The Olde Faith

The Olde Faith is simply the worship and reverence of nature itself. Not surprisingly, followers of this path are largely rural, farmers, herdsmen, trappers, huntsmen, and woodsmen. The organized ceremonies of this faith are conducted only four times a year, the Equinoxes, and Solstices. During these ceremonies, the faithful will gather and give thanks for the season just passed, and offer prayers and sacrifices to bless the season to come. Presided over by Druids, these ceremonies can take many hours, as the chants and ancient rites are intricate and varied.

Other ceremonies the Druids will preside over, are marriages and funerals, the planting and harvesting of crops, and the beginning of a hunt. The Druids, rather than praying to some personage who embodies Nature, draw the power for their spells directly from the magic that lies innate in the world around them. Few foes are more deadly in the outdoors than a Druid, and though they are not quick to anger, its generally a good idea to stay on their good side.

The Creator

The worship of The Creator (sometimes referred to as The Light) is a wide and varied thing. Almost every race acknowledges that there is a single Creator, and that he or she takes little active part in their lives. He set the stage, that their lives are played out on, and his purposes and designs are his own. That is not to say that there is no active worship of the Creator, far from it. There is no single "Church" that sets doctrines and rules, as Holy Men seem to sprout up of their own faith, and have powers commensurate with that faith. Some start a congregation in a village or city, others wander the lands doing good deeds and trying to help those in need. Still others use their power to combat and oppose Morgonth and his works.

Naturally, this makes categorizing sects almost impossible, as each Holy Man interprets The Creator and his works differently, and judging from the powers they may wield, no one is any more correct or incorrect than any other. One thing that is universal in these Holy Ones, is that they must believe they are helping their fellow man. Committing egregious crimes or behaving in a way that seems more fitting to the Hordes of Morgonth, than a healer of bodies and souls, will cause the faith based powers to fail.

The Elves of Cozeroth see the Creator as an artist, and Creation, as his masterpiece. They believe he Created them first, of the Sentient races, to be the ones to view his art. The Book of Im'lor, recently recovered from Orck-Kind begins...

In the beginning, there was only the Will of the Creator. It was whole and pure, but solitary, and alone. With a wave of his hand, The Creator brought forth the heavens, and the earth made from his will. The rocks and the seas formed first, and in this time, the earth was barren.

The Creator admired the beautiful dance of the seas and currents, and a smile crossed his face. From the joy and light of his smile, the plants sprang to being, sprouted and flourished, and filled the seas. As an artist works in paints and stone, the Creator built upon the foundations he had laid. Flowers and trees, grasses and vines colored the canvas of the earth. The beasts followed, with the ability to move about freely, to eat of the plants, and each other, and thusly fertilize the plants.

But soon, The Creator realized the futility of creating art that no one would ever look upon. And so, he furrowed his brow, and bent his will to this problem, and the elves were conceived. But unlike the rocks and the seas and the plants, the elves were meant to appreciate what He had wrought, and they were to be nurtured, and grown slowly over time. They coalesced, over eons, their free will, their thought, their ability to appreciate, to choose between right and wrong.

The Creator understood what he was risking... the perfect love that was his art would become wild, and unpredictable, but appreciated. With the introduction of other wills into what the Creator had wrought, even in their infancy, other energies began to form, from the darker sides of their natures. The ability to not like the art of Creation, the ability to choose the wrong things.

So it was that the seed of Morgonth was planted into Creation. Subtly at first, a pool of dark power and energy, and worst of all, will.

Morgonth grew to awareness quickly, before even the elves were aware, and He saw what the Creator had wrought, and he knew that there had to be a minus to the plus. A dark, to the light. It was his will, to grow, and destroy, that spurred him to pervert what the Creator had wrought. So deep in the bowels of the earth, Morgonth set to work, he turned his will to making the Orck-kind. To serve as slaves, and to not appreciate the art of Creation.

Their awarenesses fueled him.... and he began to pervert more and more, creating trolls, and goblins, the more they hated the stronger he became, but his pride betrayed him, and The Creator saw his workings. So, The Creator steeled his will, and the Dwarves were born, of iron and stone, and the hard gemstones of the deep places of the world. They were to contest the perversions of Morgonth, and appreciate the beauty of those parts of creation that never saw the light.

On and on it went, when creation was young and new, until Men and Gnomes, Giants and Centaurs populated the world, and the balance was established. But the two wills pushed in opposite directions, and tensions and wars,n betrayals and broken trusts soon threatened to tip the balance. So, in one final touch to his art, The Creator willed that in the darkest hours, when evil threatened to overwhelm his art, a Hero would rise. The Chimera. He would have the ablity to inspire Men, and Dwarves, Elves and Centaurs. To command them and contest the will of Morgonth and his minions, and if he could triumph, the age that followed would flourish and thrive. If he failed, the age that followed would be dark and evil, until he rose again, to triumph or fail.