The world of Geoza features a wide variety of religions, philosophies, and cultural approaches to worship.  Geoza is a pantheistic world, by which we mean that a multitude of beings with deific power exist in the world.  A few comments are in order about the issue of religion and deities ("gods") in Geoza:
1)  Geoza is a fantasy world, a mythic setting intended solely for the purpose of participative storytelling and role-playing.   It does not represent any one view of religion or belief structure, nor does it represent in any way the authors' "real-world" concepts of god or the nature of reality.
2)  Some religious elements in Geoza bear a passing similarity to actual religious elements in our world, either current or historical.  Nothing in Geoza is intended to either lend support to or show disdain for any actual religion or creed.  Indeed, some effort has been made to show a variety of religious belief structures in a generally positive manner.  For those who object to the idea that divergent belief structures might be equally invalid, we can only say that offense is in the eye of the beholder - we intend none.
3)  Geoza is neither "creationist" nor "evolutionist" in its approach to the question of the origin of life.  The closest possible approach to either would be the vaguely deistic concept that Geoza produces life.  Whether that is the result of a mystical creative force or "natural processes" is a moot point.  Geozan natural processes are mystical by definition.
4) Geozan deities gain power from their followers.  Although such elements are not generally expressed in game mechanics (see TPO for an example), the more followers a deity has, the more powerful that deity is.   In addition, some types of followers are more valuable to a deity than others.   However, this conceptual statement does not imply that the relative power of deities is subject to some form of "cosmic accounting," in which characters may "defeat" a deity by killing off that deity's followers.  Although adaptive rules for using The Primal Order with the ARIA system are provided, such rules are not intended to be used within Geoza game play, but merely as an aid for the Mythguide in determining the relative power of various deities.
Note: Geozan deities exist on a "level of reality" far above that of any player character.  Although player characters may grow powerful enough to significantly affect events in the world of Geoza, including the course of religions and the followers of deities, they are not capable of significantly affecting the deities themselves.  For this reason, no deity will be given "stats" for the game.  Although deific avatars may be defined as any other character, such avatars are merely a projection of a portion of a deity's essential nature, and are not the actual deity.
5)  We make a distinction between propitiation and worship.  Propitiation is the practice of appeasing some higher power in order to avoid some negative consequence, or to force some higher power to grant a request for aid.  Propitiation almost always involves some form of sacrifice.  A colloquial example of propitiation would be the statement "Please God, if you get me through this, I swear I will never do anything like this again."  In this case, the "sacrifice" is the promise to adhere to a more restrictive set of behaviors in the future.  Such promises or pacts are a common element in propitiation.   Other examples of propitiation would be oblations, self-mutilation, animal or sentient sacrifices, etc.. 
Propitiation can be approached in two distinct fashions.  In the most basic approach, the act of propitiation serves solely as an act of appeasement, and does not in any active sense force the deity to respond.   In the other approach the act of propitiation, by its nature, forces the deity to respond in some way (whether that response is simply to leave the followers be, or to actively aid them).  In Geoza, the "forceful" approach can work in some limited circumstances, but is much less common than the more basic, appeasing approach.   Note also that in some cases the followers may mistakenly believe that they are forcing the deity to respond, when in fact the deity has simply chosen (so far) to respond.
Worship, in contrast, is the active veneration of an ideal or philosophy, represented in the form of a deity or higher power (whether abstract or personified).  Worship entails more than a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" relationship with the higher power.  Worship is an act of reverence to an ideal.  Worshippers may venerate that ideal in personified form ("The Great Lord Yog") or as an abstract concept ("Peace, Love, and Joy").
Followers who worship a deity are much more valuable to that deity than followers who are merely propiatory.  A handful of truly worshipful followers are much more valuable than dozens of propiators.  This factor has provided human religions and deities with a distinct edge over the centuries, and is one reason behind the relative dominance of human cultures in Geoza (see below for why that is so).
Faith in Geoza is representative of the degree of veneration a worshipper has for the ideal.  Faith must always have an object, although that object may be personified or abstract.  Faith is not necessary in order to "follow" a given religion (although followers of some religions or creeds may find it nearly impossible to adhere to the tenets of the religion without a certain degree of faith...).  It is theoretically possible to "follow" any of the Geozan religions in a purely propiatory manner.  Such followers may be said to "lack faith" in the ideal of the religion or creed, but will not generally be turned away by the other adherents to the religion or creed.  Propiatory followers tend to believe that by following the tenets of their religion, they will attain some desired end (a place in the afterlife, blessings in the current life, avoidance of damnation or disasters, etc.), without an active veneration of the ideals of the religion.
Faith in Geoza has one other major limitation - with some rare exceptions, only humans can possess faith, in the sense it has been defined here, with a personified object (i.e. a deity).  Other species may have deities, but the spiritual relationships involved are propiatory in nature.  Some other species do have faith toward abstract ideals, however, and thus most Geozan species may possess the Faith attribute in some manner.  The greater human propensity for worship is also reflected in their reduced cost to develop the Faith attribute (see Human Heritage).
Most Geozan deities function as Origins within the Geozan Reality.  There are exceptions, especially in situations where the "deity" in question is not worshipped at all, but merely the object of ceremonial propitiation.  In such circumstances, the deity cannot function as an Origin, although it may use its powers (whatever those may be) on behalf of its followers / propitiators.  Alternately, the "deity" may simply refrain from devouring the propitiators, or from taking some other horrible action.
Deities that function as Geoza Origins are listed in this section.  "Deities" that do not function as Origins may be listed within specific cultural profiles or other parts of the Geoza World section.
A "generic" deity Origin profile