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VestigeArcanist
2010-12-30, 12:38 AM
I am currently forming a campaign/world to DM with my classmates, and an issue that I am having is the issue of Deities in the D&D world. My players are Literature/Theology majors, and who's focus in the game will be character development, plot development, and social interaction. Very heavy with the RP, the games I've played with them (as a PC myself) has unfolded more like a play/novel more than anything. One of the reasons I am going to DM is that our previous DM did not provide that dramatic inspection into social dynamics and into the human person. Pretty intense, huh?

My world thus far has developed into an extremely medieval setting, where the primary conflicts are between Lord vs. Lord, Nation vs. Nation, and most importantly, Race vs. Race. Good and Evil, while present, will not be the main conflict, unlike the other campaigns I've been a part of.

So my problem is that I must come up with a solid 'theology' of the gods of the D&D world, as well as a practical way for the various temples and religions to interact. Is there a single state god, or is there tolerance for the worship of other gods? Is there a united Church of Pelor, or is there a bunch of independent temples? Or is the competing churches, each claiming to be the authentic Church? Can 'good' churches and 'evil' churches coexist in peace? How can there be authentic deities who oppose one another? Is there One God? What does it even mean to be a Deity?

I am beginning to answer and understand the questions myself. However, the biggest problem I'm encountering is the interaction of churches and temples.

Waker
2010-12-30, 12:44 AM
Prepare to hear this a great deal, but those decisions are something you will have to decide ultimately. No answer is "correct."
With that being said, given your focus on Nation vs Nation with Good/Evil taking a backseat I would suggest that you give the various religions a bit less of a guaranteed place in shaping the world. Eberron did this quite nicely by positing the idea that the Gods may not actually exist and that the clerics might instead just be pulling their powers from the divine planes. Of course for you to do this in your campaign, you may want to consider limiting the availability of spells that allow for interplanar travel or summoning of greater outsiders, not to mention the prevalence of resurrection spells.

Another_Poet
2010-12-30, 01:01 AM
Based on how you've described the conflicts in your world, I suggest that the primary religious differences should be philosophic.

What I mean is, don't give every nation/faction its own god. Instead, have several (or even all) nations worship the same god/pantheon, but differ in a significant theological point.

Here's an example.

Perhaps two mighty nations are both Fire Worshippers. However, one of them follows an ancient practice of sacrificing a living male baby on the first of spring each year. The baby is burnt alive in a golden shrine. Each county has a shrine and must make the sacrifice. This is payment to the Sun for its Life-Giving Fire and without it, the summer will be a poor year for crops. The family of the baby is considered to gain spiritual merit by the act of giving their baby. Some families volunteer a baby; even lords sometimes do it. If there is no volunteer an oracle casts lots to choose the child.

In the other mighty nation, the sacrifices were stopped 400 years ago. A holy woman who was born during a Solar Eclipse traveled the land, walking into the flames of the holy sacrifices and rescuing the babies. By divine providence, the flames did not scathe her and so she was made a saint. She is considered a major reformer and preached that the sacrifices are barbaric and a perversion of scripture. Many priests opposed her but she acquired a following. Eventually, one of her enemies tricked her. He placed seven babies into a burning shrine, and while she gathered them all up he barricaded the entrance to trap her inside. The flames didn't hurt her, and she began to pass the children out of the smoke hole at the top. The priest blocked the smoke hole. At the last moment she had the choice to either climb out and abandon the last baby, or save the baby and get trapped inside. She chose to save the baby, and choked to death on smoke. When the shrine was open, all that was left was her skeleton - made of solid gold.

The two nations now have a deep theological schizm. The traditionalist nation blames bad crop years on their neighbor's failure to offer sacrifice. Some militant priests even preach that in order to atone and make the land fruitful, a male from every family of the reformed nation must be burnt alive. A crusade is being organized.

The reformed nation has problems of its own. By opening the door to new interpretations of faith, they've made room for dozens of new sects to grow up. The church has become fractured and civil war is brewing.

I find that kind of thing more satisfying than "our god hates your god." The idea that everyone can believe basically the same thing and still not get along is, well, very human.

Or humanoid :)

So, just a suggestion. I don't mean you need to take the fire worshipper/sacrifice example. Just the idea of sectarian schizm is what popped up in my head based on your post.

ap

Pyrite
2010-12-30, 07:26 AM
Look at the way cities and nations dealt with gods in ancient greece. A city, organization, or person might have a "patron" deity they offer more respect and worship to, expecting blessings or protection in exchange. At the same time, you would find temples to as many as a dozen different gods in a given city, as the people seek to ply the gods for more specific blessings.

