From the brilliant white wastes in the north, to the scattered and strange archipelagos in the south and every mile inbetween, there is a certain pantheon that receives the prayers and pleas of those who call the Coil home. And for this certain pantheon and the gods that reside in it, the path of ascension is powered by the principle of "a divinity earned". For this certain pantheon, the journey to godhood is a toil that is yours and yours alone.
There are no "born" gods, there is no "inherited" holiness, there cannot be an "ancestral" right to rule in this realm; only those mad enough to reach for greatness, solemn enough to suffer for it, and clamorous enough to let no one forget that they have become more. Such an attainable godhood comes with consequences, of course.
Much of the continent and indeed, the details of daily life, is infused with the rhetoric of these homegrown deities. In almost every corner of the Coil, there are shades of devotion to the gods aplenty. Even map lines are unexempt from their influence- the four major nations of the continent-- Asbria, Lower Orchard, He-yin, and Bellamy each have their capitals built on the grave dirt of the Major Arcana-- the four main gods of this certain pantheon. Cities and towns are known to flourish overnight on the ascension sites of even the most pedantic of the Minor Arcana.
For more on the practicalities of ascension and how the Arcana came to be, see On Ascension, and other things and The Beginning, the Now, and the Thereafter .