Gods and Religion

Orden is a fantasy world in which the gods are objectively real. In spite of this the people of Orden, regardless of ancestry, do not believe the gods control everything that happens in the world. They believe the gods created a natural world with its own cycles that are sometimes predictable, but which cannot be understood. It rained last Lyleth, and the Lyleth before that, so it'll probably rain this Lyleth—but maybe not! And if not, that may be because the gods are displeased. But it might just as easily be because the gods are bored, or fickle or—even more likely, it has nothing to do with the gods, and there's no way to know which.

When a river floods or crops fail, some people may curse the gods, but those people do not all believe a god caused these events. They may curse simply because the gods didn't prevent catastrophe. They do not think, "Why did the gods do that?" They think, "Why did the gods make a world that behaves like this?"

The gods are powerful, but forbidden from acting directly upon or within the world. To enact their will, they use intermediaries—beings of demigod-like status, once mortals, who now serve their patron god in eternity. Many humans call these beings saints, while the other speaking peoples use the term heroes, or legendary heroes, not to be confused with the heroes you make using the character creation rules in this book.

Each god has many saints, some obscure. They sometimes manifest in the world. These encounters are always brief, leading sages and theologians to conclude there must be some limit to how much time or energy these saints and legendary heroes can spend on the prime manifold. Who created or enforces these limits?

No one knows.

As a result of this complex tapestry of belief and personalities, a farmer in Aendrim might call upon Adûn for strength while tilling the earth. But if a cool breeze suddenly came along, easing the bite of the sun on their back, they would almost certainly not thank Adûn or any of his saints. They would probably thank Saint Elspeth the Blithe, sometimes called the Summer Breeze. If they had a neighbor or relative with a shrine to Saint Elspeth in their home, they might give that person a small gift or offering and ask them to place it on their shrine. More likely, they would silently promise to do this, and then forget or get distracted.

If questioned about this-"Why did you call upon one god, but thank the saint of a completely different god?"-they would first be surprised by the question. It would not have occurred to them to examine this behavior. If pressed they would say, "Oh, I'm sure they worked it out between them." They would not imagine, "Adûn told Viras, who told her saint, Elspeth, to send a cooling breeze," but they would assume

something like that happened and not worry overmuch about the details. They called out, they received aid—that's what's important.

If no aid is forthcoming folks assume this is because the gods and saints are all very busy and cannot be arsed to answer every prayer. People are never surprised when the gods and saints are silent. They are usually silent.