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rs2excelsior
2015-03-19, 07:53 PM
So something that I've been wondering for a while now... most fantasy RPG settings (or fantasy settings in general, for that matter, but it seems to be more prevalent in RPGs) are basically a pseudo-Medieval Europe when it comes to technology and culture (although certain technologies--like firearms--are generally downplayed, and cultures are much more likely to just be "hats"). However, one of the biggest facets of Medieval Europe--a single, monolithic church and monotheistic religion--gets thrown out in favor of a polytheistic pantheon of gods, often with a Classical Greek/Roman feel.

I'm not necessarily saying there's anything wrong with that--I did it when I created my campaign world, although I did include one single church of said pantheon--but I would like to know if anyone has any idea about why that's the case.

And a related question, are there any major RPG settings with a monotheistic religion (or no single prevalent religion)?

I do know that the Catholic Church was not universal in Medieval Europe--there was the Eastern (Greek/Russian) Orthodox branches and eventually Protestantism--but that's not the point. Even the major non-Christian religions were monotheistic--polytheism was very rare in Medieval Europe.

Also, I only bring up the religion of Medieval Europe as a comparison to how things are portrayed in most RPGs. I'm not intending to make this a discussion of real-world religion, so please don't take the discussion in that direction.

LibraryOgre
2015-03-19, 08:00 PM
Ars Magica, notably, embraces a lot of the medieval mindset... including monotheism of several flavors.

Arguably, I think you could say that Star Wars does the same.

Elderand
2015-03-19, 08:11 PM
Green ronin published a book to make the d20 engine more medieval and by extension monotheistic than classic dnd.
It's called Mythic Vistas: Medieval'splayer manual. It's actually not bad.
They also put out testament: Roleplaying in the biblical era, but that's more premedieval times and I don't have that book so I can't comment on quality.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-19, 08:13 PM
I think the GURPS Banestorm fantasy world, Yrth, uses Christianity and Islam.

In Nomine, set in modern times, does too if that counts. (It should count because because Biblical angels and demons are real and priests have real powers).

Gnoman
2015-03-19, 08:33 PM
So something that I've been wondering for a while now... most fantasy RPG settings (or fantasy settings in general, for that matter, but it seems to be more prevalent in RPGs) are basically a pseudo-Medieval Europe when it comes to technology and culture (although certain technologies--like firearms--are generally downplayed, and cultures are much more likely to just be "hats"). However, one of the biggest facets of Medieval Europe--a single, monolithic church and monotheistic religion--gets thrown out in favor of a polytheistic pantheon of gods, often with a Classical Greek/Roman feel.

I'm not necessarily saying there's anything wrong with that--I did it when I created my campaign world, although I did include one single church of said pantheon--but I would like to know if anyone has any idea about why that's the case.

There is, in fact, a very simple reason. Most fantasy RPGs, and a big chunk of modern fantasy, drew a lot of inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons, either directly or indirectly. When Gygax was drawing up the early setting, he made things polytheistic because that made it easier to draw a distinction between the acknowledgedly fictional gods of the tabletop setting, and the Christian god; as Gygax was fairly devout and wanted to avoid blasphemy.

Elderand
2015-03-19, 09:00 PM
There is, in fact, a very simple reason. Most fantasy RPGs, and a big chunk of modern fantasy, drew a lot of inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons, either directly or indirectly. When Gygax was drawing up the early setting, he made things polytheistic because that made it easier to draw a distinction between the acknowledgedly fictional gods of the tabletop setting, and the Christian god; as Gygax was fairly devout and wanted to avoid blasphemy.

Polytheism has a number of advantages in RPG: You can have bad guys god, gods that aren't all powerful (what with each overseeing a specific aspect of creation) more reasons for gods to not actually interfere a great deal (they could but then they would be distracted which would allow their opposite number some freedom to act too and ain't nobody who wants that)

And you can keep player agency higher too. If the monotheistic god appears and gives you an order there is very little way to justify disobeying. Unless you are suicidal or evil (as in, in opposition to god and not moraly evil, monotheistic gods can be bad guys). You can more easily say "screw you, you're not the god of me" when there is a pantheon whitout risking life and soul.

You can make a monotheistic setting work for sure, I just think it's easier with a whole pantheon.

Karl Aegis
2015-03-19, 09:18 PM
I'm curious as to what pseudo-medieval setting you're talking about. The settings I'm most familiar with are the Iron Age Dungeons and Dragons and the late Feudal Era Tenra Bansho Zero.

Berenger
2015-03-19, 09:20 PM
RPGs are about adventure. Adventure requires conflict. Multiple quarreling gods of limited power provide more potential hooks for conflict than one almighty god that could, by definition, solve every world-threatening problem by himself if need be. They also provide more variety for player characters, namely clerics, paladins etc. of different creeds.

As for a "single, monolithic church and monotheistic religion being one of the biggest facets of Medieval Europe" - for all my studies, I'd be hard-pressed to produce some place or period during the european middle ages where religious strife and dissent were largely absent. "The Church" was anything but an homogenous institution whose members shared an universal outlook regarding godly and worldly matters.

It's just that most potential players are not aware of such subtleties. Several clear-cut specialized gods & clergies are much easier to grok than a bewildering mess of fictional popes, antipopes, competing religious orders, heretics, attempted and completet reforms, political expediencies, heated theological debates and inherent ambivalence of an overarching, supposedly "monolithic", church.

rs2excelsior
2015-03-19, 10:34 PM
There is, in fact, a very simple reason. Most fantasy RPGs, and a big chunk of modern fantasy, drew a lot of inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons, either directly or indirectly. When Gygax was drawing up the early setting, he made things polytheistic because that made it easier to draw a distinction between the acknowledgedly fictional gods of the tabletop setting, and the Christian god; as Gygax was fairly devout and wanted to avoid blasphemy.


Polytheism has a number of advantages in RPG: You can have bad guys god, gods that aren't all powerful (what with each overseeing a specific aspect of creation) more reasons for gods to not actually interfere a great deal (they could but then they would be distracted which would allow their opposite number some freedom to act too and ain't nobody who wants that)

And you can keep player agency higher too. If the monotheistic god appears and gives you an order there is very little way to justify disobeying. Unless you are suicidal or evil (as in, in opposition to god and not moraly evil, monotheistic gods can be bad guys). You can more easily say "screw you, you're not the god of me" when there is a pantheon whitout risking life and soul.

