[@Themerlinhawk]: Humans are "native"(as in, at the very least have been there long enough that there's no real way to tell where they came from) to basically the entire world, save for super far north, super far south, and Lethienvel.

There's a few other widely practiced religions. Ithillin's biggest religion worships an Earth and Harvest deity, for example. Though to be technical, most of these gods and goddesses are actually on a single pantheon. At least on this continent. Further south, for the Nem, for example, you have a separate pantheon entirely. ... Though in terms of setting mechanics pretty much all gods exist.

They're full-blown actual knights, yes. They probably choose new knights via, well... investigating knights(after all not all knights in Thaln are Iron Rose Knights) who may be interested, including those in training, recruiting Errant Knights who express interest... various sources of knights, basically. For a long time, and still to many nobles, having your child become an Iron Rose Knight was an honor.