An In Depth Look At the Religions of Pondera

What is belief? Throughout all Pondera there are hundreds, if not thousands of beliefs from all walks of life, from all philosophies, and every sapient creature. Belief has been known, and shown to take place in the self, in others, in community, in the world, and in all we can and cannot see beyond. The cause for belief can be assuredly certain. Gods can, do, have, and always will exist throughout the history of Pondera. They have followers, have worshipers, and have made their way into everday life, weither we know it or not.
But therin lies an everlasting problem, of which you have picked up this tome, and requested the information within. That naggic issue that may be answered by the next page. Gods may be real, but why are their teachings so spread out, and disjointed? Why do we have similar pantheonic beliefs everywhere throughout the world? Why do some cultures acknowledge some divines, but not others? Can you ignore a deity standing before you for their teachings? Many more questions could be answered, if we simply take a look at the religions themselves, and how they started after the last consumption.

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In The Beginning

Every religion has its origins in some way to before the consumption itself. Most people who awoke from the chill still had a memory of time before the consumption, before it had affected the world. Which is why one of the first religious beliefs that was re-established was the druidic order, and The Arborole, due to their overtaxing of their clerics to remember every hard detail about the religion that they can without writing it down.
Meanwhile, in now present day Baal, most of those who knew about the The Pondarac Pantheon had many issues getting their beliefs straightened. In fact, it took nearly seven years to get the different races and people gathered in order to confirm that there was such an organized religion, and nearly 100 years to get a general consensus on what the core tenants of belief actually are, and where the holy city is actually located.
Animism was one of the first religions popularized throughout the world after the founding of The Pondarac Pantheon, where with the enormous number of deities from the religion gave prevalence to the theory of regional gods instead of worldwide gods. This was a sub sect of religious groups from both The Pondarac Pantheon and The Arborole, where the belief was that Kararrua was the leader of the pantheon, being an omnipotent shapeshifting god of animal spirits. This was also owed credence to the discovery of Anima being a real place as of 75AC, and the existence and persistance of the fey.
Though not considered a religion, but a heracy of beliefs, all faiths that believe in divine punishment, even Animism to an extent, consider heretical beliefs to be followers of either Zasslic the Seven, or Demon worshipers. These beliefs have been widely held as long, if not, even longer than organized religion has been around for.
Some of the smaller religious pantheons were developed as an agreement between The Arborole and The Pondarac Pantheon as to the full extent of religious beliefs. The first being Svern Shio in 110AC due to Dragons beginning to push for religious freedom of their icons instead of choosing their own sides.
It took until 125Ac for dark elves to formalize their own religion, after being banished into Grott sometime before the consumption. The The Serenater were a lose group of specific individuals within drow society agreed upon to be the formal drow divinities after they allegedly lost their own goddess before the consumption. Linucem is the only drow divine that is accepted as non heracy in most religions throughout the world.
After an expedition to The Abyssal Realms revealed additional information about the faith in 200, the The Morvit was formalized as their own pantheon. The discovery of two additional deities of death lead to mass religious reforms throughout the world.
Finally, the most recent beliefs have to be that of Ulanism, which is the only monotheistic religion throughout pondera, formed in 410 AC, and its sub religion Gryanism created in 429 AC. This belief in a single deity was perforated and lead to the creation of The Steel Empire in 434.

Religious Persecution

From its inception, due to the lengths that the community has gone through to ensure traditional beliefs throughout the faith, the The Arborole was for a time the strongest faith with the most followers worldwide. Their need to keep together under a common goal of survival helped to bring communities together. This created many temporary campsites of similar ideologies and races for the next 10 years, until more permanent structures and societies were formed.
Even from the beginning, heretical faiths started to appear for those worshiping demons or devils. In particular, Zasslic became a go-to faith for those requiring even basic needs such as food or water, and were willing to do many evils upon the world to ensure their own survival.
Animism is perhaps the least persecuted and least practiced in a serious setting outside of Kuraudosukurēpā.

Type

Manuscript, Historical