Gods are not saviors or absolute lords who demand absolute faith, but instead are incredibly powerful beings who people seek the favor of, hoping that the god will reward them.

Evil deities should either be reworked to be a lot less obvious about it, or should be "secret cults" that no one admits membership to publicly.

Yora
2010-12-30, 10:03 AM
Based on how you've described the conflicts in your world, I suggest that the primary religious differences should be philosophic.

What I mean is, don't give every nation/faction its own god. Instead, have several (or even all) nations worship the same god/pantheon, but differ in a significant theological point.
I agree with that. Religious conflict is the most interesting when it's not just about who has the more powerful or nicer god, but when there's a disagreement who has a better understanding on what the gods are and how to serve them in the best way.
I fondly remember Dragon Age for this, as religious believe isn't as much a reason for conflicts, but much more why people have very different motivations for their actions in a given conflict. The Chantry believes that mages are too dangerous to be allowed to wander around freely and think it's a kind of mercy to allow mages to stay alive under constant confinement and supervision to be killed only at the first sign of demonic possession. It would be much safer to kill any mage right at birth. The elves see mages as the spiritual leaders of their communities and the practices of the Chantry as horrible slavery of mages. So when some mages turn to dark powers to gain the strength to escape the chantry, there will by a completely opposite oppinion on how to deal with them. Kill them for voluntarily risking the arrival of demons, or help them as they are only trying to regain their rightful freedom.

Tankadin
2010-12-30, 10:25 AM
Nation versus nation, lord versus lord, race versus race? I don't know, this kind of makes me think about Christianity in Russia.

The quick and dirty is that Russian Orthodoxy saw itself as (surprise) the keeper of true Christianity. Rome (Roman Catholicism) and Byzantium (Greek Orthodoxy) had both been corrupted and subsequently conquered. It was the job of the Russians to keep the Church on the level.

Which of course led to all sorts doctrinal infighting that might help you differentiate between various political divisions. I mean, the Russians fought what amounts to a civil war over some changes to the liturgy.

So maybe some nations share a common deity or two, but all believe they are the only ones getting it right. They'll fight over it if there isn't any outside foe that is a bigger (or more profitable) threat. Within those nations, doctrinal differences (like the ones mentioned uptread, or ones you get to make up...the Theurge Heresy, the Factotum of Avignon, etc.) should give some motive to lord against lord conflicts, and then different deities entirely might separate races. Keep in mind that, like in history, religion is never the sole motivator in a conflict--it can be useful for mobilizing the public and providing the leaders with some kind of moral or even legal cover for starting a war--but there are often economic and geographic reasons as well.

The twist could be that the pantheon could actually just be different aspects of the same creator god, where the various gods resonate differently with different races or nations. The Russians fought the Turks like mad, even though both had the same root religion. Or the Hindus wonder why people don't see all of the different pantheons as just unique stories of the same gods and sagas.

Empire A might tolerate different versions of Pelorism within its borders, Empire B might forcibly convert its population to the tenants of Moradinity, and Empire C might not care who is worshipped so long as the temples involved don't sacrifice people and remember to pay their taxes on time. B probably has a dim view of C, but maybe both are afraid of A's expansion.

gbprime
2010-12-30, 10:28 AM
I find it's best to have a creed or dogma for each deity that works. Figure out how a worshiper of a particular deity will benefit from the philosophy of that god, and organize the religion around it. Even an evil deity has a plan to empower and better the lives of his followers so that he will attract followers. (It might all be a LIE, but they won't figure that out until they've risen through the ranks. :smallamused: )

Once every religion has their own method of how they can make life better for themselves (and possibly others...), you can get on with the business of why your sect thinks that all the others are deluded fools. :smallbiggrin:

Frozen_Feet
2010-12-30, 10:48 AM
Well, one "obvious" twist would be to have one Nation worship Pelor as the good guy he's presented as in canon, and one another nation Pelor as the Burning Hate. For extra brownie points, make these nations allies to each other. They both serve the same god and work towards the same goal, but their motives and opinions are utterly alien to each other.

Really, since you're working from a polytheistic basis, you can have multiple religions, and thus multiple answers to the questions you proposed, hanging around.

