A Look at the Old Faith

By Alfred Nuñez Jr. 
Additional background by Tim Eccles, Anthony Ragan, and Ryan Wileman

Though providing details on the Old Faith as a religion, the WFRP rulebook did little to position the cult vis-à-vis the more established and structured religions in the Old World.  Anthony Ragan and I were considering the possibilities for positioning the cult of the Mother (Old Faith) in the Realms of Divine Magic proposal we had submitted to Hogshead Publishing.

As I see it, the Old Faith is an ancient religion that now exists in the remote areas of the Old World, chiefly in the north and western regions.  One could assume that the current state of the religion led by Druidic priests would be simply at the latter stages of its slow decline.  As this is Warhammer, I believe that something tragic has happened in its path that brought the Old Faith to the brink of extinction.

Given the nastiness and bloodletting of religious wars, I prefer the idea where some past persecution led to the decline of the Old Faith.  This was also a nice way of making the Old Faith less a monolithic a religion and one more given to regional differences.  Moreover, this would provide GMs with the excuse of making a particular brand of the Old Faith very sinister and opens up the possibilities of using storylines (like that of the cult movie, “The Wicker Man”) that portrays the Druidic faith in a manner decidedly different than what is presented in the rulebook.

Imagine the surprise of your players who believe that they have stumbled into an unknown community of tree huggers only to wind up as blood sacrifices to ensure the fertility of the earth.

A History of the Old Faith

As many familiar with my work know, I prefer to work on the history of a subject, be it a nation or religion, in order to frame its present state in the Warhammer world.  The following has been revised in part to incorporate some (or provide an alternative view) of the recent background developed by Games Workshop.

Pre-Sigmar History
The Old Faith is humankind’s oldest religion, dating from the earliest days of human habitation is the Old World.  Many scholars incorrectly believe that the Old Faith is descended from the beliefs of the Wood Elves.  While there are many similarities, such as the reverence for nature and the raising of standing stones, there are significant differences.  The use of barrows and mounds as places of burial, the construction of stone circles and clear hierarchy within the priesthood are but three examples of the differences.

In fact, the Old Faith shares some traits with the deity worship of ancient Araby, though there are many practices that diverge between the two.  It is conceivable that the tribes following the Old Faith were forced to migrate northward as the ancient Nehekharans embraced their pantheon in the earliest days of their priest-kings.  Any attempt to recast the Old Faith as an extension of the Nehekharan religion is nothing more than poor scholarship.

The human tribes found a land that was rich in natural resources.  They settled in the river valleys and coastline of the southern Old World, which allowed them to develop with minimal involvement of the Elder Races.  About the time of the human migration from the Steppes into the north-eastern Old World, some of the tribes in the lands of what are now known as northern Tilea and southeastern Estalia turned away from the Old Faith and founded great civilizations.  Whether it was interaction from the sea-faring Elves, mercantile Dwarfs, or the expanding Nehekhara Empire that led these tribes to worship more anthropomorphic deities is unknown.  The rise of Tylos (Tilea) and Estacrez (Estalia) forced the Old Faith worshippers across the mountains where they eventually mingled with the eastern tribes in the lands between the Elven coastal colonies and Dwarfen mountain holds.  The scattered tribes integrated the Old Faith religion with the worship of nature spirits.

The eruption of war between the two Elder Races by-passed the small tribes of humans for the most part, much to the latter’s benefit.  It is unlikely that either of the races considered the more primitive humans as being worth the bother to recruit as allies in the conflict.  It was during this time that the ancient Druids built many of the megalithic stone circles, burial barrows and earthen mounds found in many parts of the Empire.  This effort probably represented the height of the Old Faith’s power as well as their desire to channel the ley lines of earthen power.

Things remained as is until the invasion of the greenskins, which began as the Dwarf-Elf war ended.  Smaller tribes began to coalesce with others into forming larger tribal units to better contend with the invaders.  The besieged Dwarfs became more interactive with some of the human tribes and, in doing so, influenced the religious beliefs of the tribes.  It is also plausible that the sorcerous art of Elementalism branched from Druidic beliefs at about this time.

In the century before the forming of the Empire, the tribes’ religious beliefs were a mix of the Old Faith religion and the emerging belief in the gods.  The Teutognens and Talabec tribes were further along in revering the so-called Wild Gods pantheon (predominantly, Ulric and Taal) and turning away from the Old Faith than the other tribes.  Moreover, a number of regional variations to the Old Faith arose over the course of two millennia.

By the time of Sigmar, most tribes embraced the Old World pantheon – which now included the Civilized Gods that most likely accompanied the Tilean traders from the south – over the Old Faith.  Most of these cults were becoming better organized and more highly structured than the Old Faith.  The ancient beliefs were losing ground.

