Religions

There are a variety of religions around the world of Tritania. Most have racially divided origins, though current followers frequently break those boundaries. Technically, though religions and worshippers centre around a wide variety of beings, only some of them are true deities.

Deities
Many powerful beings inhabit the outer planes, and many of them have divine nature and origins, but only a select few are true deities. The rest include a variety of beings, both good and evil.

The Divine Flame
The Divine Flame is what sets true deities apart from other beings. The source of their power, the Flame burns in the centre of their soul, and makes them far greater than other entities. The Flame makes no distinction between good and evil, or order and chaos, it simply grants godly power to any who possess it.

The Divine Flame grants immortality, near-invulnerability, and almost unlimited magic. This includes the ability to grant spells and other abilities to worshippers, and makes the deity (almost) completely unkillable, though not immune to damage and harm.

The Divine Spark
The Divine Spark is a lesser aspect of the Divine Flame. Beings that possess the Spark are not nearly as powerful as true deities, though they still have incredible magic. These beings are also immortal, though not immune to being killed as gods are (though they can be incredibly difficult to destroy). Beings with the Divine Spark cannot grant divine magic to followers, even though they are sometimes worshipped as gods, but they can share their power in different ways, making excellent Warlock Patrons.

Beings with the Divine Spark include such creatures as Archangels, Archfey, Archdemons and Princes of Hell. True deities can invest other beings with the Divine Spark; when a mortal soul is granted this honour after death, the result is known as a saint (or equivalent).

Manifestations
By the terms of the Angellic Accords (the true nature of which seems to be known only to the gods themselves, and they aren’t sharing), the gods (those who possess the Divine Flame) are forbidden from manifesting directly on the inner planes, including any version of the material plane. This is the reason that gods work through priests, as they cannot influence the planes themselves. Technically, beings with the Divine Spark are not forbidden from entering the material plane, but most avoid doing so out of fear of retribution.

Until recently, nobody, not even the gods themselves, seemed to know what the penalty would be for breaking the rules of the accord and appearing directly on the inner planes. However, all of that changed when a deity known as the Great Spirit risked the punishment in order to combat Makuta directly during the Twelve Kingdoms/Brotherhood War. Though he succeeded in thwarting the dark lord’s plan, the Great Spirit was made mortal, and lost all of his divine power. Though his divinity was restored at the end of the war, his actions still showed how steep the price is for defying the Angellic Accords.

Avatars
Though the gods are forbidden from manifesting directly on the inner planes, there are ways around that. Rather than bringing their divine body to the material plane, they can inhabit a mortal body, albeit with drastically reduced powers. These mortal bodies inhabited by divine souls are called Avatars, and they come in two types.

Hosted Avatars
A deity can come to an agreement with a mortal to inhabit their body. A portion of the god’s soul is placed in the mortal body, and controls it. Though a god can inhabit a mortal body by force, the magic is much easier to enact when a deal is struck. The Hosted Avatar can draw upon only a small fraction of the deity’s power, though this still makes them far stronger than even the most powerful priests. Continued inhabitance of a mortals body will eventually destroy it, so these arrangements are always temporary, though evil inclined gods may not care about the sacrifice of a mere mortal. If the mortal body dies, whether from overuse of divine power or any other cause, the deity is forcibly returned to their own plane. Otherwise, the deity can end the possession at any time they wish. Hosted Avatars are extremely rare.

Incarnate Avatars
In even rarer cases, a deity may arrange to be born into a mortal body. This requires a great deal of power and planning, and while it allows the Incarnate Avatar to access a much greater fraction of their godly power than a Hosted Avatar, it comes with considerable risks and drawbacks. Firstly, the deity is required to play a long game. For the time that the mortal body is gestating and growing, they are unable to access their powers or memories. Typically there is a predetermined trigger (often arranged ahead of time by the god themself before incarnating) which restores memories and grants access to the proper divine power, but until then they are relatively normal (some powers may manifest and create strange occurrences). Secondly, for all of that time the deity is unable to grant spells to their followers. Other deities or designated underlings may grant spells and power in their stead, but the god themselves are essentially cut off from their priests. Thirdly and most importantly, while they possess the divine soul of a god, an Incarnate Avatar is mortal: the death of the Avatar body will result in the permanent death of the god, without restoration to full deity status. When the deity chooses to return to their own plane and assume their full manifestation again, the body that was created for them disappears.

Incarnate Avatars are so rare that until recently, they were entirely believed to be legend. This was disproven during the Elladan-Brotherhood War, when Anoriel, daughter of Mlingh Tchik’Ken, was revealed to be the Incarnate Avatar of Tauri Eren, elven goddess of the forest. She decided that the risk to her existence was worth joining the fight against Makuta, and helped to turn the tide of the war.

Religions
There are many religions throughout the land of Tritania. The existence of gods is essentially without question, as their presence can be seen in the divine magic granted to their priests. Some religions claim that only their gods are true, but most simply claim that theirs are the most worthy of devotion, or even that all religions worship the same gods under different names. The following is a list of the most common religions from around the world.

The Church of the Four Winds - The religious and government body of the Isle of Wind.

Ia - The monotheistic religion common to the humans of Maraav.

Gaia - The ancient, oft forgotten nature worship of druids and the Fey.

The Great Spirit - His sacrifice and reascention have raised this deity from the depths of obscurity.

Makutism - The insane devotees who worship Makuta as a rogue deity.

Seldarine - The polytheistic primary religion of the Elves.

Tay - The multi-faceted monotheistic religion of the Dwarves.

Woodland Spirits - A Nature oriented shamanistic belief system common in rural areas.