You can make a monotheistic setting work for sure, I just think it's easier with a whole pantheon.


RPGs are about adventure. Adventure requires conflict. Multiple quarreling gods of limited power provide more potential hooks for conflict than one almighty god that could, by definition, solve every world-threatening problem by himself if need be. They also provide more variety for player characters, namely clerics, paladins etc. of different creeds.

All of that makes sense. It's interesting to hear that Gygax was religious himself. And I can definitely see how an entire pantheon of gods, none of whom are all-powerful, can make for interesting conflict. After all, mythology of the classical era is rife with gods and their squabbles spilling over into the lives of mortal heroes--much like in a game of D&D.

That said, though, it seems like the gods in most fantasy settings exert less direct influence than those of the Greek myths. You'd rarely see a D&D god show up physically on a battlefield, for example, or very specifically trying to hinder the progress of a particular person, like you do in Classical mythology--at least not in the games I've played.


As for a "single, monolithic church and monotheistic religion being one of the biggest facets of Medieval Europe" - for all my studies, I'd be hard-pressed to produce some place or period during the european middle ages where religious strife and dissent were largely absent. "The Church" was anything but an homogenous institution whose members shared an universal outlook regarding godly and worldly matters.

It's just that most potential players are not aware of such subtleties. Several clear-cut specialized gods & clergies are much easier to grok than a bewildering mess of fictional popes, antipopes, competing religious orders, heretics, attempted and completet reforms, political expediencies, heated theological debates and inherent ambivalence of an overarching, supposedly "monolithic", church.

Well, no, the Catholic Church was divided--sharply, at times, with itself and with other various branches of Christianity. That wasn't really the point, though. Ask random inhabitants of Medieval Europe what their religion was, and most of them would answer Christian of some flavor--and those that didn't would probably be Jews or Muslims, also monotheists. I imagine you'd find more atheists than polytheists in Medieval Europe, but I don't know that for sure--if anyone has any kind of hard numbers, that'd be interesting to see.

Darth Ultron
2015-03-19, 11:03 PM
D&D, and most fantasy games, is set in Dark Ages Europe. Not Medieval Europe. The idea of the setting is somewhere around the second to sixth century. The basic fantasy idea is that there once was a powerful empire that made lots of places and magic, but they are gone now. And all the ruins of the empire are ripe to be explored and plundered. So...Europe after the fall of Rome. Europe does not become monolithic until 1000 ad or so.

Anxe
2015-03-19, 11:22 PM
D&D, and most fantasy games, is set in Dark Ages Europe. Not Medieval Europe. The idea of the setting is somewhere around the second to sixth century. The basic fantasy idea is that there once was a powerful empire that made lots of places and magic, but they are gone now. And all the ruins of the empire are ripe to be explored and plundered. So...Europe after the fall of Rome. Europe does not become monolithic until 1000 ad or so.

Most of the tech, like Full Plate, comes from the Late Middle Ages (1200+). There were earlier uses of it, but that's usually what people think of when they imagine Full Plate.

Ninjadeadbeard
2015-03-20, 01:20 AM
D&D, and most fantasy games, is set in Dark Ages Europe. Not Medieval Europe. The idea of the setting is somewhere around the second to sixth century. The basic fantasy idea is that there once was a powerful empire that made lots of places and magic, but they are gone now. And all the ruins of the empire are ripe to be explored and plundered. So...Europe after the fall of Rome. Europe does not become monolithic until 1000 ad or so.


Most of the tech, like Full Plate, comes from the Late Middle Ages (1200+). There were earlier uses of it, but that's usually what people think of when they imagine Full Plate.

Actually, I think the "General" view of D&D is heavily influenced by Gygax's Greyhawk setting. Renaissance technology thrown over a Dark Ages population. Yet, despite the depictions of a Medieval setting, I think this article (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=28547) explains quite well and reasonably that D&D is tied far more into an Iron Age mindset, and thus Polytheistic religions would make more sense overall.

Aedilred
2015-03-20, 03:49 AM
D&D, and most fantasy games, is set in Dark Ages Europe. Not Medieval Europe. The idea of the setting is somewhere around the second to sixth century. The basic fantasy idea is that there once was a powerful empire that made lots of places and magic, but they are gone now. And all the ruins of the empire are ripe to be explored and plundered. So...Europe after the fall of Rome. Europe does not become monolithic until 1000 ad or so.
I should note that the "Dark Ages" are a rather imprecise period, frequently used to describe the whole of the Middle Ages, and in conventional use entirely contained within them. I still find the term useful to describe a more specific period in the EMA (varying slightly by locality but generally covering somewhere from the fall of Rome until around the late eighth-ninth century) but it is generally deprecated in historical circles.

Most of the tech, like Full Plate, comes from the Late Middle Ages (1200+). There were earlier uses of it, but that's usually what people think of when they imagine Full Plate.


Actually, I think the "General" view of D&D is heavily influenced by Gygax's Greyhawk setting. Renaissance technology thrown over a Dark Ages population. Yet, despite the depictions of a Medieval setting, I think this article (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=28547) explains quite well and reasonably that D&D is tied far more into an Iron Age mindset, and thus Polytheistic religions would make more sense overall.
As people have indicated, the conventional D&D setting is essentially an anachronism stew, with features from antiquity thrown in with elements from the Renaissance, and from various points in between, quietly operating on rule of cool. In some specifics, like shields, it's almost entirely "backwards" when compared with historical development.

It is almost impossible to talk about religion in D&D and how it maps to real-world religion without breaking forum rules, but I will say that, given that most D&D settings are European/Middle Eastern in inspiration, the stable and fairly universally consistent polytheism they tend to display is one of the areas where they correspond more closely to antiquity, even though true polytheism persisted in some European societies until well into the Middle Ages. Because of the way the rules for divine magic operate and religions are usually presented, I find D&D is not very good at modelling monotheistic religions. It is possible to adapt the rules to such but even then they're not ideal and rely on some imagination on the part of the DM.

