Wrina Hriwol

Wrina Hriwol is a cult-like faith which originates as a split from the mainstream halfling faith of Deadol Igal. Instead of venerating all the gods within the Deadoli pantheon, the Wrina Hriwol focus, unsurprisingly, on the deity Hriwol, believed to be the god cunning, thieves, and snow. The Wrina Hriwol behave similarly to a religious fraternity, with the entire organization built similarly to a crime syndicate, but centered around the worship of Hriwol rather than any cohesive criminal strategy. Counting hundreds of small local cults under their umbrella, many of which rarely interact with the upper brass of the Wrina Hriwol, the religion is generally disjointed, with many of these cults preaching different things. However, all agree that Hriwol is the supreme deity and that he alone should be honored, seeing him as the ideal for the halfling people.

Dividing the criminal activities of the Wrina Hriwol from the actual religious parts of the faith can be difficult due to robbery and crime being seen as virtues within the faith. Wrina Hriwoli also engage in darker things like making pacts with demons and devils and assassinating those who attempt to persecute them. They have been fighting a guerilla war against the gnomes and cyclopes for many years, for different reasons, and these conflicts are the majority of what the main branch of the faith is involved in beyond criminal pursuits. On the Gnomish front, the Wrina Hriwol seek to rob and steal their commerce, establishing a chokehold on trade into and out of Halyren in order to funnel maximum profits into their coffers. In this regard, they function similarly to the various gnomish corporations, all of whom are also seeking trad dominance, but the Wrina Hriwol is much more brazen in their attacks than the cautious corporations, giving them an edge despite their disorganization and lack of a secure home base.

Their war with the cyclopes is much different, as it is undertaken primarily to liberate the halfling people which still toil under their cyclopes masters. For many years, the Wrina Hriwol have actually been involved in doing good in the region, smuggling supplies to communities in need (or rebels), killing cyclopes and destabilizing their domains, and working to coordinate resistance and reclamation movements behind the scenes. This has earned them a lot of goodwill with the local Suheur despite disregarding morals and relying on crime and dark magics to perform their good deeds.

While primarily a halfling organization, Wrina Hriwol is open to all, technically (except cyclopes). It's rumored that the first humans who came to Halyren to assist as mercenaries in the struggle against the cyclopes were actually sponsored by the Wrina Hriwol and some of them may remain loyal to the organization even today, and they are totally open to hiring gnomes to fight against the gnome corporations. The Wrina Hriwol have also worked closely with races considered monstrous or uncivilized by most, such as goblins, kobolds, and varaiden, making them very ironically more tolerant than most within the Eighth Realm. They are also fairly religiously tolerant, as only halflings are expected to profess loyalty to Hriwol himself to join the organization, and even this is largely symbolic as there is no expectation of worship. Besides, those that work with the Wrina Hriwol are not even necessarily expected to join the faith or organization at all, as long as they do so on a contract basis.