Old-World Paganism

Paganism in Acarus

The Forgotten Acarian Faiths

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  In the heartlands of Kalladonia, paganism has been all but eradicated. The Orthodoxy of Seven, enforced through ritual indoctrination, inquisitorial fervor, and the terror of monstrous incursion, leaves little room for deviation. Heresy is met with fire, and faith in the old ways is punished with the pyre.   Yet some still stray.   Scattered among the ruins, whispers persist of the Southern Gods—primal deities who reigned long before the Golden Age, before man bent the world to his will. These gods were not moral arbiters, but forces of being, tied to the raw, unshaped essence of the world.  

• Fire & Sun — The burning force of will and change.
• Water & Moon — The ever-shifting veil of intuition and memory.
• Life & Death — The eternal cycle, mirrored in root and rot.
• Shadow & Chaos — The unknowable dark, the primordial scream before order.

  Their names have long been lost, reduced to fragments, symbols, and whispered mantras. Those few who seek their guidance must do so in silence and secrecy, lest they be branded as idolators and consigned to the flames by the agents of the Orthodoxy.  

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Paganism in the North

  In Jotunfir, the frozen northern continent, paganism is not a heresy—it is heritage. For thousands of years, it shaped daily life, war, death, and the long winter feasts. Only in recent centuries have the missionaries of the Orthodoxy begun to take root, spreading their gospel of the Seven through appeals to unity and moral salvation. Though the Northerners have been loathe to accept Orthodox Doctrine, these missionaries have inspired some internal reform within Jotunfir's people, inclining them towards a more centralized, monotheistic path.   And yet, the old ways endure.   The pagan faiths of the North worship animalistic totems, primal spirits embodied by beasts of the wild. Rats, elk, boars, crows—each represents a unique philosophy, a pattern of survival, and a fragment of divine presence. Their rituals are visceral and unclean by southern standards: scarification, bloodletting, bone rites, and even human sacrifice are not unheard of.   The reformed Faith of the Allfather preaches unification and self-sacrifice, but it is a minority—a thin parchment laid over stone tablets carved in blood. Most Northmen still turn to the rites of their ancestors, their belief deep as ice and old as bone.