Elderand
2015-03-20, 07:29 AM
All of that makes sense. It's interesting to hear that Gygax was religious himself. And I can definitely see how an entire pantheon of gods, none of whom are all-powerful, can make for interesting conflict. After all, mythology of the classical era is rife with gods and their squabbles spilling over into the lives of mortal heroes--much like in a game of D&D.

That said, though, it seems like the gods in most fantasy settings exert less direct influence than those of the Greek myths. You'd rarely see a D&D god show up physically on a battlefield, for example, or very specifically trying to hinder the progress of a particular person, like you do in Classical mythology--at least not in the games I've played.

That's because classical Mythology doesn't actualy have that many, or any, evil gods. The greek gods could be Jerk but they each had their places and none was seen as particularly evil. Evil Hades is a modern view of things, in actual Greek Myth, Hades was probably the most reasonable of the bunch.

In Egyptian Mythology the one clear bad guy is Apep and his conflict was resolved everyday in a one on one with just one other god. Set was for the most part not seen as evil either.

If there are conflict between two sets of divine entities, that conflicts has been solved and done with in the past such as the titanomachy.

And so the gods, being all on the same side, are free to play with mortals and intervene directly.

In DnD there are however very clear opposite sets of gods, the good ones and the evil ones, generaly in identical numbers. They are, for one reason or another, in a state of cold war. They can't intervene and **** around with mortals whitout breaking the stalemate and no one wants that.

Sacrieur
2015-03-20, 08:11 AM
It would actually be a neat story to have a nation crusading to spread the "One True God" and on a warpath to destroy the heretics who worship false gods. I remember a dragonlance novel having this theme, but that was a while ago when I read it.

Boci
2015-03-20, 08:51 AM
That's because classical Mythology doesn't actualy have that many, or any, evil gods.

Its also because its not very fun to play in such a game. I just read Gardens of the Moon, which has a lot of divine and ascendancy meddling in mortal affairs. It made for a wonderful story, but a GM pulling that crap would have been liable to get punched, even with the "mortals are the true power" theme that has become really popular in more deity focused stories.


It would actually be a neat story to have a nation crusading to spread the "One True God" and on a warpath to destroy the heretics who worship false gods. I remember a dragonlance novel having this theme, but that was a while ago when I read it.

It is a good story with lots of potential, but probably not something you want in a default setting, as without making those guys the bad guys, it gives a rather dark tone to everything, which early D&D didn't seem to be too interested in.

Vrock_Summoner
2015-03-20, 09:49 AM
Ars Magica, notably, embraces a lot of the medieval mindset... including monotheism of several flavors.

I mean, the setting is literally medieval Europe with Aristotle physics, so the fact that it embraces the medieval mindset should come as no surprise...

Joe the Rat
2015-03-20, 12:35 PM
Another piece of the "where it comes from" aspect may be the writings of Howard and Vance. The Conan material has a few "god of X people" types, and a smattering of demons who would be gods. Dying Earth (Hello magic system!) has temples to a variety of gods, all but forgotten, and certainly not worshipped by these people of the twilight of the world. Not Dark Ages (set well before and well after, in fact) but may have been an inkling as it was drawn together. Lankmahr may have also been a contributor to the concept.

"Everyone has their own god" is an old theme in RPGs. "...and acknowledges the rest in their domains" is newer. It sort of reminds me of the "patron saint" concept, only without the greater divinity... usually.

Greyhawk is an interesting one: Over time, it became not just polytheistic, but polypantheonic. This group has their gods, that group has another set of gods, those folks have theirs, plus the "demihuman deities" element. And it's not "same god different name," but actual separate divinities of separate peoples, jockeying for influence. And then we get the Overdeity.

Grinner
2015-03-20, 12:40 PM
RPGs are about adventure. Adventure requires conflict. Multiple quarreling gods of limited power provide more potential hooks for conflict than one almighty god that could, by definition, solve every world-threatening problem by himself if need be. They also provide more variety for player characters, namely clerics, paladins etc. of different creeds.

But would an omnipotent god necessarily wish to solve every world-threatening problem? He can always start anew, after all.

Might be interesting for a campaign.

Darth Ultron
2015-03-20, 12:51 PM
That's because classical Mythology doesn't actualy have that many, or any, evil gods. The greek gods could be Jerk but they each had their places and none was seen as particularly evil. Evil Hades is a modern view of things, in actual Greek Myth, Hades was probably the most reasonable of the bunch.

It really depends on what ''evil'' is. By modern standards, most Greek gods would be evil. Though they were not evil to the Greeks. And you don't want to forget the spin: no one just comes out and says ''I'm evil and I worship an evil god''. The evil person following an evil god, won't think they are evil.

A lot of classical mythology gods wanted human sacrifices....that is not exactly ''good''.

And classic mythology is full of beings and monsters that are evil and just as powerful as the gods. Though in modern times we don't call them ''gods'' and separate them from the human looking deities. they did not do so in classic times.

Elderand
2015-03-20, 01:50 PM
And classic mythology is full of beings and monsters that are evil and just as powerful as the gods. Though in modern times we don't call them ''gods'' and separate them from the human looking deities. they did not do so in classic times.

True but you almost enver get those monster and gods fighting in a comtemporary setting to the people whose mythology it was. The greek didn't tell the stories of Herakles or the God fighting the Titans as if it had happened recently. Those were things that had happened a long time ago even to the ancient greek.

It's all ancient legends, creation stories and just so myths. It's never happening right now. Very much unlike an RPG where this sort of things happen every other tuesday and twice of the first weekend of the month.

Aedilred
2015-03-20, 03:49 PM
True but you almost enver get those monster and gods fighting in a comtemporary setting to the people whose mythology it was. The greek didn't tell the stories of Herakles or the God fighting the Titans as if it had happened recently. Those were things that had happened a long time ago even to the ancient greek.

It's all ancient legends, creation stories and just so myths. It's never happening right now. Very much unlike an RPG where this sort of things happen every other tuesday and twice of the first weekend of the month.

I dunno. It's difficult to talk about it because historic mythology is considered under the same bracket as "real-world religion" by the forum rules. But while epic god-on-god battles and visible monsters might have stopped with the end of the Age of Heroes as far as the Greeks were concerned, there were still elements of the world that were viewed through a mythological prism and - presumably - believed to be ongoing events: the relationship between Orion and Scorpius, to give just one example.

