Since the beginning of the formation of society, various religions, most of them being direct opposites to each other, were created to explain what would have happened to a soul after a person’s death.
Little is known about the ancient cults, since most of them have fallen into disuse a long long time ago and have been forgotten.
The eldest form of religion that we know of were the “Dragon Cults”, whose members would burn the blood of victims to gain favour with the Dragons of the North. Most notable members of said cults were the Fire Assassins, that are only remembered thanks to the possibility of finding their armour in Snowspire Village (Fable; The Lost Chapters).
Other forms of cults consisted in the worshipping of divine entities, such as an evil god known as Firis, whose cultists used the image of his head in rituals to summon him from his realm. This cult is only remembered thanks to a set of tattoos that can be found in Oakvale (Fable).
Another particular one was the worshipping of a chicken god known as Eggtor, whose cultists celebrated him by wearing a chicken hat and praising him over a period of three days.
An honorable mention goes to Lamentia and Sylkana, respectively goddesses of painful love and tender love. They are remembered thanks to statues found in the Darkwood Bordello (Fable; The Lost Chapters).
While all of these deities were long forgotten by the rise of the Age of Heroes, two more were introduced, their cults being way larger, far-spread and important to the population than their predecessors; Avo, a benevolent god who represented the light side alignment, accepted only donations of gold and had his Temple built in Witchwood (Fable), and Skorm, a malevolent god who represented the dark side alignment, accepted only donations of blood and had his Chapel built in Darkwood (Fable). It’s known thanks to the description of two helmets, the Holy Warrior Helm and the Daemon Warrior Helm (Fable; The Lost Chapters) that the members of the two temples fought a war two hundred years before the beginning of the game.
It was then revealed by the Oracle of Snowspire (Fable; The Lost Chapters) that both gods were actually fake, born from the mind of a ruthless trader who found two places in Albion where Will was strong, tending respectively towards good and evil, and built the temples hoping to easily earn money thanks to them.
Both temples were destroyed alongside the Guild during the Decade of Knowledgification.
Not many decades after that, two more temples were created.
The first one, the Temple of Shadows, was built in a destroyed cathedral in Rookridge (Fable 2). As the name suggests, the cultists worshipped entities called Shadows. The original cult was a powerful and feared entity, but was disbanded after the loss of most of its members in a demon-summoning gone wrong. It was later refounded by Cornelius Grimm.
The second one, the Temple of Light, was built by Albert the Luminous, who, at the time, was a depressed man who tried to commit suicide by entering the Wellspring Cave near a poor town named Oakfield. There, the gods of the Light spoke to him and gifted him with the first Golden Acorn. The Golden Oak grew from the Acorn granting clean air and plentiful harvests to Oakfield, and the Light cult was founded to thank the gods.
Statues that possibly represent people wielding the hammers used to destroy the churches of Avo and Skorm can be found both in the Temple and in the Cave. It is possible that, by this time, the worshipping of Avo and Skorm was considered heresy.
There were, of course, still some minor cults in the land of Albion such as a sect known as the Chasm, that believed that one day the world will be consumed by a great chasm and true believers like themselves will reign supreme, the Cult of Blades, founded after Jack of Blades’ death, that is remembered thanks to a tattoo that can be found in Bloodstone (Fable 2), and the unnamed gods mentioned by the Chieftain of Knothole Island (Fable 2 DLC).
Unnamed gods are also mentioned by the Oracle of Snowspire, who tells of a war between them, and by Jack of Blades, who compares himself to them. (Fable; The Lost Chapters)
With the rise of the Age of Industry, all temples were abandoned and religion lost its importance in the lives of the people of Albion.
Is it, however, possible to help Lesley to rebuild the Dark Sanctum in Mourningwood (Fable 3) and bring back the cult of darkness.
A second honorable mention goes to the Shadow Court in Wraithmarsh (Fable 2). The Shadow Judges, while not being exactly worshipped by him, force Reaver to make annual sacrifices to keep him alive and young, resembling the doing of Skorm and the Shadows.
-Mod R.
2087
germansingergirl
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
