Religion Issues

[Stargate525]

So, after one amazingly tear-jerking viewing of August Rush, I've decided to rebuild my religious system, the planar attributes, and mechanics of afterlife (quite a chunk of my setting).

those of you who followed my setting should remember my 30 Gods set up as five pantheons of six. I like them. The problem is, I've set them up as a unified religion, with each God being a different 'branch' as it were.

Considering that I wanted religious tension and mystery to be a theme in my setting, this was a rather bad move. There's no conflict, the entire world sits at the same point in religion, and no dispute over which is correct, since you can jump to the God's friggin house and look at him. This would not do.

So I decided to make the planes inaccessible, at least the ones of the Gods. Then I figured why have them at all? Easy enough, then axe them. Less work for me :D. That left me with the only planes being the afterlife, elemental plane, shadow plane (which I never really understood. Kill it!), and astral plane (which is only used for transportation, now that there are no planes to connect...  x.). Okay, these aren't exactly useful, but needed. Alright. The Afterlife we don't need, not like they need to go there... Wait. What if we made the Afterlife needed? Keep the afterlife. Plus two more planes (elemental and astral/shadow).

So, making use of the one real visitable plane. I dunno what to do with it yet.

Suggestions, comments, yelling at my random stream of thought, or emotional response to August Rush is accepted and appreciated.  

[LordVreeg]

I think this is a good move, at least in terms of the religions.  I also think making the 'Gods' or 'Beings of Great Power' more innaccessable is important to adding the flavor of mystery to the world...it brings back the important comcept of 'faith'.
Religious conflict in a setting adds a whole dimension to the player experience.  PC's tend to play off memorable power factions, finding allies and enemies in the world of belief.  It also helps in building ther backstory and the personality of the PC's and NPC's if religion is a 'living, breathing' theme.

this is from  thread where this came up a while ago.  I think it speaks to part of what you are dealing with.


[blockquote=Tybalt]
[blockquote=LV]A few notes on this..
First off, people see what they want to in their Gods. People have imperfect understandings of these beings, and that is one of the underlying themes of the Celtrician mythos. I dislike simplified, static Churches. Nothing is more satisfying to me as a GM than when the mythos is deep enough so the players actually can understand and extrapolate from it, due to the sense of realism. Drono Bidlebee took a seedling from the Stenron Platform of Harvest, where they have a huge, old second generation Asslewood tree in the center of the Platform (Asslewood trees are actually from the House of Earth, and even second generation (slightly debased) Asslewood is extremely rare, wonderful and valuable) to the Miston Platform of the Harvest, but it was his idea. It was not a GM setup, or even on my radar. But he knew that it would be tremendously meaningful to the Amristians of Miston. A great moment for any GM.
Moral ambivalence...Hmm. There certainly is a lack of moral absoluteness in the mythos, and if that is what you mean, you are right. Gods are rarely all good, or all bad. Grazzt certainly has a noble side in Celtricia, and Abradaxus has an absoluteness of justice that borders on the cruel.

Also important in understanding the cosmology is understanding the different power sources in the void, which is also where the Celestial PLanars all hang out, since the Accords of Presence. Daemons live on the House of Death, Devils on the Ninth House, Demons on the Eight House. Spells that use chaos actually pull actually pull from the Well of Chaos on the Eight house. There is a House of Earth and a House of Water, but the House of Fire is no longer, and the Well of Fire was recreated on the Third Station in the Void, but it is still weaker than the original Well on the House of Fire that is no longer. The history of religion includes many changes that mortals do not even know.[/blockquote]
Actually that's brilliant--of course many of us assume that it is fantasy rpg and therefore everyone knows the gods like they're close cousins when in fact they are likely to be mysteries. I really like that. [/blockquote]

[Haphazzard]

Amazingly enough, just because a god wants something done in a certain way doesn't mean that people won't mistranslate/ignore that, and do things in that god's name that others of the same faith wouldn't agree with.  Look at Christianity today and who lets women preach and who won't.

[Jharviss]

You can also use gods for propaganda and misinformation.  Imagine god(s) who tell followers things in order to get them to worship them and do what they want.  Imagine a god who tells two different groups two different things so that they'll fight each other.  Imagine two gods who tell two different groups two different things so they'll fight each other.  Misinformation is key.