Looking at other mythologies, Apep has originally been mentioned, and the gods battled him every night. Norse mythology is replete with ongoing stuff, and Ragnarok was still in the future as far as they were concerned. That's probably about as much as I can say, though.

Of course, D&D is set in what is essentially the Age of Heroes, with a medieval cosmetic overlay because it's a mashup of every legend going including stuff like Arthur and Roland and knights and castles are kind of cool. In that sense, calling it even Iron Age might be fairly generously progressive, albeit in metallic terms, iron is obviously de rigeur.

Khedrac
2015-03-20, 04:55 PM
A "Western" Glorantha campaign will be essentially Monotheistic. Glorantha isn't as a whole, but then neither was Earth at any point, and the "Western" areas are a large part of Genertela. Yes this is mainly documented in fanzines etc, but it is supported by Greg Stafford articles.

I imagine most Pendragon campaigns would be monotheistic, being set in a version of Arthurian England (though there are also Jews, Muslims, Pagans etc.).

How do you count godless settings? Iirc Dark Sun (Athas) has no deities which makes it closer to monotheistic than polytheistic.

As for why, well certainly in the early days there was a lot of bad press, so gaming companies did not and do not want to court bad press by publishing material that could be linked to real-world majority religions and thus cause offense in significant numbers of people. Most game designers originally being from the United States of America, and to a lesser extent Europe, their local culture would have Christian roots and thus the Monotheistic religions would be perceived as the most risky to echo. Hence go for the polytheistic.

Also when it comes of mythology, I don't know about the USA, but here in England we are probably more familiar with Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology than our own - and those are all polytheistic mythologies...

You know, this is a really hard question to discuss while trying to avoid real world religion and politics... I think I managed OK.

mephnick
2015-03-20, 06:06 PM
Its also because its not very fun to play in such a game. I just read Gardens of the Moon, which has a lot of divine and ascendancy meddling in mortal affairs. It made for a wonderful story, but a GM pulling that crap would have been liable to get punched, even with the "mortals are the true power" theme that has become really popular in more deity focused stories.

How I wish I could base my setting on the Book of the Fallen, but the entire series is pretty much DM fiat.

It's so awesome though. :smallannoyed:

Anonymouswizard
2015-03-20, 06:24 PM
I imagine most Pendragon campaigns would be monotheistic, being set in a version of Arthurian England (though there are also Jews, Muslims, Pagans etc.).

Arthur was originally a Celtic myth, so most PCs should be pagan, but modern Arthur has been changed to be Christian (and also have Lancelot inserted, why does a British Knight have a French name?). King Arthur may even be a historical warlord who lived around 500AD, so would likely have been a Celt himself.


Also when it comes of mythology, I don't know about the USA, but here in England we are probably more familiar with Greek and Norse, Roman and Egyptian mythology than our own - and those are all polytheistic mythologies...

Fixed that for you :smalltongue: but yeah, this is a good description of the UK, which is a shame, as what I know of English and Irish mythology is far better than what I know of Classical or Norse Mythology, possibly because I feel a sense of descent from them, but I also find Cuchullain to be a better demigod model than Heracles, as part of his legends are how clever he is.

Aedilred
2015-03-20, 07:23 PM
Arthur was originally a Celtic myth, so most PCs should be pagan, but modern Arthur has been changed to be Christian (and also have Lancelot inserted, why does a British Knight have a French name?). King Arthur may even be a historical warlord who lived around 500AD, so would likely have been a Celt himself.

Well, this is because while the original stories were Romano-British, the legends familiar now were largely developed later in (French-speaking) English/Norman literature and - by extension - France and the Occitan troubadour tradition, which is where a lot of additional characters and stories were added, including Lancelot.

Mediaevalism also contains a lot of ideological pitfalls for the modern scholar and, even moreso, casual observer, because the mindset is in some ways completely alien (and in other ways, very familiar). In particular, they had a completely different attitude towards anachronism and change over time, possibly in part because the pace of change was so slow, but probably also because historiography was so primitive (and archaeology pretty much unknown) and access to source material so limited both in terms of personnel and number of copies. Independent research was a lot harder, and so it was much easier for the record to be influenced by memetic mutation. Even now the most familiar versions of the legend tend to come from the Morte d'Arthur (note French title, although it was actually in English), which had the good fortune to be one of the first editions of the story to be printed.

This combined to create a situation where Arthurian knights came to inhabit a world which looks strikingly similar to that of High Mediaeval France, which was the world the writers knew. I suspect quite a lot of the tradition of Charlemagne's paladins found its way into there, too. And even if there were a couple of raised eyebrows about some elements of the culture, that's fairly easily handwaved on the assumption that that was a high point from which society had declined, in common with much else in their historic/legendary tradition. Of course any suggestion of paganism (at least, among the good guys) would have been lost too, although given the time period it's debatable whether a historical Arthur would have been pagan or Christian; a case could be made for either, there's no way of knowing either way, and the debate is inappropriate for this forum.

The historic Arthur would have been very little like the traditional Arthur of legend. There are reams of historiography on the subject, of course, but rather fewer fictional versions. There was that dreadful film with Clive Owen, but try to ignore that. I would recommend for those interested, and who haven't already encountered it, the Warlord Chronicles trilogy by Bernard Cornwell, which is a good and very readable effort at reframing a quasi-legendary Arthur in a more accurate setting.

Cealocanth
2015-03-20, 11:44 PM
This is getting dangerously close to real world politics.

When creating settings I find that polytheistic settings are usually easier to make. Having a host of different gods which control different things and be in conflict with one another makes each god more like a character than an omnipotent being. When making your own universalizing monotheistic religion for campaign settings one finds themselves having to write a holy text of some kind with rules and stories and the like, having to create your own kind of proto-theology based on it, and then go about combing it for issues and loopholes. In a fantasy universe it's often easier to answer "Why do the divine allow evil necromantic magic in this world?" with "Because the god of corruption created it" instead of "For some reason an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being created something that did nothing but corrupt his work and destroy his followers." If your game focuses around the nature of religion, then by all means go for it, but such things are not necessary in a game about adventure and monster hunting.

