Religious?

You can find dozens of different religions and beliefs from the realm of Ancient Anguish. The cleric class at the moment doesn't seem to define the gods the clerics follow at all, so it's just a labor union for priests. So far I haven't been able to run into a Chaoser who could/would have told me anything about worshipping Chaos, but have been able to run into people who have told me about Antana, guardian spirits and the Tusked One. The religions will be mentioned in alphabetical order.

The alignment, if mentioned, has two values, the first one being the attitude towards alignments of people: if good, the deity/spirit(s) despises evil beings and vice versa, and a neutral alignment means certain tolerance towards everyone. The second value tells the deity/spirit's behaviour: good means being friendly, protective and "fighting on the side of Good", evil mostly means every man for themselves, lust for power at the expense of others and "fighting on the side of Bad". Neutral stands in between.

Antana

Antana is the protector of the 'Monks of Antana', and the patron of the temple in the village of Neville, previously known as Caddia. She enjoys nature and is offended by the destruction of natural things. She is often depicted as a beautiful young woman with long flowing hair of gold. She bears a limewood staff in her left hand and wears a robe of the finest white silk.

The worshipping of Antana includes living by the 10 standards written by Antana (with the help of the guildmasters, I believe) and regularly confessing your sins. The collection of standards includes dont's like killing fellow people, stealing and using foul language. It encourages a calm, peaceful and relatively quiet life.

In return of following her laws, Antana is always there for her worshippers to offer comfort and protection. She seldom appears to her followers, but exists mostly in their hearts. There are evil and nasty Monks as well.

Antana doesn't mind a person's "bad" alignment as long as s/he doesn't rebel against her will. Her alignment seems to be neutral-good. When asked to give a reason why to follow Antana, a Monk replied: Her purity and goodness. And, of course, the people. Besides worshipping Antana, you see, the Monks also enjoy the company of the like-minded. The community seems to be a friendly one. The "natural enemy" of Antana seems to be Chaos. By D&D standards the Monks would then most probably be considered Lawful beings. The order doesn't allow necromancers to call themselves Monks of Antana.

Arakara

Arakara, originally a titan, had the high gods let him be reborn as a dwarf. He is one of the Creators, more precisely a god of the mid courts. Although dwarves are Arakara's favourites, all intelligent races are allowed to join the fervent followers of this mostly peaceful and merry god. Aggressive races, like orcs, ogres and trolls along with their minions are considered enemies, however, and as the Temple of Arakara has been raided by a band of orcs, Arakarians have begun an organized exterminating of this "tusked menace". The group called Scythe is also orc-minded enough to be on the black list.

I was obliged to ask if women and children are slaughtered as well. The Arakarian giving the interview assured me that only those who draw their weapons first are killed - Arakara believes in peace and optimistically looks forward to a day when blades are not needed. He tells his followers not to bring quarrel to peace and strongly disencourages them from being unkind to those who haven't done anything offending, excluding those who are considered a serious threat. As for other laws or guidelines, thieving and other rogue actions are forbidden. Arakara is more Neutral Good than Lawful Good, however, true, his followers aren't to break any dwarven laws but only as long as it doesn't violate anyone. "Our laws aren't always right.", my interviewee admits, and Arakara looks for bettering things. And, not entirely surprisingly, "--the laws of the brute are of no value."

Those who are evil and disobey Arakara's will, are to be banished by law, never gaining back citizenship unless they face their god, unarmed, in his temple, and ask for redemption. If Arakara then senses any evil, the violators are sent to the outer realms, and they never may return home, "and when evil is alone it takes sides amongst itself." The best way of teaching them a lesson is making them stop and think, it seems.

Many habits and traditions of the followers are kept secret from the mundane, for security. The sect is somewhat secretive, only standing out to help others fighting eg orcs.

The followers of Arakara include dwarves, humans and also a few elves. The latter are being kept an eye on, though, after some extremist elves attacking the Arakarian high guards. The elves who have applied often become a threat to the security of those around them, I was told. Looks like racial conflict is still a major problem, even among those who share a purpose.

My only source for more information on Arakara and his followers was corporal Spoo of Drin's Army, but he seems to have gone missing.

Blawnostron, the Prankster

This atypical dwarven god is also known as "The Beardless One". As the just about unthinkable act of shaving one's beard is usually used as a punishment of the worst criminals and traitors, the few clerics, also beardless, as well as the worshippers who follow this god of luck, pranks and alcohol, are often met with scorn or even hostility. This hasn't stopped his worship, which especially among the young majority of his followers may have begun as an act of rebellion against society.

There are no known temples devoted to Blawnostron, and his clerics are wanderers, not much wanted in any dwarven settlement due to their prankster nature. Dwarven miners, gamblers and others who rely on luck may secretly yank one hair out of their beard and mutter a short phrase to pay their respects to the god every now and then.