In my world, Tephra, not everyone who is worshiped is necessarily a god, and the two actual gods in Tephra aren't even worshiped.  There is no afterlife - the soul ceases to exist upon death.  It's pretty morbid so few people accept it as the truth, hence faith-based religions have popped up everywhere creating new "truths" about the afterlife.

I like what Haphazzard said about human error.  That's pretty logical too.

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=JHARVISS]You can also use gods for propaganda and misinformation. Imagine god(s) who tell followers things in order to get them to worship them and do what they want. Imagine a god who tells two different groups two different things so that they'll fight each other. Imagine two gods who tell two different groups two different things so they'll fight each other. Misinformation is key.[/blockquote]
worship is power for my Celestial Planars.  So, unbeknownst to my PC's or the world at large, they actually encourage the different sects and the different aspects of them that are worshipped.  Makes for a fun internal dynamic.

[Stargate525]

I think this is a good move, at least in terms of the religions.  I also think making the 'Gods' or 'Beings of Great Power' more innaccessable is important to adding the flavor of mystery to the world...it brings back the important comcept of 'faith'.

Yeah, that always seemed to be lacking in most campaigns. There's no reason to convert, or even really try for missionary work since everyone knows they'll go to heaven in any case.
 

Amazingly enough, just because a god wants something done in a certain way doesn't mean that people won't mistranslate/ignore that, and do things in that god's name that others of the same faith wouldn't agree with.  Look at Christianity today and who lets women preach and who won't.

Well with you being unable to actually see the Gods, it comes down to faith whether the Gods actually exist at all. I don't want to to schism the religions; I want inter-religious tension, not inter-denominational tension.

You can also use gods for propaganda and misinformation.  Imagine god(s) who tell followers things in order to get them to worship them and do what they want.  Imagine a god who tells two different groups two different things so that they'll fight each other.  Imagine two gods who tell two different groups two different things so they'll fight each other.  Misinformation is key.

Again, without external, personal verification, there's not reason to think that it's not just the religious hierarchy doing these things.

[Haphazzard]

oots[/url], you could allow those in the afterlife to effect the living.  Well, at least speak to them under specific circumstances.  I've never liked how the game treated PC death "Ok, roll up another character."  Why not continue their story into the afterlife?  Maybe have a couple spells that let you speak to the dead (if there aren't any already), and the living PC's can speak to the dead one.  Or...something along those lines.

[Slapzilla]

I've always felt that the deities were the first jumping point for world building.  Figure out what is important to each race AND each major culture within the race, and create it's epitome-the overgod.  Dogma is already flowing from on high.  Create the overgod's protagonists, (Thor, or Tyr to Odin) antagonists, (Loki, The Giants, Hel) and their seconds (Freya, Frigga) and special proxies (Valkyries, einherjar) for diffrent races or vastly different cultures within the same race and blam! tension takes care of itself.  When you create stories of the mortal champions of each, kingdoms rise and fall and history is easy.  If each deity represents something the people want to aspire to or are truly afraid of, then you've got a full fledged pantheon representing a people, and a living world with it's own backstory!

Each culture will have variations on the theme.  Think Greek and Roman.  The Romans borrowed a lot, with refinements.  Ares/Mars, Athene/Minerva, Zeus/Jupiter, Poseiden/Neptune and on and on.  Each race will have variations on what is important.  Orcs may only have one deity, the God of Take-Your-Stuff. Goblins may worship Steal-From-You.  Each, basically, worship the same impulse, but orcs smash and goblins slink.  What is the difference here?  You decide whether they worship different deities or different aspects of the same deity.  

Deities give backbone to history.  I think Fantasy needs them.  Just my humble opinion.    

