Here are the faiths and cultures that finish up Cursed Earth. The cultures are all human-based.

Faiths Part Two of Two

The Old Gods
Before people started asking spirits for advice, they turned to the gods (as detailed in the Core Rulebook). As spirits took over as more familiar and more connected to the faithful, followers of the gods dwindled. Some of the faithful still believe and a few have turned to the Narrow Road but ask the advice of what they now call a saint, an old god who actually serves the Creator.

Each of the Old Gods had its own creation story and prophecies about the end. The faiths varied and many fought among themselves. Most people today find it easier to follow a spirit faith or more ìrealî and fulfilling to struggle to walk the Narrow Road instead. Even so, a few people still occasionally call on an old god in times of stress and need.

Revered Ancestors
Ancestors are respected spirits that are sought out for knowledge and sometimes power. Faiths that practice the Revered Ancestor faith believe that after death spirits either move on to the Rest where they continue on and can advise the living or they become lost and stumble onto the Ghost Way. Some spirits lost on the Ghost Way became vengeful undead, others try to find a way out or hope for rescue.

Human Cultures

Azen
The Azen are akin to Asian people of our world. Their society is one of honor, duty, obligation, and station. A celestial bureaucracy made up both of ancestors and spirits oversees their religion. This connection to both ancestors as well as nature spirits helps the Azen understand both the Mwulu and the Vanar (see entries below).

This culture focuses strongly on ki or inner spirit. Monks and ninjas in particular sprang from Azen roots. Martial training is common in Azen culture and bushi (commoners who take a class focused on fighting), gunslingers, and samurai are common.

Magic is codified with clerics being divided up by the bureaucracy and wizards harnessing magic through study and effort.

The Azen have one colony of daimyos and samurai struggling to survive. Most Azen are wandering gunslingers, monks, ninjas, or ronin. Legend has it that the Azen came to Kruvil through the portal that once connected this world to another. Now trapped, the Azen struggle to keep their culture and identity intact in a hostile, alien world.

Disease is destroying the culture of the Azen. Their holdings are cursed with sickness. They have had to twist their Code of Bushido (way of the warrior) and wage war to take other lands to just survive. Tyranny and violent crime are on the rise among the Azen.

Mwulu
The Mwulu are dark-skinned and tall, similar to Africans of Earth. Before the Backlash, they controlled three empires that sprawled across the southern continent. Mwulu society venerates spirits and showing respect to the world in which they live. Family is the center of life in villages which in turn form kingdoms and finally empires.

Druids lead religious ceremonies, speaking on behalf of nature. Arcane magic comes mostly through sorcerers whose blood is mixed strongly with the mysterious spirits and mystical beings of the land.

The Mwulu lost their empires not so much due to the Backlash but due to the dinosaurs. The encroaching ice and glaciers did destroy some of their lands, but it was the certain appearance of ferocious man-eating reptiles that forced the Mwulu to wall off villages and return to hunting for survival. As always, the Mwulu adapt in the face of challenges and great empire will likely rise again from these people.

Crop failure is the biggest curse affecting the Mwulu. Whole villages have turned to raiding other settlements for food. Dark whispers say that cannibalism, a dark practice banished in the old empires, has made a return. Some people turn from the spirits to necromancy and will bargain with any outsider even demons.

Vanar
The Vanar are analogous to northern Europeans like Scandinavians, the English, the Irish, and the Scotts. They lived on the northern continent and formed society around allegiances with men swearing oaths of fealty to serve those above them and to protect those below them.

The Vanar once worshipped warlike gods but have turned mostly to ancestor spirits for guidance now. Religion is led by oracles that hear messages from beyond and tend to have been marked by either the ancient gods or the ancestor spirits.

Arcane magic is in the hands of witches and warlocks who can also provide some healing to their people. For that reason alone witches are highly regarded by the people.

Chivalry is the highest ideal that warriors of the Vanar aspire to. Cavaliers are noble-born warriors who most strongly follow these traditions.

On the other hand, the ancient gods espoused beliefs in war and dominance as keys to survival. Berserkers follow this tradition as do some other warriors.

The Vanar are a scattered people fighting for survival now as the glaciers and cold have hit their culture the hardest. In addition, zombies plague their lands as do orc hordes. Vampires have taken over entire kingdoms and the dhampir, half-undead and half-human, struggle to find a place and to not be persecuted. Half-orcs face the same challenges. Ugly rumors persist that some Vanar nobles sacrifice peasants to dark masters in haunted castles to maintain their hold and power.

Next Month

It will be a surprise, even to me.

Fight Another Day (survivor farewell),
Charlie