Weirdlet
2013-06-10, 10:34 PM
Hey, all- wanting to pick the brains of the Playgrounders again, this time with help creating a religion and god/gods therein.
In the gritty semi-urban campaign I'm percolating, there's an organization of temples/a church that has a great deal of power in the world, operating much like Medieval and Renaissance Catholicism or, as I ripped the idea off of, the Chantry of the Dragon Age games. They rose to power in the wake of the Ancient Sorcerous Empire's collapse, taking up the missions of keeping those extradimensional nasties like elves and demons out, collecting, protecting and passing on knowledge, and providing succor to the human masses. Other races have their own gods, and are looked at askance for it.
The collective temples have a great deal of political and monetary clout, but do not rule the various kingdoms (nor the free city-state the game will be centered on) as theocracies. Further, they are considered the arbiters of magic, having a very strong say in the wizarding colleges, the licensing of practicing mages, and having carte blanche to cart off sorcerers both for their own protection and training, and the public good (uncontrolled magic being a capital-P Problem). Part of where they get their money is in the production of magic items, which are a certain amount of the makework and dues of mages-in-good-standing. There's a maxim (again, taking inspiration from Dragon Age) that magic must serve man and not rule over him- which has worked out to its practitioners having a lot of their freedoms on a very short leash, and plenty of tensions regarding same.
That said, the religion itself needs to be a functional one that fills enough roles to take the place of a single-all-powerful-deity church. My initial thought is four gods and four goddesses, take up the quarters of the year. There also needs to be a sort of Heaven or Hall of Heroes included- as seen in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284501), it does not accept all comers. One of the things I've thought about regarding 'where souls go' includes emotional frequencies- orcs have too much rage and despair and just don't 'fit' the sort of energy that the Hall of Heroes accepts, so they (and those who reach a similar level of soul-battered in their lifetime) don't get to go there, and reincarnate again and again.
So- I have partially-formed ideas of the logistics of things, but I need to figure out the deities that humans call upon themselves, and I'm open to suggestions. If there are some interesting pre-fab pantheons out there, I'm also all for looking into those.
In the gritty semi-urban campaign I'm percolating, there's an organization of temples/a church that has a great deal of power in the world, operating much like Medieval and Renaissance Catholicism or, as I ripped the idea off of, the Chantry of the Dragon Age games. They rose to power in the wake of the Ancient Sorcerous Empire's collapse, taking up the missions of keeping those extradimensional nasties like elves and demons out, collecting, protecting and passing on knowledge, and providing succor to the human masses. Other races have their own gods, and are looked at askance for it.
The collective temples have a great deal of political and monetary clout, but do not rule the various kingdoms (nor the free city-state the game will be centered on) as theocracies. Further, they are considered the arbiters of magic, having a very strong say in the wizarding colleges, the licensing of practicing mages, and having carte blanche to cart off sorcerers both for their own protection and training, and the public good (uncontrolled magic being a capital-P Problem). Part of where they get their money is in the production of magic items, which are a certain amount of the makework and dues of mages-in-good-standing. There's a maxim (again, taking inspiration from Dragon Age) that magic must serve man and not rule over him- which has worked out to its practitioners having a lot of their freedoms on a very short leash, and plenty of tensions regarding same.
That said, the religion itself needs to be a functional one that fills enough roles to take the place of a single-all-powerful-deity church. My initial thought is four gods and four goddesses, take up the quarters of the year. There also needs to be a sort of Heaven or Hall of Heroes included- as seen in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284501), it does not accept all comers. One of the things I've thought about regarding 'where souls go' includes emotional frequencies- orcs have too much rage and despair and just don't 'fit' the sort of energy that the Hall of Heroes accepts, so they (and those who reach a similar level of soul-battered in their lifetime) don't get to go there, and reincarnate again and again.
So- I have partially-formed ideas of the logistics of things, but I need to figure out the deities that humans call upon themselves, and I'm open to suggestions. If there are some interesting pre-fab pantheons out there, I'm also all for looking into those.