Intro
The World of Freeport
Names in Freeport
Races of Freeport
Religions of Freeport
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Religions of Freeport

There are several religions practiced among the peoples of the Eastern Kingdoms. For the most part they coexist peacefully, but history shows that faith is often at the root of many conflicts.

The Tavian Church
   Tavian Orders
   Heresies
Suri, The White Mother
Astrianism
   Malish and Kitaan
Druidism
Cults

Death and Rebirth
Excommunication

Tavion, The Bright Lord

The largest organized religion in the East is The Holy Church Of The Bright Lord. The Church of Tavion extends its influence from the Holy Emperor's seat in Tavis all the way to the crags of Moril in the North. Tavion is a god who rewards the just and punishes the wicked, working his will through a dense hierarchy of servants. Tavion's presence in the world is shown by the brightest light in the heavens: the sun.

The Holy Emperor Aeolian is both head of the Church and temporal ruler of Tavis. He is over 150 years old, a fact which is often cited as proof of his contact with the divine. While he is quite active for his age and far from impotent, much of the real power is held by the Archbishops and Cardinals who administrate the daily workings of the Church.

There are four Archbishops, one each in Tavis, Jal Kufri, Ahandria, and Moril. While Church doctrine is maintained equally by all of them, each is given a certain amount of flexibility to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of his particular region. The Church's influence is strongest closest to the Holy Emperor's throne, though it is still strong enough to play a role even in the constant disputes in Moril.

The Church is the major religion of all the powerful maritime nations of the East, so it's no wonder that most of the people of Freeport pay homage to The Bright Lord, or at least lip service.

Orders

The Bright Lord has visited His grace on many deserving mortals, resulting in a wide variety of saints. Some of these saints have religious Orders dedicated to them, and it is these orders that provide the local structure for the clergy. Aside from the main temple in an area there are likely to be several smaller temples maintained by particular orders. Different Orders have more influence in certain regions depending on the popularity of their patrons among the populace. In Freeport, the primary patrons are:

Saint Patronage Spheres AL Weapon

Uller Knowledge Knowledge, Good, Protection NG quarterstaff

Hamrick Warriors War, Strength, Protection, Law N greatsword

Laria The Sea Luck, Water, Travel N trident

Conrad Mariners Air, War, Travel, Water NG cutlass

Orders Less Powerful In Freeport

Abastus The Recently Dead

Fargoth Justice, Lawmakers

Hurin Commerce

Pheylin Orphans

Povis Self-Knowledge N/A LN none

Thrain Retribution, The Inquisition

There are several smaller shrines in Freeport maintained by lesser Orders, though they often come and go as turnover in the smaller Orders can be high. It is difficult to maintain one's faith in a place like Freeport, where sin is everywhere. Tavion's alignment is LG, though the overall alignment of a particular Order in a particular region may differ quite a bit from that standard, though never going so far as to become evil.

Heresies

Officially, the Tavian faith is the only true religion. In Tavis itself, this is essentially true. Elsewhere, however, other faiths are visible enough that it is impossible to ignore their presence. The recognition of even the existence of these is technically a heresy, though not one that is actively prosecuted. Sometimes a member of the clergy grows too close to those of other faiths or simply questions Church dogma, and his own beliefs begin to change.These stray priests are usually relieved of their duties and either re-educated or defrocked. Some, however, are able to escape detection and even build sizable flocks of like-minded followers. Such a break from Church teachings is harshly punished by true servants of the faith. The Holy Emperor's justice is usually served on the priests alone, though sometimes a heresy is judged so wicked that even its lay followers must be rooted out.

Members of such sects claim that they are still true to the Bright Lord, citing as proof their ability to still perform acts of divine magic. Inquisitors are quick to explain such feats as proof of compacts with dark powers.

The Conradan Order in Freeport has teetered on the edge of heresy for decades, but the Church has preferred a loosely gathered flock to a bunch of godless pirates.

Suri, The White Mother

There was a time centuries ago when the White Mother was worshiped side by side with the Bright Lord. When the first Holy Emperor began his war of expansion to convert the heathens of the North, however, the faithful of Suri rejected such violence in the name of their faith. So it was that the Children of the Moon were cast aside and driven from Tavis. They moved Northward ahead of the tide of war. They were seen by the Northmen as harbingers of war and were given little hospitality. When the Bright Lord's armies met resistance in their crusade, they blamed their defeats on the faithlessness of the Surians. The worship of Suri spread across the North, but only in secret. Their communities were small but close knit, doggedly keeping alive their teachings of compassion and humility. After the end of the Tavian crusades, the Surians slowly became more open in their faith. By this time they had integrated themselves into the communities of the North, and were almost always well respected by their neighbors. They were left in peace for the most part, though in times of strife they often became scapegoats.

