The Ddruj

The people of Shra practice three different religions. These are not rivals of each other, rather they supplement each other, or even more precise supersede each other. The priests order them like a ddruj, 'stairs': Yannanah at the bottom, Ilwah above that and Swhn at the very top.

Yannanah

Yannanah is an animistic religion. It claims that the world is inhabited not only by plants, animals and sapient races, but also invisible spirits, the yann. Though invisible, they manifest themselves in the physical, visible world and interact with it. Some yann resemble other living creatures, some represent forces of nature, like mountains, wells or dust storms. Some are benevolent, some malicious, many fickle. Worshipers try to appease the yann with offerings and prayers to gain their favor, or at least evade their wrath.

Ilwah

The Ilwah are gods. They are more powerful, versatile and humanoid than 'ordinary' yann. Each settlement has its own god or goddess. These represent the community as a whole and are both promoted and worshiped by the ruling elite. Small settlements have relatively humble gods; large ones field more powerful deities.
The character and temperament of the gods represent that of the settlement and they reinforce each other. For example the deity of Gma Azgzaw is a hybrid human-surre being with the yellow skin of a surre but also hair like a human. Other settlements consider the god an abomination. Another example is the ilwah of Tanduf in Tisnt, who is considered dangerous. Excess children are sacrificed to him to ward off disasters and diseases, reputedly with success.

Swhn

The core belief of Swhn is that if a person improves him/herself through a diet of shwu, learning, philosophy and asceticism, then he or she can gain godlike powers and potentially become a god or goddess him/herself. Though all want to become divine, different people pursue different aims: power, immortality, grand works of invention or art, etcetera. Many practitioners of Swhn have claimed to become gods or half-gods, few are considered to be truly so.

Ziggurats

The centers of religion in Shra are the ziggurats. Each settlement has one, except Gma Azggway, which has two. The ziggurat is the physical manifestation of the ddruj. All religious ceremonies take place there. People go to great lengths to make their ziggurats broader, higher and more splendid than others, so the buildings are as much about prestige and power as worship.
Shra ziggurats are mastaba-like, stepped pyramids with slightly inwards sloping sides, supplemented with stairways. Sometimes small towers are added. The top is the holiest place of the structure, often off limits to common worshipers.

Spirit worlds

As they believe in spirits and gods, the people of Shra also believe in a spirit world. This is not in a remote place, but overlaps with Shra itself. It is on a different 'plane of existence', often interfering with the physical world. There is no concept of heaven or hell; Shra itself is hellish enough.
However Ijnt, 'paradise', is a recurring theme in Shra mythology. It is a place where there is no shortage of water or food, where instead of a handful of oases all land is covered in greenery. Some say it lies in a secret valley in the mountains, others that is lies beyond the borders of Shra. There are some who claim that it exists only in the spirit world of the yann.

Foundation myths

All myths agree that the first people descended from the skies and settled in Shra. Some claim that the stars are gods, others that they are entire worlds where gods live. A few state that the move to Shra was a kind of quest, but most declare the people to be outcasts.

Burial customs

In Shra, dead people are seldom cremated, as fuel is too precious. Cremation is a sign of wealth, reserved for the rich and powerful. Common people are buried in graves. In summer, when it is hot, custom demands that the deceased are buried within two Shra-days, outside the settlement. In winter, when the ground is frozen, this unfeasible. At those times the dead are temporarily buried under piles of rocks, at the same cemeteries. Come thaw, they are uncovered and reburied underground.

Afterlife

Like many on Earth, the people of Shra believe that when somebody dies, their spirit lives on. However concepts like judgment of good and evil and subsequent dispatch to either heaven or hell, or reincarnation back into another body are put off as nonsense. The spirit of a dead person finds him- or herself in the spirit world, which is already inhabited by other spirits. The newcomer has find a place of his or her own, often by dislocating an earlier resident. Spirits can fight, buy or - rarely - charm their way in. Those who fail to do so, or those who have won but are later ousted by others, are deprived of 'spiritual food' and wither away into oblivion, permanently. Thus the afterlife is a kind of second life, without the perspective of a third, yet with the potential of lasting forever.
Many people try to prepare for the afterlife by training in combat or working themselves up in the hierarchy in their settlement. After death, families may support them with offerings to give them a better chance, or abandon them if the deceased were unloved. Living people believe that spirits who have not yet gained their place haunt both the spiritual and physical world and are the main cause of bad luck, accidents, diseases, disasters and all other things nasty. They try to ward them off with amulets, rituals and other religious weaponry.