The Sundering Basin Religions
THE OLD GODS
The old gods came first, and they have no temples and want none. They are kept at hall altars and standing stones, in oaths sworn and offerings made, at the season feasts and before the fights a man does not expect to walk away from. A jarl makes the offerings for his people. There are no priests to speak of, only those who read the signs.
The gods are named more often in curses than in prayers, and Draugor, who keeps the halls of the dead, hears his name from northern mouths most of all, and rarely kindly. An oath sworn in the gods' names is sacred, and the North holds that a man's deeds are weighed when he dies, and that what he did with his strength is the only thing he carries out of the world.
THE AUREN FAITH
The Auren Faith came up the trade roads, one believer at a time. It holds to a single god, Auren, and its mark is the cross, worn small, carved on wayside stones, mossed over and kept anyway.
It builds no great churches in the North. It survives there the way the faithful carry it: taught quietly, mother to child, over years, and never forced. Its believers hold that a faith commanded is no faith at all. A child raised Auren chooses it, or does not, and the teaching waits either way.