My most recent experiment in fantasy religion involved a semi-monotheistic religion (albeit with a lot of demon-like things) in which the prime goddess was not omnipotent or omniscient. Basically it involved the idea that there was one goddess of good in the world, the protector of humanity and creator of heroes, but there are a lot of other evil 'old gods' that want to destroy humanity. All of these gods draw off of the same power source (faith), but at the moment the goddess holds a monopoly on it. However, the new Age of Fear is coming as the many old gods have begun to create monsters in order to cause widespread fear, which is another, albeit more vicious form of faith.

Even with this, I found it more difficult than making a pantheon though, because not all followers are created equal. If everyone is a follower of the one goddess, and the old gods are the source of evil in the world, then why do evil people get the blessings of the goddess? If there is not enough faith in the world for the goddess to stop the state of constant struggle for survival, and this is creating fear, then why is the goddess around at all and why do humans still exist? Even in completely made up religions with few to no roots in real world theology, theological questions and philosophy still seem to come up.

Ninjadeadbeard
2015-03-21, 12:54 AM
There was that dreadful film with Clive Owen,

Emphasis mine. You can say that word, or you can talk about the Clive Owen film. Pick one and only one.

I always thought that was interesting how so often a Renaissance or Medieval painting would depict, say, the Fall of Troy, which took place anywhere from 1300-1000 BCE depending on which historian you ask...as a bunch of "modern" knights duking it out. I tend to headcanon typical medieval fantasy stuff that shows people dressing identically over thousands of years as just being in-universe anachronistic for this reason. It makes things amusing for me.

Khedrac
2015-03-21, 02:47 AM
Fixed that for you :smalltongue: but yeah, this is a good description of the UK, which is a shame, as what I know of English and Irish mythology is far better than what I know of Classical or Norse Mythology, possibly because I feel a sense of descent from them, but I also find Cuchullain to be a better demigod model than Heracles, as part of his legends are how clever he is.Yes - thank-you for that correction, I don't know how I forgot Norse.
Also whilst I do know some Roman and Egyptian you are right that they should not have been in the list (Roman gets complicated by the amount it took from Greek mythology). I could give what I believe would be one reason why we don't know our own mythology, but that is real world religion and politics so not for this forum.
Anyway I hadn't really thought about how little I know about Celtic myths (I think I know more German and Russian!) so I will have to try and find some good books.

Aedilred
2015-03-21, 06:42 PM
Emphasis mine. You can say that word, or you can talk about the Clive Owen film. Pick one and only one.
I can use different words if you'd prefer... but the overall sense would remain the same.

I always thought that was interesting how so often a Renaissance or Medieval painting would depict, say, the Fall of Troy, which took place anywhere from 1300-1000 BCE depending on which historian you ask...as a bunch of "modern" knights duking it out. I tend to headcanon typical medieval fantasy stuff that shows people dressing identically over thousands of years as just being in-universe anachronistic for this reason. It makes things amusing for me.
This sort of thing is often touted as a manifestation of the mediaeval attitude towards change over time, as one of the more obvious visible examples, and there may well be some truth to it.

I'm not entirely convinced that it's not at least to an extent the contemporary equivalent of Shakespeare in modern dress, though, especially when you get into Renaissance art and it's clear that artists were aware at least that people used to dress differently... even if the manner of that dress is often erroneous (togas for all!).

Boci
2015-03-22, 07:40 AM
How I wish I could base my setting on the Book of the Fallen, but the entire series is pretty much DM fiat.

It's so awesome though. :smallannoyed:

Could try an ascendancy game, but that would be...difficult. I was interested in trying to homebrew the warren system, but I couldn't actually tell them apart that well. I get that Kural Gerain is elder magic and really powerful...but why? One of the characters calls it cold and dark, but I never really got how so. The only unique thing I got from it was the necromancer/necrotic damage they inflict.

Anonymouswizard
2015-03-22, 08:00 AM
This is dangerously close to breaking forum rules, but what are people's views on using possible polytheistic versions of monotheistic religions in a 'real world' setting? Because I'm creating an Urban Fantasy setting where path magic draws from mythological gods, and I want to include angels without an all powerful deity. Is changing the 'truth' behind still living religions something to be avoided?

If people want more details I'm fine to provide them, I'm just wary of breaking forum rules.

goto124
2015-03-22, 08:24 AM
What does your audience (the players) consist of?

Anonymouswizard
2015-03-22, 08:36 AM
What does your audience (the players) consist of?

For at least the first game, a group of middle class Brits including a bunch of agnostics and a couple of practicing Christians. The thing is I hope to release the setting with it's own system at some point, and so want to know what a broader audience thinks.

Aedilred
2015-03-22, 08:47 AM
For at least the first game, a group of middle class Brits including a bunch of agnostics and a couple of practicing Christians. The thing is I hope to release the setting with it's own system at some point, and so want to know what a broader audience thinks.

It's the sort of thing where response is going to be largely idiosyncratic. Some players (and GMs) probably would not want to play in such a system, for various reasons (personal religion is not necessarily an indicator either way, although in extreme cases it probably would be); others might well enjoy it. I wouldn't have a problem with it myself particularly if it were well conceived on the whole, although you would have to be sensitive about how you named things in order to avoid giving unnecessary offence.

Such a setting would probably be inappropriate on this forum, though, unless enough of the real-world aspects were filed off that you could plausibly present it as a fictional religion. If in doubt on that, ask the mods, though they generally prefer erring on the side of caution so I can probably predict their response.

Anonymouswizard
2015-03-22, 10:58 AM
It's the sort of thing where response is going to be largely idiosyncratic. Some players (and GMs) probably would not want to play in such a system, for various reasons (personal religion is not necessarily an indicator either way, although in extreme cases it probably would be); others might well enjoy it. I wouldn't have a problem with it myself particularly if it were well conceived on the whole, although you would have to be sensitive about how you named things in order to avoid giving unnecessary offence.

Such a setting would probably be inappropriate on this forum, though, unless enough of the real-world aspects were filed off that you could plausibly present it as a fictional religion. If in doubt on that, ask the mods, though they generally prefer erring on the side of caution so I can probably predict their response.