I'm on the opinion that worship of Evil and Good gods can co-exist - people paying respects to malignant spirits in hopes they will leave them alone is hardly unheard of. There might be whole sects and churches devoted to "pacifying" the evil deities, accepted by the society as sort of "necessary evil".

There could be people who take an apatheistic stance - gods might exist, but they act just as if they didn't and don't commit to any form of religion. To these people, gods, when or if they decide to intervene, are just another supernatural threat amongst countless others, hardly worth batting an eyelid at.

This could be accompanied by, or co-exist, with some form of pantheistic belief that posits all peoples are reflections of a single God-state (or being or whatever). All things are divine and important in their own way, with none being head over heels above others.

Rumpus
2010-12-30, 11:14 AM
I'd say if you don't want religious conflicts to play a major role, make all the dieties True Neutral members of a unified pantheon, or at least viewed that way by the populace. Good people may still make sacrifices to the gods of death, disease, and winter if they think it will cause them to pass by their house in favor of somebody else (ideally far, far away). Lots of religions that focus around volcanos and such view the gods as basically a bunch of jerks that you appease to avoid punishment, rather than seeking a reward.

Cities (or even people) may have a god they strongly identify with (and vice versa), but everybody honors all the gods, and the gods generally don't care enough about mortal affairs to take a direct hand.

An alternate to this would be to have gods be almost purely tribal: if you are a member of a certain people, you worship their patron exclusively. Religions like this wouldn't seek converts (and might not even accept them).

hamishspence
2010-12-30, 01:19 PM
I'm on the opinion that worship of Evil and Good gods can co-exist - people paying respects to malignant spirits in hopes they will leave them alone is hardly unheard of. There might be whole sects and churches devoted to "pacifying" the evil deities, accepted by the society as sort of "necessary evil"

There's plenty of precedent for this in Forgotten Realms and Eberron- in many cities, open temples of Good and Evil deities are both present- not all evil temples have to be hidden and secret.

In Baldur's Gate, the clergy of Umberlee, evil goddess of the sea, is accepted- because it's a seaport, that depends heavily on the sea for import and export, they can't afford to offend her too much.

DabblerWizard
2010-12-30, 03:15 PM
OP, considering your interest in how to work through in-game religious concerns, you might be interested in reading some of the Tales of Wyre series.

It's a phenomenally well written description of a real 3.5 game, that is significantly interested in concerns similar to what you've been describing, having to do with deities and the impact of in-game religions, and such.

Here's the link: http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/58227-tales-wyre.html

Tvtyrant
2010-12-30, 04:44 PM
You could always have the religions working together to get rid of none canon worship. Using a vanilla 3.5 example: The Lords of Hell and Abyss have truly massive cults when taken as a whole (IE Demogorgon might only have 3,000 followers on the planet, but so does Dagon, Orcus, Graz'zt, Bel, Mammon, Asmodeous, etc.) So the churches of Tiamat and Pelor are willing to work together to destroy Fiend Worship, because the cults are not worshiping gods. Thus special units like the Talon of Tiamat and Radiant Servant of Pelor are used as inquisitors by the church to rid the world of the unorthodox worship.

The thing about it is; a demon is no more evil then an evil god, and neither is a devil. The gods are just jealous of their position in the world and see themselves as a fraternity above the rest of the universe.

AslanCross
2010-12-30, 05:50 PM
In Eberron, there is one popular pantheon, their evil counterpart, and several religions that function on a different dynamic.

1. The Sovereign Host: The gods are all more or less "allies," and often worshiped as a whole pantheon. As the gods don't have any clear physical presence on the world (as in they never walk with mortals). Many people from different cultures worship the Sovereign Host, as the Sovereign's missionaries often use syncretism to make it more palatable to people they're proselytizing to. For example, "Oh, your nature deity is actually our nature deity, Arawai. Your war deity is also our war deity, Dol Dorn."

2. The Dark Six are the 'evil' pantheon, and the average person on Eberron might not be an actual cultist, but he would also offer prayers to the Dark Six members in everyday life. For example, while a blacksmith would worship the Sovereign Host and favor Onatar, the Sovereign of the forge, he would also offer prayers to the Fury, one of the Dark Six, to bless the sword he just forged with her power to spread chaos.

