The lands through which the Urdrevan travel are subject to some of the most awesome natural displays that the world has to offer. In the North the bands behold the stark majesty of the snow capped mountains beneath the hanging splendor of the auroras. Upon the grasslands of the great plains the limitless vista of the stars wheel about the clear night skies, and when the great storms come whirlwinds drag across the land leaving furrows like vast claws. In the sweltering jungles the cathedral trees dwarf all comprehension, and nowhere have the Gods painted life in a richer or more diverse palette. In all of these places the Urdrevan live alongside mighty Inspirational Beasts, evidence of the power of the Gods and the expression of their will in the natural world. These dramatic conditions have left the Urdrevan with an immense regard for spirituality in their day to day lives.
The Urdrevan believe that the Pantheon are a part of the natural world and the forces that shape it, they do not place them within their social hierarchy and view transactional relations with them as distasteful. The Urdrevan live on the move, with little inclination to designate sacred spaces. Private prayers might be offered before small personal idols, but for worship the Urdrevan regard the open sky as their cathedral. Their rites favour incense and smoke, the presentation of precious things, group chanting, the twirling of flags and fabrics, and dance.
The Urdrevan cremate their dead and scatter the ashes to the wind, the deceased is then regarded to be spiritually free. The possessions of the deceased are then shared out among the band. What remains of a person after death are these mementos and stories – and the promise of the afterlife. The Deathspeakers follow a tradition of storytelling where they channel the voices of the dead, allowing them to advise their living kin and react to events that have taken place after their passing. Those spirits that remain to haunt the living are sought out by Liberators, who work to resolve the trauma that binds them to the world.
Of all the Gods the Traveller is the most revered, considered a patron of all the Nation’s principle activities. Nearly every band has a priest or pilgrim of the Traveller to advise their leader. The Jester has bearing on their storytelling and oral history emphasis. The Celebrant is invoked when bands meet.
The wild lands where the Urdrevan roam are the location of many places sanctified by their natural beauty or the presence of the Gods in the Age of Legend, places left as gifts to civilisations who have now moved on – leaving the holy sites in the keeping of the Urdrevan. It is a loss most keenly felt that the locations of many of these holy places were forgotten in The Fading, and now knowledge of them has been reduced to fragments in story.
Some information on areas the Urdrevan have lost remained through the Fading due to their spoken history traditions. While the loss of knowledge from the Fading is devastating it is not absolute and snippets of information remain in ways other Nations have not been able to hold onto in records.
These sites include:
- The Mirror of the Heavens – a beautifully circular, spring fed oasis that reflects the sky with perfect clarity, a lynchpin of travel across the inhospitable desert.
- The Feet of Glirastes – the remains of a titanic sculpture survey a wasteland lost to the passing of time, a fort built here from recovered stone commands a vital pass.
- The Painted Canyon – a wind carved natural formation exposing the rainbow strata of the underlying rock, a locus of air magic allowing control of the surrounding weather.
- The Lone Light – an ancient lighthouse now high in the mountains with a glacier running where a river mouth once flowed, the light allows navigation across the tundra in the worst of conditions.
- The Precincts of Anor – a stepped temple in the depths of the jungle, beneath it is bound a terrible presence.
- The Greeting Necropolis – A field of mausolea built on the easternmost headland of the continent, the graves need tending to keep the occupants at rest.
- The Whispering Mountain – The caves beneath the mountain whisper secrets to those quiet enough to hear, many oracles have built shrines here.