To give as much detail as I'm willing:

The High Ones: are the three gods without physical form. When they work together they are omnipotent, but use of their power would destroy the world, and so they generally task mortals and angels with duties. These are what I'm worried about, as in-setting they are meant to be the precursors to currently worshiped gods, which are a distorted version.

Angels: serve the High Ones, these are the most powerful beings a character might encounter. They come in pure and fallen versions, and are normally terrifying. Only the most powerful gods would think of taking one on in a straight fight. Oh, and even fallen angels are extremely lawful.

Gods: aspects of nature, each is limited to their metaphysical 'region'. Multiple gods can share the same aspect without losing power, and all gods represent their aspect in a different way. They empower spells, but do so unconsciously, and only need to be called upon to do so.

Spirits: the catch-all term for supernatural creatures of non-human origin that do not fall into any of the above. They can have pretty much any set of powers and restrictions.

I suppose what I'm asking is if this model is divorced enough from real world religions to be considered acceptable by most people, although I fully assume an 'I don't know' answer. This is then all filled out with fluff, but that would almost certainly break forum rules, and so I'm only going to go into it off-site.

Thrudd
2015-03-22, 12:15 PM
Original D&D, Basic, and 1e AD&D actually have mechanics perfectly supportive of a monotheistic religion. There were no cleric spheres or domains, just a single list of spells. All clerics turn undead (exorcist), cure and protect and occasionally call down holy fire or plagues. Provision was made for evil clerics, by reversing a few spells, and control undead instead of turning.

Under these rules, there's functionally only two "teams", holy god or unholy god/demon. So, even though there might have been a pantheon, they were functionally all the same religion and gave the same spells.

While the settings that developed may have used pantheons of gods, mechanics didn't start reflecting that until 2e.

Sith_Happens
2015-03-22, 12:35 PM
This is dangerously close to breaking forum rules, but what are people's views on using possible polytheistic versions of monotheistic religions in a 'real world' setting? Because I'm creating an Urban Fantasy setting where path magic draws from mythological gods, and I want to include angels without an all powerful deity. Is changing the 'truth' behind still living religions something to be avoided?

If people want more details I'm fine to provide them, I'm just wary of breaking forum rules.

Purely from a fictional-worldbuilding perspective, I think it would work best if you keep it vague what the "truth" in fact is and provide each religion with their own self-consistent and more-or-less-as-equally-valid-sounding-at-face-value-to-anyone-else's explanation for why the fantasy elements of the setting work the way they do.

My (hopefully just barely forum-safe) reasoning behind that is that the key feature that lets the real world maintain so many different religions is that we ultimately have only our own faith to go on for which one(s) if any we think is/are correct. A good urban fantasy setting should (IMO) keep that feature unless the truth of a particular religion is itself a key feature of the story you want to tell.

Anonymouswizard
2015-03-22, 01:11 PM
Purely from a fictional-worldbuilding perspective, I think it would work best if you keep it vague what the "truth" in fact is and provide each religion with their own self-consistent and more-or-less-as-equally-valid-sounding-at-face-value-to-anyone-else's explanation for why the fantasy elements of the setting work the way they do.

My (hopefully just barely forum-safe) reasoning behind that is that the key feature that lets the real world maintain so many different religions is that we ultimately have only our own faith to go on for which one(s) if any we think is/are correct. A good urban fantasy setting should (IMO) keep that feature unless the truth of a particular religion is itself a key feature of the story you want to tell.

With regards to 'truth' in the world, every religion's version of the creation story (if they have one) is metaphysically true, but the physical truth of the universe is the big bang and so on. The character's just don't all know all of that. The main problem I have is that I want to go with a much older version of a couple of religions as the 'truth' behind those religions, so with regards to those religions the 'truth' is slightly different to reality (imagine a fantasy religion that worships the sun as the only god. It has a story where the sun grants a hero powers to beat back the star demons[(which even if not physically true, is metaphysically true]. Now imagine that originally this religion had two gods, the sun and the moon. Suddenly the truth of this myth changes, where either only half the gods gave him power, or he got power from two separate gods. This is essentially what I want to do to a real world religion using a possible pre-monotheistic version of it). However, none of them are 'correct' outside of themselves, and I'm not providing the answer to what is correct. In short, the 'truth' behind them is questionable, with none of them being literally, physically true, but in the same way that no modern religion can prove it's creation story is physically true.

EDIT: thanks for helping me work out exactly what I meant by the way, I was struggling with that.

veti
2015-03-22, 03:25 PM
I've played and run monotheistic settings, and even atheistic ones. The way I run it, it doesn't make that much difference. Clerics can be any alignment they like; optionally they can associate with one of many factions within the church, which each have their own unique teachings and philosophical bent.

The key to a monotheistic setting, IMO, is that the deity has to be very hands-off. Actually communing directly with them, and getting clear information back, should be extremely rare - certainly not something that anyone can do on demand. When it does happen, it'll usually lead to someone establishing a new order in the church, which 100 years later will be just another faction jockeying for position.


To give as much detail as I'm willing:

Well, I don't think any of my religious friends would have a problem with that. Some people would, I'm sure, but those people probably aren't playing RPGs in the first place.

I'm a little confused by the placement of "gods" as well down your hierarchy, generally they're at or near the top. How about renaming them as something less - absolute? Like "Powers", or "Dragons"?

Anonymouswizard
2015-03-22, 04:15 PM
Well, I don't think any of my religious friends would have a problem with that. Some people would, I'm sure, but those people probably aren't playing RPGs in the first place.

I'm a little confused by the placement of "gods" as well down your hierarchy, generally they're at or near the top. How about renaming them as something less - absolute? Like "Powers", or "Dragons"?

Thanks for the reply :smallsmile:

I may use 'powers', as god is there as a placeholder term at the moment (and hints at where exactly these beings are from). 'Dragon' has already been taken as the name for the ascended form of human magicians, so it's out. I'll think about what to call them, but the suggestion of 'powers' will probably stick for the moment.

Aedilred
2015-03-22, 05:32 PM
Thanks for the reply :smallsmile:

I may use 'powers', as god is there as a placeholder term at the moment (and hints at where exactly these beings are from). 'Dragon' has already been taken as the name for the ascended form of human magicians, so it's out. I'll think about what to call them, but the suggestion of 'powers' will probably stick for the moment.