Attack on the Old Faith
The growth of the towns and the cult of Sigmar both contributed to the decline of the Old Faith for most of the population of the Empire.  In a bid for greater political power, the cult of Sigmar in the Empire’s second century found “evidence” that the Old Faith had devolved into a morally corrupt and degenerative religion.  The Primate (the title before Grand Theogonist) of Sigmar was able to demonstrate that the Dark Arts of Daemonology and Necromancy were closely related to the practice of human sacrifice attributed to the Old Faith.  There was actual evidence that the religion practiced in certain parts of the Empire, principally Sylvania, engaged in such blasphemous rituals.  The cult of Sigmar succeeded in painting the entire religion with the brush of these deviating and limited variations.

Other cults, with their own agendas, joined the Sigmarite cult in a crusade to violent suppress the Old Faith.  The violence was the most extreme in the Reikland and Stirland, the provincial centres of the cult of Sigmar.  Many Druidic priests and leaders were put to death and much of their lore lost.  As a result, the Old Faith was forced further into the remote areas of the Empire and away from the influence of the cults and their centres of power.

The Decline of the Old Faith
Though never a strong centralised religion, the Old Faith in the Empire became even more fragmented than it had ever before.  Many of the regional variations divorced their ranks of the gods and spirits whose devoted (and, in some cases, fanatical) followers violently turned on the relatively benign “nature” religion.

Communications between the Old Faith communities were severely curtailed, even when the Imperial cults turned their attention on the wizards, then each other (of which the Sigmar-Ulric conflict is the best known and longest enduring).  This isolation was both a boon and a curse to the Old Faith.  On one hand, the fragmentation of the Old Faith made the religion less threatening to the established cults and, thus, more invisible.  These virtues allowed the Old Faith to continue until the present day.  On the other, the secluded communities were more susceptible to a devolving belief system and corrupt rituals, including darker and more vengeful versions.  One or two may have even unwittedly fallen to the influence of Chaos.

Old Faith Today

In the Death on the Reik scenario, the Player Characters chance upon the village of Unterbaum, a settlement of Old Faith followers, on the Stirland/Talabecland frontier.  These villagers follow the Old Faith as described in the WFRP rulebook, pages 206-208.

According to its description, the Druidic priesthood really don’t follow a god in the same sense as Old Worlders who revere Sigmar, Ulric, and the other gods.  If they do personify the natural world in a manner that makes sense to their followers, the Old Faith priests will use the term “Mother” or “Earth Mother.”  To further confuse the point, the typical worshipper of the Old World pantheon in the Empire believe the Mother of the backwater religion to be their goddess of fertility and family, Rhya.  There is also a dispute among theologians as to whether the Bretonnian Lady of the Lake is a deity in her own right, an aspect of Rhya, or another variation of the Old Faith where the Lady is none other than the Mother.

In some of the more isolated settlements in the Empire, the deity of the Old Faith became as real as any other god.  These deviations from whatever “orthodoxy” exists in the Old Faith are recorded from the earliest days of the Empire.

One such deity was Gurheid whose worship among the Fennone tribe in the eastern Empire became dominant as the traditional Old Faith withered.  Some attributed the poor soil and farming conditions in the lands that became Sylvania and southern Ostermark for this darker version of the Old Faith.  Human sacrifices were common, as the religion believed that the goddess demanded blood in order for the earth to become bountiful.  Given the dark history of and deprivations in Sylvania, it is believed that the worship of Gurheid vanished long ago.  There are a few scholars who postulate that the religion still exists in those haunted lands under the nose of both the cults of Sigmar and Mórr.

Another group believed to worship another dark variant of the Old Faith are the nomadic Strigany people who immigrated to the Empire from the Border Princes around 1583 I.C.  They worship a deity called Écate, who the Striganies commonly invoke to protect their own clan and take vengeance on those who abuse them.

The worship of the Old Faith and its derivatives are found in many of the remote, backwater regions of the Empire, even in some of the rural areas where it would not be recognised as such.  Some of these areas include the hilly regions of Talabecland , eastern Averland, western Ostermark, and parts of Sylvania.  There are also a number of locations in the Border Princes where the Old Faith dominates, chiefly in the central and eastern portions, as well as some of the communities in the Irrana Mountains and north-western Bretonnia.  In some of these areas, the cult of Taal/Rhya is working towards the eradication of the Old Faith.  In others, the two religions co-exist quite well (in a few of these areas, Rhya is seen as more powerful than her horned consort, Taal).

Conclusion

In summary, the Old Faith should not be perceived as some sort of religion that is followed in the same manner across the Old World.  GMs should freely add whatever variants they deem necessary to keep their players on their toes.  In most circumstances, this would simply require tweaking some details to make the upcoming Old Faith village a little different than the last one the players encountered.  In a few cases, the GM might want to add a few elements that make the players question whether they are indeed encountering worshippers of the Old Faith or something far more sinister.

Some examples are given here, and a full scenario written by Richard Iorio III and myself titled “A Change of Faith” (which can be found as a download file at the Warpstone website) offers another.  The Old Faith adds colour and easy evocative background to any village.  Use it the next time your players get the urge to grace an isolated village with their presence.