Editing The Dark Eye (section)

==The Gods==
In principle, gods are very real in TDE. That still does not mean that everything that is being worshiped is a god though. While a great number of religions exist on Dere, a real god is a being that can wield karmic energy. Other than astral energy, which is the source of all magic, karmic energy is pure divine order. Gods can bestow a fraction of their energy onto mortal beings, making them clerics. Clerics can use this karmic energy to perform liturgies and miracles to shape the world around them according to the will of their god.

The most powerful of the gods are The Twelve and their religion is, with a few variations, spread through the entire world. The twelve gods are:
* Praios - lord of the gods, god of lords. God of light, truth, justice, law and order. Hates magic.
* Rondra - the lioness. Goddess of battle, strength, honor and glory. Also lightning and thunder.
* Efferd - lord of the tides. God of air and water. A thunderstorm is him dancing with Rondra.
* Travia - the kind mother. Goddess of home, hearth and family, also compassion. Blesses weddings.
* Boron - the silent one. God of death, also of sleep, dreams and prophecies.
* Hesinde - mother of wisdom. Goddess of knowledge, wisdom, magic and arts (partly).
* Firun - the grim one. God of ice, of winter and of the hunt.
* Tsa - the young Goddess. Life, birth, change and peace. Chaos, in a good, renewing, growing way.
* Phex - lord of chance. God of opportunities and luck, traders, gamblers and thieves.
* Peraine - the giving one. Goddess of the living earth, of farming and of healing.
* Ingerimm - Alveran’s Hammer. God of fire and stone, craftsmen and builders. Patron of Dwarves.
* Rahja - the beautiful one. Godess of love, beauty, passion and arts (partly).
In this order, the months of the year are named after the gods with Praios equaling July. Each month has 30 days - the remaining 5 belong to The Nameless One.

Below The Twelve are numerous lesser gods, usually seen as sons/daughters of the gods or their high servants or allies. Examples are Kor, the coldhearted god of war and mercenaries (bastard son of Rondra), Nandus, god of intelligence, spys and riddles (son of Hesinde) or Marbo, godess of mercy and hope (daughter of Boron). Although having considerably less power than The Twelve, these are still proper gods, have a place in Alveran and can grant karmic energy to their devotees (although less than the big 12).

One tier below them are beings like Kamaluq, the black Jaguar, god of the Moha or Brazoragh and Tairach, Gods of the Orcs. These beings definitely exist but compared to the others have very little power. At most, they send dreams and visions, not much in the way of miracles here. They usually have only enough karma to empower one high priest. So... mini-gods, probably hanging out at the border of fifth and sixth sphere.

There are many other religions, sometimes deifying beings such as powerful Elementals, Dragons or even arch-demons, sometimes also praying to a purely fictional entity. Every religion has their own creation myth; Faithful of The Twelve believe in creation through Los and Sumu, the Maraskani believe in the world-discus and the Novadi believe that Rashtullah the one and only made the world in 9 days. Although the world has undergone many changes during previous ages it is confirmed that its existence is far older than all current religions so it is unclear if there was a creation at the beginning or just a big bang.

Opposing the gods are the legions of the lower hells, led by the twelve arch-demons. Each arch-demon is a perverted mirror image of a twelve-god. When Praios is the god of justice, law and order, so is Blakharaz the arch-demon of vengeance, oppression and tyranny.

Another player in the cosmic sandbox is The Nameless One, also called the thirteenth god. While one could make the argument that demons are pure chaos given temporary form and therefore are natural enemies of all order, such an excuse can not be made for The Thirteenth. He is a proper god, but pure evil. Tried to rule the world, failed and then said “fuck it” and smashed a hole in the wall of stars to let all of the lower hells pour into creation. The other gods banded together to take him down and chained him forever in front of the breach, plugging the hole with his body. There he hangs for all eternity, facing inside to see the world which he can never reach while from the other side all of the hells claw at his immortal body. Finally, the gods took his name and destroyed it so nobody could ever pray to him again.
Still, despite all this he retains dominion over 5 days of every year and the insane and evil cultists who give themselves to him are absolutely lethal during this time.