3. The Silver Flame is one of the more controversial faiths due to its superficial resemblance to real-life religions. It's a religion of purification, and while it's tolerant of the "good" religions, it sees itself as an ultimate replacement. While the Silver Flame did not create Eberron, it would be the one to perfect it. They dedicate themselves to the purification of the world: destroying evil outsiders, aberrations, undead, lycanthropes (who spread like a plague, due to Eberron having 12 moons).
Like all religions in Eberron, the deviation of clerics from alignment doesn't cause them to lose their powers. The Silver Flame is notorious for having a benevolent "pope" but an extremely paranoid and corrupt high cardinal.

4. The Blood of Vol is a strange cross between a self-help/self-improvement fraternity and a vampire cult. It worships the divinity within, although its clergy sometimes use cultists as tools to further the goals of Lady Vol, the lich queen who runs the whole show from behind the scenes.

And many other smaller cults.

As such, religions in Eberron are not necessarily at odds with each other, even existing in the same city. For example, in Karrnath, they adopted the Blood of Vol as a national religion once, as the cultists provided important arcane necromantic lore that the nation needed to bolster its withering army during the 100-year long Last War. However, once the war ended, the king severed his ties with the Blood of Vol and its militant arm, the Order of the Emerald Claw. Most Karrns still worship the Sovereign Host.

ffone
2010-12-30, 05:56 PM
The Silver Flame is notorious for having a benevolent "pope" but an extremely paranoid and corrupt high cardinal.

Jafar to Wormtongue, there is always a goateed evil vizier. Always.

lol, the Silver Flame reminds me of the Golden Compass and those other fictional settings where you have the Dislikeable Catholic Church Entity That Cleverly Satirizes The Real-World Crusades And Spanish Inquisition.

hamishspence
2010-12-30, 06:01 PM
It's common in D&D settings.

In Dragonlance, it was the Kingpriest.
In Faerun, it was the Church of Helm during the invasion of Maztica.
In Eberron, it's the Silver Flame.
In Greyhawk, it's the Church of Pholtus.

I would not be at all surprised if Mystara had it's own version.

AslanCross
2010-12-30, 06:01 PM
Jafar to Wormtongue, there is always a goateed evil vizier. Always.

lol, the Silver Flame reminds me of the Golden Compass and those other fictional settings where you have the Dislikeable Catholic Church Entity That Cleverly Satirizes The Real-World Crusades And Spanish Inquisition.

There are actually a whole bunch of genuinely good Silver Flame people. It's mostly High Cardinal Crozen and his cronies that are corrupt.

The lycanthrope purges were indiscriminate and brutal to be sure, though actually, what do you expect to do when violent and bloodthirsty monsters walk the streets en masse every other night, making more of themselves?

hamishspence
2010-12-30, 06:09 PM
Yup- it was also a rather unusual period where, for some reason- afflicted lycanthropes were contagious.

Which is not to say that the Silver Flame didn't kill Neutral lycanthropes, and shifters, as well (the pic in Faiths of Eberron shows them killing wereboars)

but, it wasn't a case of "unreasonable prejudice" either- as with much of Eberron, it was very grey morally, rather than black and white.

Draig
2010-12-30, 06:12 PM
By incorporating the Deities as more mainline to each nation/lord/fighting force you actually give yourself, as a DM an ace in the hole. If for whatever reason said plot slows or takes a bad turn you can always have that one wild card nation start some massive attack or fight and stur up the whole train so to speak. If the players try to ask what that nations motivation or what not is "(Insert deities name here) WILLS IT!!!" Nothing is more chaotic then a bunch of religious fanatics, and nothing is more deadly than when you arm said fanatics with the means and manpower to enact what they believe their gods will is.

HOWEVER, depending on how big you make deities in the world you have to worry about the Cleric getting self righteous and changing his mind on what to do, or worry about the bard rallying a town to rebel for its deity.

-Ex: In a campaign i ran i had it as an open conflict between two nations, One worshipped Hextor, the other, Heironious. Instead of my players trying to deal with the mission I had a rather charismatic bard in the group that decided to roll checks and begin ranting about how Heironious' wishes were not being fulfilled and that they must rise up as one and strike the Hextorian Nation before they themselves could become pawns and become "Senseless victims in a clearly obvious path of destruction"

Yora
2010-12-30, 06:58 PM
There are actually a whole bunch of genuinely good Silver Flame people. It's mostly High Cardinal Crozen and his cronies that are corrupt.
I'm still convinved that the Silver Flame itself is a force of Evil that appears only as being good because of all the Couatl spirits trapped within it. The whole religion really doesn't seem that different from the Path of Inspiration.