If you run short of ideas, the choirs of angels (of which "powers" are one) could work to fill in some of the names.

LibraryOgre
2015-03-23, 05:42 PM
Original D&D, Basic, and 1e AD&D actually have mechanics perfectly supportive of a monotheistic religion. There were no cleric spheres or domains, just a single list of spells. All clerics turn undead (exorcist), cure and protect and occasionally call down holy fire or plagues. Provision was made for evil clerics, by reversing a few spells, and control undead instead of turning.

Under these rules, there's functionally only two "teams", holy god or unholy god/demon. So, even though there might have been a pantheon, they were functionally all the same religion and gave the same spells.


And then you have Druids, who really really broke that conception.

Thrudd
2015-03-23, 10:59 PM
And then you have Druids, who really really broke that conception.

Yes, the Druid represents a second religion which mysteriously grants spells in an identical manner. But the cleric class still could represent a monotheistic religion. Nobody said that religion had to actually be the one true faith, or that the beliefs of either the clerics or the Druids represent the actual truth.

Cikomyr
2015-03-24, 06:53 AM
Actually, what i find interesting is the practice of Polytheism within a setting vs. A setting's society.

Basically, consider a setting like 40K. The setting is very clearly polytheist as there is a plethora of gods active in the universe. However, Imperial Society is very, very harshly monotheist.

Compare a setting more like Ancient Greece, where the relevant society venerates/acknowledge the existence of a multitude of Gods. Sure, there may be temples/shrines/cities with a specific patron God, but usually a Priest of Athena is usually not going to pick a fight with a Priest of Apollo. Hell, the Priest of Athena would probably say the occasional prayers to Apollo, and maybe officiate for his holy days in a crunch. At worst, there might be enmity between two priests of different gods over, say, who receive the patronage of the King. But none would dispute or challenge the other god's existence.

Polytheism change the battlefield to a less philosophical/existential one as Monotheism. In fact, you could see Monotheism vs. Polytheim as more of a "War of the Pantheons" instead of "War of the Gods", its just that one side happens to be a Pantheon of 1.

Polytheism turns religious fights more about control of ressource and influence (Earthly matters), whereas Monotheists is about supremacy of belief, and denial of the other.

Although, i am wondering if adhering to a polytheist pantheon would make Polytheist Priest less adverse to other religions. I mean, oh, these people have a God of Thunder too? So i guess Zeus is called Thor over here! Conflict would probably arise when discussing minutia of the mythology, tho..

Tl:dr: i guess the key issue we should discuss is more of Pantheons, and how exclusive those are. Pantheon should be a set of Gods people have no problem turning from one to another when the need arise (no " jealous" god). And especially, there should be no "bad guy" among a Pantheon. There can be Divine Jerks, but no one who is "The Adversary"...

Hmm.. This is probably why i like D&D Elven Mythology. The Seldarine reflect exactly the way i think a polytheist society should act. With exiled Seldars cast in the role of Bad Guys.

...goddamnit. I cannot remember if Dark Elf.society of monotheist or not. I know they reject Vaerhaum, but do they reject Selvetarm?

GungHo
2015-03-24, 08:51 AM
This is dangerously close to breaking forum rules, but what are people's views on using possible polytheistic versions of monotheistic religions in a 'real world' setting? Because I'm creating an Urban Fantasy setting where path magic draws from mythological gods, and I want to include angels without an all powerful deity. Is changing the 'truth' behind still living religions something to be avoided?

If people want more details I'm fine to provide them, I'm just wary of breaking forum rules.

No need to provide details. If there was no audience for "alt versions" of things that are similar to current religion or that blend with mythology, shows like Supernatural, movies like The Prophecy, and the Percy Jackson book series wouldn't exist. All discussions on this lead to "You need to know your audience." If your players are cool with it, go for it. If they aren't, don't. If you aren't sure, ask them. Strangely enough, this goes for a lot of things.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-24, 02:05 PM
And then you have Druids, who really really broke that conception.

I suppose druid magic could be a manifestation of holy magic channeled through the natural world. Okay, maybe I'm reaching here...

Joe the Rat
2015-03-24, 02:22 PM
I suppose druid magic could be a manifestation of holy magic channeled through the natural world. Okay, maybe I'm reaching here...
No, I think that works. The other way you could look at it is that "nature" generates its own holy magic. Same type, different source.

Here's an analogy. Think of Magic is Electricity. Clerics gain their magic directly from a higher power, outside of the world yet responsible for much of its workings. In other words, the sun. Using solar cells, hydrothermal towers, or (my favorite) orbital arrays that transmit the energy to earth via microwave beam, the cleric's power is channeled directly from the sun.

Now Druid, that's all about power from the world around you. It could be the energy of the sun channeled through the world (wind an hydroelectric are fundamentally weather driven, solar energy creates weather), or from the world itself, independent of "celestial" intervention (Geothermal).

Anonymouswizard
2015-03-24, 02:29 PM
No, I think that works. The other way you could look at it is that "nature" generates its own holy magic. Same type, different source.

Here's an analogy. Think of Magic is Electricity. Clerics gain their magic directly from a higher power, outside of the world yet responsible for much of its workings. In other words, the sun. Using solar cells, hydrothermal towers, or (my favorite) orbital arrays that transmit the energy to earth via microwave beam, the cleric's power is channeled directly from the sun.

Now Druid, that's all about power from the world around you. It could be the energy of the sun channeled through the world (wind an hydroelectric are fundamentally weather driven, solar energy creates weather), or from the world itself, independent of "celestial" intervention (Geothermal).

And the wizard has his own fusion generator? :smalltongue:

I actually like the idea that all 'magic' is the same sort of energy. So clerics have solar panels, druids use geothermal, wizards have a fusion generator, and sorcerers nick it from the neighbours without paying. But it all generates electricity which you use to power devices (spells), although you might not be particularly good at building certain devices (spell not on your classes list).

DontEatRawHagis
2015-03-24, 02:36 PM
I find it weird that all the races are techically under one religion.

In DnD the Deities for a setting typically fall under one Pantheon. So even though you wouldn't see a cleric of Tiamat break bread with one of Bahamut(sp) they are technically following the same religion.

Though then again that didn't stop Sparta from attacking Athens.