See also:

The Dark One

The dwarven god of fratricide (murder of one's brother) is also known as "He whose name is not said". In fact, the only occasion you may hear someone utter this name is when a dwarf publically declares a blood feud, where the traditional phrase used includes the Dark One's name. It is not even ever written down in full. My source book used a common way of getting around this: "His name ends in -azran, and the first letter is Z". Since it is said that some dwarves declaring blood feud too lightly have suffered an instant death, I see it best to honour this tradition and not write it down properly in here either, lest an annoyed deity should burn my study down.

See also:

Drelin, the Grower

Drelin is the dwarven goddess of childbirth and growth. One can find her shrines in most dwarven towns, although they are a bit more rare in the underground cities than surface ones. Feasts around harvest time are a common form of ceremony to this female representative of the dwarven deities.

All known clerics of Drelin are female, and they consider a male cleric of Drelin an impossibility. It is not known if this is a requirement of Drelin or just a tradition. Besides her numerous female worshippers, dwarven farmers wish the grower goddess's goodwill for good crops.

See also:

Dwarven Religion

Taking a look into dwarven religion and their traditional gods, my almost sole source of information has been the book Dwarven Religion by Trazan Rustbeard, which can be found in the Tantallon library as well as archived here.

The dwarves have five gods, each of whom have a well-defined role. There are no regional gods or "clan gods". However, some dwarves have turned to worshipping non-dwarven gods, like Antana and even evil ones.

Besides worshipping their gods, dwarves may also seek help and guidance from their ancestors. They are not worshipped, however, at least not in the traditional sense.

The five gods, Rukan, the creator, Tarran, the defender, Drelin, the grower, Blawnostron, the prankster and the Dark One are presented in here in the same alphabetical order as other gods.

See also:

Guardian Spirits

The members of the Black Bear, or Bears in short, don't have an actual god, but they have the guild shaman, Ewani, to teach them about guardian spirits. The spirits are much like tribal totems, and basically represent the elements and a selection of creatures: Water, Land, Air, Hawk, Bear, Wolf and Eagle. A person can get into a contact with his/her guardian spirit in the vision cave, where the guardian spirit appears in a dream. One person has one guardian spirit.

In exchange of sacrificing their kills to their guardian spirit and thus earning spiritual nirvana, the Bears recieve protection and some mystical powers that are based on the spirit's favours. By strengthening their guardian spirit through sacrifices enough the Bears can also gain guild titles. There are no standards or laws the guardian spirits demand the Bears to follow, the rules inside the guild are mostly social.

The alignment of the guardian spirits seems to be neutral-neutral. They have no actual enemy, perhaps excluding the things that lead into the destruction of the creatures of the wild or corrupt the elements.

Ranger Taoism

It's not taoism, and not nearly every ranger believes in it, but it had to be named something, so I used the word my interviewee, a ranger, used in the beginning. The main idea of the belief is that "things are best left in their simplest form". Nature is perfect as it is and the more we try to use our own means, the more we get into trouble. The concept of the belief resembles slightly the "True Neutrality" defined in AD&D.

The followers are mostly guildless rangers. Their way of life is neutral-neutral.

Rukan, the Creator/Constructor

Rukan, one of the five dwarven gods, constructed the world from elements he had separated from the Chaos that was first. (Thus, not out of 'nothing'. Creation out of nothing is an unknown concept to dwarven language and culture.) Rukan is then the primary god of dwarven artists, smiths, stonemasons and others who create or build non-living things.

There are no temples dedicated to Rukan, and there are hardly any formal ceremonies in his name. The explanation to this is that the entire world is considered to be Rukan's temple - no building could compete with that - and every object created by dwarven hands is in itself a ceremony dedicated to the god of creation.

See also:

Tarran, the Defender

Tarran is the dwarven god of battle and war, although primarily a god of protection and defense. His temple, located in the underground city of Rachadum ("Down Below"), was lost during the War of Bloodletting. Now all known routes to the city have been blocked, and there seems to be no hope of recovering the city and the temple.

Tarran is primarily the god of dwarven fighters, but also the protector of dwarven homes.

See also:

The Tusked One

The Tusked One is the god of True Orcs, a god with tusks (being orcish) and he preaches a manifesto of death, destruction, revenge and orc supremecy. As most orcs, the god is rather straightforward: When the walls of mist come down and the brother orcs march in from the west, his followers will unite and slaughter all elves, humans and probably dwarves as well and take over the lands for the orcs.

All orcs don't follow the Tusked One, and there doesn't seem to be The Official Orc Religion (TM) any more than official human, elf or dwarf religion. For the followers of the Tusked One other orcs aren't sacred either - they have sworn to kill the Dalairi Orcs (King Kazarov) "because they are traitors who sold out and made a treaty with the humans". There has been vague talk of alliance with the Scythe, but the worshipper I talked with suspected that it would be for convenience only.

The Tusked One doesn't hold non-orcs worthy followers. They shall all be eliminated and/or enslaved (in any order). The alignment of the Tusked One seems to be evil-evil. His natural enemies are humans, elves and dwarves for invading the land that rightfully belongs to orcs, and also the heretic orcs who have betrayed their own kind. All these shall be punished and the True Orcs shall rule the realm.

More information on the Tusked One can be found in the orc slaver camp in the woods, or from the followers, eg. Bunnyfoofoo or Ransome.

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