Dwarven pantheon

The Dwarven pantheon is one of the major ancestral pantheons on Kishar. Followed primarily by dwarves, especially those living around or near the Chaska Sea, the pantheon is unique in seeing its gods as ascended mortals, ur-dwarves who attained divinity very long ago.

Overview

Of the major pantheons of Kishar, the Dwarven pantheon stands out as the only one that believes the gods were once mortal. These deities are thought to have been immortal ur-dwarves, each of them a quintessential embodiment of dwarfdom. They founded the first grand underground cities in the early days of the world, populated by their many mortal children, who themselves formed the first dwarven civilization under deific guidance. Eventually the cities and the world grew too full for the gods. They ascended into fully divinity, leaving behind their recorded wisdom for the mortal societies they had established to continue to grow and thrive. Vonduram is the only god in the Dwarven pantheon who was never mortal, in many ways considered separate from the other deities of the pantheon.

Dwarven pantheonic theology varies as to the creation of the world. Some believe the gods designed the cosmos themselves, but others hold that the gods populated the world with life but did not create it. The former belief is older and more widespread, largely as it maintained by more traditionalist dwarven societies, while the latter is a stance preferred by dwarven cultures that have become less insular and more accepting of altering their traditions.

To followers of the Dwarven pantheon, veneration of one's ancestors is seen as a natural extension of the worship of the gods, as the divines are the progenitors of all dwarven-kind. Departed family heroes, patriarchs, and matriarchs are frequently offered prayer, often seen as something akin to minor saints whose area of concern stops at their own kin. The pantheon in general has an extremely large number of saints, even more than the Chaskan pantheon relative to its number of followers, though they may only be worshiped within certain nations, cities, or guilds.

Religious structure, leadership, holy texts, and codified means of worship have historically been important to followers of the Dwarven pantheon. They place great value on keeping the same traditions as their ancestors going back thousands of years, and as a result the pantheon has long remained quite static. Less traditionalist offshoots of the pantheon often alter these practices somewhat, whether as a result of a shift in beliefs, new interaction with outside cultures, or some other reason, but these smaller faiths almost always exist in tension with the long-established clergy and churches who are none too keen to entertain any change.

Deities

Name	Alignment	Areas of Concern	Description

Area of worship

Worship of the Dwarven pantheon is geographically quite diffuse, but it is especially strong in the eastern Thadrian nation of Barat Rkund. The dwarves there are especially culturally traditionalist, and have kept their religious beliefs intact even as many less staid dwarven societies elsewhere have shifted their beliefs over the millennia. Many of the Tumunzari dwarves of western Thadria also worship the Dwarven pantheon, although they often fuse it with their simultaneous belief in the Chaskan pantheon. The religious practices in Barat Tor in the Western Coast are much the same. Farther afield, worship of the pantheon is found anywhere with a sizable dwarven population. The inhabitants of Barazar El, Kharakun, and Emperor's Island, for example, all venerate the gods of the pantheon to varying degrees.

Connections to other pantheons

As dwarven cultures tend to be quite traditionalist, their pantheon has changed little over many thousands of years. Still, in some parts of the world, less conservative societies have begun to shift their beliefs, often melding Dwarven pantheonic gods with those of other local pantheons. In Kharakun, for example, Dwarven and Aserdian deities are closely connected. Such syncreticism almost always retains the belief in the gods as having once been mortal, a seemingly mandatory pillar of dwarven faith.