Suri is NG. Surian clerics have access to the Knowledge, Good, Healing, Travel, and Protection domains. They are not strictly pacifists, but they prefer to exhaust all other options before resorting to violence. Suri's preferred weapon is the quarterstaff.

There are Surians in Freeport, quietly interspersed among the rest of the population. Many of them live and work in the Eastern District. Their close community usually keeps them from ending up in Scurvytown or Drac's End.

Astrianism

The nomads of the Wild Lands venerate their tribal ancestors. According to their tradition, the souls of their ancestors appear as stars in the night sky. Each tribe is represented by a constellation in the heavens, and it is there that their souls go when they die. Astrians see the Tavian faith as needlessly complex. The Great Crusade made little progress in the Wild Lands, and the Holy Emperor decided that the heathens there were not worth converting.

Astrian clergy are druids, though they are not connected to the druidic faith of Dhevril Earh.

Wildermen are not common in Freeport, but those few are unabashedly true to their traditional faith.

Malish and Kitaan

These two entities are actually part of the Astrian tradition. They are characters in a collection of stories and parables that teach a variety of lessons. In the stories, Malish is always male and Kitaan is always female, but that is all that remains constant. They play different roles in each story: husband and wife, mother and son, ruler and subject. Sometimes only one appears in a story, but most often they are together. The lessons taught in the stories mostly concern the virtues of compassion, loyalty, and honesty.

All are encouraged to compose their own stories to add to the literature of the religion, either from their imagination or from their experiences. Some of these stories are told once and never are heard again, while others remain for decades or centuries virtually unchanged. Skilled storytellers are prized among the Wildermen, whose history is purely oral.

Over the years, the Surians have become aware of these stories, and have adopted many of them into their teachings. If this offends the Wildermen they have never shown any signs of it. In fact, there are some stories told around the horsemen's fires that sound as though they got their start in a Surian ghetto.

Druidism

The folk of Dhevril Earh are isolated from the rest of the East, and have little contact with other religions. They live simply and close to nature, and their faith reflects that. Dhevril clergy are druids, though they have no connection to the Astrian druids of the Wild Lands.

Cults

There are a number of underground cults in Freeport dedicated to debauchery, demons, the ocean, or whatever seems worth worshiping. Thew vast majority of these cults are small and short-lived. Some command actual power gained by compacting with dark powers, while others simply espouse a philosophy. These cults are regularly rooted out by the Holy Emperor's Inquisitors, though they never seem to go away completely.

An excerpt from Heathens and Heretics by Brother Pratus Corianus

On Death And Rebirth

As it is the light of Tavion that creates and sustains all life, it is certainly within His power to restore life to the dead. It is the natural order of things, however, to live and to die in their own time. It is not the general practice of the Church to make such miracles available to the general public. Indeed, even the Holy Emperor himself is subject to the natural order, and when he goes to the Bright Lord's side he shall not be drawn back into the world of the living. There are a few exceptions to this rule. Those among the faithful who die battling supernatural evils may, by dispensation of the Holy Emperor, be restored to life.

Many, if not most, heretical sects flaunt the laws set down by the Bright Lord on this point. Non-human pagans are often willing to revivify their people, as are the human practitioners of various cults. The fiendish Dhevrils have even been known to snare the souls of the dead and imprison them in the bodies of animals and other creatures. More heinous still, some heretical members of the Tavian clergy defy holy law and abuse the Bright Lord's power by performing unsanctioned resurrections. In addition to these unholy avenues, there are also claims that the soul can be restored to the body through the use of black magic.

Obviously, performing or making use of any of these practices is grounds for excommunication.

An excerpt from Heathens and Heretics by Brother Pratus Corianus

Excommunication

The highest sanction that can be placed on a heretic is excommunication from the Church. Excommunication has been described by some scholars as drawing a dark cloud in front of the sun; the one so sanctioned is cut off from the light of the Bright Lord. They can receive no blessing of any sort from the Tavian clergy. Even if they present themselves under false pretenses as one of the faithful, any miracles performed on their ehalf will have no effect.

Excommunication can only be performed by the Holy Emperor himself. It is a rare and terrible thing, reserved for the most irredeemable blasphemers and heretics. It is not applicable to those who are not baptised members of the Church; those who have not stood in the light cannot be blocked from it. It is paradoxical that even the wildest heathens are able to receive the blessings of the Church, but it is only through these demonstrations of Tavion's grace that such godless peoples might be converted.

It is the nature of men to be corrupted by temporal power, and for this reason the threat of excommunication is even stronger for those who wield it. The excommunication of a leader of men is applied to all those over who they have power. Those who renounce the wickedness of their ruler may be welcomed back into the Church through a simple ritual of atonement. It is through this method that the Church ensures just rulership of all the world where the light of Tavion shines.