[Wensleydale]

I've always felt that the deities were the first jumping point for world building.  Figure out what is important to each race AND each major culture within the race, and create it's epitome-the overgod.  Dogma is already flowing from on high.  Create the overgod's protagonists, (Thor, or Tyr to Odin) antagonists, (Loki, The Giants, Hel) and their seconds (Freya, Frigga) and special proxies (Valkyries, einherjar) for diffrent races or vastly different cultures within the same race and blam! tension takes care of itself.  When you create stories of the mortal champions of each, kingdoms rise and fall and history is easy.  If each deity represents something the people want to aspire to or are truly afraid of, then you've got a full fledged pantheon representing a people, and a living world with it's own backstory!

Each culture will have variations on the theme.  Think Greek and Roman.  The Romans borrowed a lot, with refinements.  Ares/Mars, Athene/Minerva, Zeus/Jupiter, Poseiden/Neptune and on and on.  Each race will have variations on what is important.  Orcs may only have one deity, the God of Take-Your-Stuff. Goblins may worship Steal-From-You.  Each, basically, worship the same impulse, but orcs smash and goblins slink.  What is the difference here?  You decide whether they worship different deities or different aspects of the same deity.  

Deities give backbone to history.  I think Fantasy needs them.  Just my humble opinion.    

Meh. I agree that religion is an important part of any fantasy world, but I disagree that every RACE needs its own gods - each CULTURE might, however. Also, having accessible, divine 'beings' which are essentially human (i.e. the Roman Gods and every single DnD standard deity to date) leads to all sorts of problems. Why don't the angry gods just step down from their high heavens and obliterate one anothers' cultures? If they fight and one wins, what happens? This is a particular problem if you stat out the Gods.

This is why I prefer my religions to be somewhat more IRLish. Clerics may get power from the Gods through worship and prayer, but the Gods're not going to pop into your local temple for a chat or in fact, ever leave their home plane (assuming they exist at all). In fact, in Wonders, none of the gods are known to have existed - although it is 'scientifically' accepted fact that there were four beings at the beginning of the universe who created it, very few cultures can agree on what happened then in terms of deities. There is no divine magic apart from the occasional unexplainable miracle or priests twisting normal magic to their own ends. I just find this somewhat more believable than otherwise.

[Kindling]

What Wensleydale said.

[TheMightyWarhamster]

Why don't the angry gods just step down from their high heavens and obliterate one anothers' cultures? If they fight and one wins, what happens? This is a particular problem if you stat out the Gods.

this has been a big issue for me, too. that's why i absolutely love the religious concept of the Elder Scrolls game, where the "gods" are basically lesser planar beings who managed to kick out the real boss and now have to hide behind churches and dogma so they aren't found out. that's why they don't like to directly interfere.
@topic: i think religion is more fun in RPGs if you don't know for sure if there are gods and how mighty they are. with me, the clerics never know if their spells are handed out by the gods or if they only get them because they *belive* they should get them.
making the homes of the gods inaccessible is a really good move to restore mysticism, although i don't think you should get rid of the shadow plane. that would be a good home for ghosts and the like, i.e. spirits who have, for some reason, not passed on to the afterlife and still hang around closer to the plane of the living. that is, if your campaign has them at all.
i think, the astral plane in your setting is pointless, instead, make magic travellers use the shadow plane, either for shortcuts like teleport or ethereal jaunt, or to evade real-world obstacles like monsters or enemies. a good example for the latter is the umbra in the soul reaver games: there, enemies can't see you snd you can pass through some normally solid objects, but you will be attacked by ghosts, eventually.

[Slapzilla]

I normally like a more Animistic view where a thing (river, tree or valley) or a concept (Do unto others, etc) has some sort of personification associated with it.  A deity in this sense, represents an anthropomorphized conglomeration of many concepts and ideals (or fears) that when worshiped (or placated) vigorously enough, echoes back some cosmic vibration that becomes divine spell power.  This way, there are no physical deities, per se.  There are representations of a society's hopes or fears and they are given traits such as stabilizing (lawful), benevolent (good), whimsical (chaotic), or wrathful (evil).  This is why they can't step down from their high heavens... they don't really exist like that.

Each race has what is and is not important to them.  Would a dwarven apprenticeship seem like slavery to an elf?  Each major culture within the race has their own understanding of what is or is not important.  City folk may think of justice and commerce as being of true importance while a farmer could worry most about how to placate the whimsical deity of the weather into benevolence.  Aspects of a deity and the pantheon can emerge, then.  Take my example of the orcs and the goblins.  Do they worship different deities or aspects of the same one?

