Religion

Summary
(from Game World Index)

The religion of Karagon venerates Xthonos, That Which Is—a detached, impersonal, and omnipotent deity which is the source of all order and purpose. Xaos, the Enemy of Xthonos, tries endlessly to consume Its orderly realm but cannot ultimately prevail. Xthonos's emanations include the Merciful Angels, benevolent entities who elevated humanity above the other earthy beasts by forming human souls from the elements of air and fire.

The Angels are the personal benefactors of humanity: delivering revelations, rewarding order, punishing chaos, responding to prayer. The Codex of Liturgy, which the Ecclesiasts claim is the authoritative revelation from the Angels, spells out in great detail the Canon of Laws by which all humans should behave.

The religions of the other provinces were suppressed centuries ago, to the point where only traces of their memories remain. This does not mean that all the provinces have fully accepted the Ecclesiasts' dogma, however. The northern province of Nereal is notoriously full of skeptics, who argue that the world shows no signs of an overarching Order or Divinity. Many Whends still secretly revere the Forgotten Gods.

In your home province, many people still whisper that before the Karagond conquest, the Angels gave their true revelation in Shayard. According to this seditious tradition, the Karagond Ecclesiasts had to rewrite the original Canon of Xthonos three times to justify Hegemonic rule and Theurgic bloodletting. Documents claiming to be the original, more compassionate "Shayardene Codex" occasionally surface, but anyone found with a copy faces execution.

The Codex
Especially since the invention of printing, most noble houses and every Naos holds a copy of the entire Codex. Memorization of the Codex is a much-encouraged virtue, and almost everyone can rattle off significant stretches.

Most of the Codex pre-dates the Theurgic revolution in Karagon. It talks in many places about the Powers of the Angels used to destroy Xaos, and it’s taken for granted that this refers to Theurgy (either the primitive type known before the Karagonds perfected blood refinement, or a prophetic reference to the outpouring of Theurgic power that led to the founding of the Thaumatarchy).

The later books in the Codex refer specifically to the nascent Thaumatarchy. They are of course the ones that the Shayardene heretics would be inclined to see as illegitimate additions to the true canon. [source]