight feet in height, if not one uncommonly strong and tireless. Since his death, the Dead God has grown larger each year and continues to grow. It is now believed he is as broad and tall as a mountain.

Resurrection figures prominently in the religion as followers their own deity brought himself back from the dead. They uphold that he has the power to do the same for any of his followers.

At death, followers will go to a place beneath the ocean floor where they will spend the rest of their days waiting to be called on again by the Dead God. The greatest warriors can be chosen by him and brought to the surface again, reborn, to fight beside him in his endless war against the people of the Land.

The Dead God is immortal and all-knowing. The stories differ of how he came into being. Most of the priests agree that he either washed ashore onto one of the Stone Islands or emerged from the earth. He was born as a fully formed deity in the appearance of a mortal man. He can be anywhere or everywhere at once. It is unknown whether he has shown himself to any mortals in recent history, although men have claimed to have seen his form across mountain faces in flashes of lightning while sailing along Island coasts.