I agree that statting the deities out is an overly anal waste of accounting time but knowing what the hierarchy and the relationships are gives you a framework for a living world as far as religion goes.

What do you think?

[Tybalt]

I tend to agree--furthermore why should mere mortals understand everything about the gods? What you really need is your own secret idea of how gods work and then present the assumptions upon which players operate.

For example, worship of the goddesses Tiamat and Ishtar in my campaign are different depending on which particular cult or country you encounter them in. In decadent Culhar in Yasg Ishtar is worshipped through sacred orgies quite openly during festivals and temple services while in New Edom things are a little more prim--the sense of her being a goddess of crafts, fertility iin marriage, inspiration in war reflects the tough frontier society. Tiamat to New Edomites on the other hand is a being worshipped by evil humanoids and ultimately is the chief god of the enemy while in parts of the Celtic and Yasg lands Tiamat's worship ranges from the esoteric and philosophical to the benign and ceremonial.

However as with your animistic view of things, Slapzilla, it may be that the gods are not at all what the pcs or cultures believe them to be. On the other hand in my campaign while grey areas exist so do good and evil--again just not so clearly as some claim to perceive them.

[Slapzilla]

I tend to agree--furthermore why should mere mortals understand everything about the gods? What you really need is your own secret idea of how gods work and then present the assumptions upon which players operate.
 

However as with your animistic view of things, Slapzilla, it may be that the gods are not at all what the pcs or cultures believe them to be. On the other hand in my campaign while grey areas exist so do good and evil--again just not so clearly as some claim to perceive them.

Bingo, and well said!

As long as the DM knows what is actually true, he/she can present things in any way plausible, and many ways not so plausible, too.  We understand deities as people because we are people.  Makes sense, eh?  Why can't deities be mountains, a forest, the wind, east, motherhood, death, inspiration itself, etc..  How it works as less important than it just works.  In D&D, good, evil, law and chaos are substantive things and as such, they exist whether you believe or ascribe to it/them or not.  Most of life is a grey area and that is when faith and society get you through.

But then, that is a matter for the clerics, I guess.

[Xeviat]

As a creator, I think it is important for you to know what's actually going on if you're going to present a mystery. For example, you should probably know if the deities exist or not. I do think it is possible for a setting designer to also be in the dark about the truth behind theology (and that could create some fun contradictions that intelligent players might notice and ask "WTF?").

Stargate, I too think you should use the Shadow Plane. It is a useful place. It can be a resting place for the dead before their deities take them to their reward; or it could be where the spirits go period, either to wallow or to dissipate.

I'm under the assumption that deities do exist in your world. If this is so, I have a few questions for you; answering them might help get the ball rolling a bit faster.

1) Are the deities personified? Do they have motivations and emotions?
2) Are deities who's faithful are in conflict in conflict themselves, or do these conflicts arise for different reasons? Perhaps the deities are playing a game amongst themselves.
3) Do priests actually get power from the deities, or just their own belief?

---

My setting is largely animistic. Druidism is a faith which reveres all of the spirits of nature; it is a relationship of respect, and druids and other nature-casters get their power from understand nature, not as a divine gift.

Another important faith amongst the people of my world is ancestor worship and the worship of local deities. Since the world is animistic, every object and concept has a spirit. When these spirits belong to a large thing (a mountain or lake for instance), its spirit is more powerful. Likewise, when the spirits belong to an important thing (such as a river which waters the crops of a civilization) it grows even more powerful from the acknowledgment and honor given by the people it is important to. The most powerful of these spirits are deities and are able to grant divine spells. Even the spirit of a tiny stone could be powerful; the stone a warrior slung to kill a giant and save a civilization could have been kept and venerated, and thus grow into a powerful spirit.

Lastly, the world has several spirits of vast power. The Elements are gods, and they created the world. Most humans do not worship them because of their tie to the giants, who are typically enemies of man; demihumans, though, do worship the Elements because they were created by the Elements. These spirits do not require worship for power; they are forces of nature, and will exist regardless.