Zacharism began as the Cult of Zacharias, which taught that Donwights were naturally evil and that their power needed to be released into the fabric of reality in order to free them from its inherent corruption. As a result, the Donwight Hunts devastated the countries South of the Rift and led to Donwights fleeing to the north, where they could be protected. Zacharism went mainstream after the takeover of a more moderate mystic faction, who stopped the Hunts and began teaching that Donwights were, in fact, allegorical, and nothing in the Book of Zachary should be taken literally. Zacharistic Mysticism caught on and became known simply as Zacharism, overtaking Universal Cultism as the majority religion in most places. Zacharism did not reject the Universal Seven as a concept, but, like Shamanism, taught that they were forces to be respected rather than deities to be worshipped.

Creator Worship is sometimes included in Universal Cultism, but when it is, it is distinct from the monotheist Creationism.

The Universal Seven - Fate, Death, Time, Chance, Luck, Nature and Chaos - are worshipped in temples and have various monastic communities dedicated to them. Mainstream UC has developed formulaic rituals and liturgies familiar across the world, while folk-religion based around the Seven can vary dramatically in practice and expression.

Shamans see Nature as the primary deity, and there is room within shamanism for those who do not believe in any deities but see them as universal forces rather than beings of any kind.

Part supernatural channelling of energies and part scientific, shamanism is responsible for many vital discoveries in the medical field, and is a dominant belief system among cultures that require shamans to channel energies for them, i.e. lycanthropic and shape-shifting communities. It can and does co-exist well with Universal Cultism, although it is likely that the UC practice in a shamanistic culture will be to worship Nature in mainstream and hybrid ways.

Phantasmie is classed as its own religion because it rejects the other deities as deities, seeing them only as natural forces in the world, and worship centres on Death and Her angels as a pantheon in its own right. Death's gatekeeper, Grimbold, is also given semi-divine status.

Phantasmie involves divination and communion with departed spirits as its central practice.

Creationism is a minority monotheistic religion which worships the Creator of the Universal Seven and views the Seven as aspects of the Creator, rather than deities in their own right.

The main religions in the world are:

Universal Cultism

Phantasmie

Shamanism

Zacharism

Creationism

North Calendar:

Dark Ages, where years are named

Common Era [CE] (the Cantish calendar, adopted during the Empire Days so that they could trade effectively, and also because it was decided that it was a better system).

For the North Calendar, CE ends at the end of the Faustine Chronicles III: The Book of Chance.

Post-Rift [PR]: After the world was split into two halves, North and South, one being in a parallel dimension and accessable to the other side only through the openings in the Rift between them.

Cantish Calendar:

The Golden Days: a mythological time, without dating.
Before Common Era [BCE]: from the beginning of history to the end of the Empire Days.

The Empire Days [ED]: now unused, this was a popular but brief demarcation of the age of empires in the 1500s-1600s CE. It began with the start of the Cantish Empire and ended with the Council of Nations being formed and the first Peace Treaty being signed.

Common Era [CE]: marked from the formation of the Council of Nations and the signing of the first Peace Treaty between them.

New Era [NE]: the discovery of how to harness glamour as a power source, which revolutionised the world. Only in the south, however. The north of the world had separated off hundreds of years before this and had already figured this out. For anyone crossing the Rift from north to south, it is like going back in time.

Note: not all countries South of the Rift use 'New Era', and instead still use Common Era. The rift was formed c350CE according to the Northern Calendar. For some time after the rift was created time passed more quickly in the south than in the north, until the rift was temporally stabilised.