Eldest Faith

Ancient Faith Unwavering

The Eldest Faith is the worship of the countless spirts, Eldest Gods both named and nameless as well as the Firstborn of the Leshivoi Forest and the collective spirit of the Leshivoi Forest ( Allsēl ) and the concept of Balance practiced by the Forestfolk that have inhabited the Leshivoi Greatwood for uncounted millenia reaching back way before the arrival of the drau in the Great Cavern of Aman-ya.

True knowledge of the faith is almost nonexistant within Styx but it features heavily in the paranoid and incendiary sermons of the Church of Serkatha as it swears the people of Styx to fervor, loyalty and fearful vigilance.

The Church of Serkatha persecutes worshippers of the Eldest Faith harshly branding them as practitioners of Witchcraft capable of any imaginable horrible act.

A select few people still secretly practice these beliefs within the city of Styx, mostly in the outlying villages like Evengrad and Oldbog, believing that one day the Forest will reclaim the city and they will be rewarded for not straying from the path the Eldest Gods set for them.

Forest Magick, sometimes called druidcraft or Witchcraft is often considered to be the embodiment of the Magick inherent to the Eldest Faith and is studied but never practiced at the Academia Ars Magicka et Mundana.


The Eldest Faith is sometimes compared or likened in its beliefs and practices to the Dwarven Eldtruth-Kept who also venerate spirits of the land and nature.

Form of Worship

There is little that can be said that is true for all of the diverse and far-spread tribes and clans of the Forestfolk that live within the Leshivoi; their rites, rituals and religious traditions are as varied as they themselves are.
Most broadly put the Eldest Faith structures its traditions and worship around a seasonal wheel in which each season is represented by a ruling (Heralding Sein) sign, one of the Firstborn of the Greatwood which is attributed great prominence or importance within that given season.
The most common variation of the Wheel of Seasons features three other Firstborn in each seasonal segment, one of them being the Harbinger Sein, a sign associated with two Seasons at once that represents the changing of Seasons and the continuation of the natural cycle.

Leaders in matters of faith but also community among the Forestfolk are called Urdeain, though the people of Styx would call them Witches all the same.

The most basic summary of the commonly shared beliefs across the diverse traditions of the Eldest Faith is that its worshippers believe that there is a portion of the Allsēl in every living being, every plant and every thing within the Leshivoi Forest but also within the entire Cosmos and that therefore all is spirit, all is sacred and all is one.

The Eldest Faith worships the greater manifestations (Incarnae) of the Allsēl like the Firstborn of the Greatwood or the Eldest Gods and the Great Beasts but also its minor embodiment like the Spirit Beasts, the creatures, animals, plants and locales of the Leshivoi Forest itself.

The Eldest Faith also practices a number of important seasonal celebrations focused around seasonal turning points.

Death and Life

The Eldest Faith in its suprisingly universal belief in the various powers native to the Leshivoi Forest and the collective spiritual essence of all that dwells and dies within these woods believe that when they die their consciousness and life-force becomes part of this collective spirit which they call the Allsēl.

As such most beliefs about what comes after death among the uncounted tribes, clans and kinships of the Leshivoi Forest involve the individual in death feeding the cycle with life with their now shedded mortal flesh and their spirit becoming part of the Great Everything.

Funerary rites are therefore focused on becoming one with the Forest.
Most commonly practiced are two kinds of burial.
First being the hanging of corpses from sacred trees on ropes woven from tanglevine by those grieving the deceased.
In this custom most often there are two kinds of hook used to pull the dead up into the reaching branches of the sacred tree.
The honored dead are hung by a rope thats flung over one of the branches with a three-pronged metal hook known as the "Hooked Star" while the dishonorable dead and clan-traitors as well as outsiders are hung by a differently shaped metal hook called the "traitors swallow".
According to the beliefs of the Forestfolk as the bodies of the dead decay and are consumed by all manner of creature of the forest as they dangle high up in the branches their spirit becomes part of the Great Everything, the Allsēl which flows and lives in every creature, plant, rock and river of the most-holy Leshivoi.

The second kind of commonly practiced funerary rites among the Forestfolk is an earth grave burial in which the deceased is placed into a hole dug in the ground in the Forest and then covered in dirt and leaves by their loved ones. This is less common than the practice of sacred tree ritual hanging and within some tribes and clans only practiced when the corpse of the deceased would be hard to hang or seeing it hang would be a disturbing reminder of the circumstances of their death.
In relation to the funerary rites among the practitioners of the Eldest Faith one is also to mention the Listeners of the Root, a small cult within the faith dedicated to the communion with the World Root.
Listeners are often part of the Eldest Faith as a whole in a role as seers and givers of death-rites and are both feared, disliked and respected among the Forestfolk.

There are also said to be a number of small cults dedicated to specific Firstborn Spirits and Elder Gods like the Chanters of the Red Sein who dedicate themselves wholly to Hī.Ffillin-iþ’íl and are said to possess the secret of true ressurection.

The Eldest Faith in its belief in the sacred fusion of body and spirit as well as Balance despises the warping effects of the Incarnae Corruption and the afflicted horrors like Abominations it creates as well as the Dread Gods said to cause it.
As such hunting and cleansing afflicted beings is considered a sacred act in itself.