There are several major religions in Cerrix, and several minor ones as well. The major religions are as follows:
The Patristic Faith teaches that all creation proceeds from a single God, oft called “The Father”, the First Begetter, who ordered the world through will, word, and lawful generation. Mortals are not accidents of nature but descendants of an intentional lineage, bound to the Father by obligation, inheritance, and debt. To know one’s place in the world is to acknowledge the Father’s authority and the order He imposed upon all things.
The Patristic tradition holds that the Father revealed His will through appointed forebears—prophets, patriarchs, and witnesses—whose words form the sacred body of law and doctrine. These teachings are preserved, interpreted, and enforced by the Church, which claims unbroken succession from those first speakers of truth. Orthodoxy is not merely correct belief but faithful transmission: to alter the doctrine is to break the chain of descent and invite chaos.
Sin, in Patristic thought, is rebellion against rightful authority: the child defying the Father, the servant denying the master, the creature refusing its place in the order of being. Redemption comes through obedience, repentance, and restoration to the proper hierarchy, often sealed by sacrifice and solemn vow. Thus the faith is rich in ritual, oath-binding, and judgment, and its clergy act as both spiritual fathers and stern magistrates.
There are many many different ways to worship The Father, leading to many many different religions that all have roughly the same worship, but differ in the minutia. This has lead to holy wars in His name. It has also lead most Patristic religions to form military chapters and arms, leading to the prevalence of Clerics, Templars, and Theurgists, and their status as adventurers in the world.
Because of the spread of the Patristic Faith in the last few hundred years, other religions are becoming less and less common.
The Old Ways teach that the world was not made by a single will, but torn from chaos through struggle, sacrifice, and blood. Gods, giants, and mortals alike are bound within a web of fate older than any throne, and none—divine or otherwise—stand above it. Power is earned through deed and endurance, not granted by birthright or decree.
The gods of the Old Ways are not distant fathers but mighty kin: ancestors writ large, bound by oath, feud, and honor. They bled to shape the world, hung themselves upon trees, lost eyes, hands, and lives to gain wisdom or victory. Worship is not submission but exchange—offerings for favor, courage for glory, loyalty for protection—sealed in feast, oath, and sacrifice.
There is no promise of universal justice in the Old Ways, only reputation and remembrance. Fate cannot be escaped, but it can be met standing, and one’s worth is measured by how firmly they hold to oath and kin when the end comes. Even the gods will fall, and knowing this makes courage sacred and cowardice unforgivable.
Those who follow the Old Ways adventure because renown is the only immortality promised. To die nameless is the truest death, while a hard road, a sworn feud, or a glorious end secures a place in story and song. Warriors, skalds, and god-marked wanderers go forth to test themselves against fate, to win the notice of the gods, and to ensure that when the final battle comes, their names are already known.
The Old Ways is not technically the name of the religion, as there is no name for it. It instead is collection of customs and beliefs. There is no central church, there is no organized religion, but rather teachings and traditions that are passed on. Because of this, there are no Clerics or Templars of the Old Ways, but Clerical Magic still exists through Druids, Skalds, and Ovates.