Sith_Happens
2015-03-24, 02:48 PM
Although, i am wondering if adhering to a polytheist pantheon would make Polytheist Priest less adverse to other religions. I mean, oh, these people have a God of Thunder too? So i guess Zeus is called Thor over here! Conflict would probably arise when discussing minutia of the mythology, tho..

From what I've heard this is often the case in the real-life eastern world. See: Life of Pi.

Thrudd
2015-03-24, 04:51 PM
No, I think that works. The other way you could look at it is that "nature" generates its own holy magic. Same type, different source.

Here's an analogy. Think of Magic is Electricity. Clerics gain their magic directly from a higher power, outside of the world yet responsible for much of its workings. In other words, the sun. Using solar cells, hydrothermal towers, or (my favorite) orbital arrays that transmit the energy to earth via microwave beam, the cleric's power is channeled directly from the sun.

Now Druid, that's all about power from the world around you. It could be the energy of the sun channeled through the world (wind an hydroelectric are fundamentally weather driven, solar energy creates weather), or from the world itself, independent of "celestial" intervention (Geothermal).

This is assuming, of course, that clerics and Druids know where their magic really comes from at all. They might speculate about how magical energy works and is channeled to them the same way we are here, but the "truth" of their world might be something neither of them, nor anyone in their society, can even conceive of. Gods and magic simply being the way a superstitious and unscientific population interpret things they can't possibly understand.

Cikomyr
2015-03-24, 07:24 PM
And the wizard has his own fusion generator? :smalltongue:

I actually like the idea that all 'magic' is the same sort of energy. So clerics have solar panels, druids use geothermal, wizards have a fusion generator, and sorcerers nick it from the neighbours without paying. But it all generates electricity which you use to power devices (spells), although you might not be particularly good at building certain devices (spell not on your classes list).

Warlocks is fossil fuel, digging up things better left buried, and soiling the world in the process.

veti
2015-03-25, 02:36 PM
No, I think that works. The other way you could look at it is that "nature" generates its own holy magic. Same type, different source.

Here's an analogy. Think of Magic is Electricity. Clerics gain their magic directly from a higher power, outside of the world yet responsible for much of its workings. In other words, the sun. Using solar cells, hydrothermal towers, or (my favorite) orbital arrays that transmit the energy to earth via microwave beam, the cleric's power is channeled directly from the sun.

That's all very well, but it doesn't explain why the arcane and holy spell lists are so different. If it's all the same power, then why can't a high-level wizard do everything a high-level cleric can do, and vice versa? It seems to imply that gods are basically no different from very-high-level wizards, and that doesn't sit right with me.

I prefer to think of power provided by the gods as qualitatively different from that tapped by arcane mages. (And different again from psionics, but let's leave them out for the moment.) So if arcane magic is like electricity, clerical magic is like gas, psionics like - I dunno, water? You can do a lot of the same things with them, but not all, and they each have their individual strengths and weaknesses.

Joe the Rat
2015-03-25, 04:34 PM
That's all very well, but it doesn't explain why the arcane and holy spell lists are so different. If it's all the same power, then why can't a high-level wizard do everything a high-level cleric can do, and vice versa? It seems to imply that gods are basically no different from very-high-level wizards, and that doesn't sit right with me.

I prefer to think of power provided by the gods as qualitatively different from that tapped by arcane mages. (And different again from psionics, but let's leave them out for the moment.) So if arcane magic is like electricity, clerical magic is like gas, psionics like - I dunno, water? You can do a lot of the same things with them, but not all, and they each have their individual strengths and weaknesses.

The analogy wasn't arcane vs divine, but cleric vs. druid. Arcane magic... would require a different analogy. And depends greatly on what the heck magic is in your game. If all magic flows from the divine, then arcane magic is about hacking into those flows. Maybe life magic is too complex to pull out of the system as is, but by golly you can use the bits and pieces to manipulate things in all sorts of interesting ways. If Clerics use an orbital array to draw power for their Orgone collecter, Wizards simply hack the array controls and use the microwave beam as an orbital death ray. Or magic is part of reality independent of gods, and it's just a matter of how you learn to do things. Apparently creating an entire object from scratch is simpler than putting somebody back together from a damaged state, and gods carry the secrets of life. Or maybe the gods have good copy protection on their spells for Who Lives and Who Dies. Or maybe Arcane is AC and Divine is DC, and you can't run a spell built for one on the other without an adapter. I've always perferred a spiritual vs. material approach.

LibraryOgre
2015-03-25, 10:42 PM
I find it weird that all the races are techically under one religion.

In DnD the Deities for a setting typically fall under one Pantheon. So even though you wouldn't see a cleric of Tiamat break bread with one of Bahamut(sp) they are technically following the same religion.

Though then again that didn't stop Sparta from attacking Athens.

Consider one of the better known AD&D examples: Dragonlance. There are 21 deities on Krynn... 7 good, 7 evil, 7 neutral. EVERYONE who worships a real deity worships one of the 21; if you worship someone else, you don't get spells, even if that person is a powerful deity in your home crystal sphere. Sometimes, a deity will go by different names in different places (Sargas of the Minotaurs is Sargonas of the Solamnians), but they're always the same deity with the same portfolio and very similar beliefs.

Why? Because the deities are real, actively engaged, individuals. In Eberron, they may or may not be real, and they're certainly not actively engaged, but in Dragonlance, if they're not having a snit fit because people don't love them right, then the gods meddle in the affairs of men and elves.

Jayabalard
2015-03-26, 11:58 AM
So something that I've been wondering for a while now... most fantasy RPG settings (or fantasy settings in general, for that matter, but it seems to be more prevalent in RPGs) are basically a pseudo-Medieval Europe when it comes to technology and culture (although certain technologies--like firearms--are generally downplayed, and cultures are much more likely to just be "hats"). However, one of the biggest facets of Medieval Europe--a single, monolithic church and monotheistic religion--gets thrown out in favor of a polytheistic pantheon of gods, often with a Classical Greek/Roman feel.

I'm not necessarily saying there's anything wrong with that--I did it when I created my campaign world, although I did include one single church of said pantheon--but I would like to know if anyone has any idea about why that's the case.

And a related question, are there any major RPG settings with a monotheistic religion (or no single prevalent religion)?

I do know that the Catholic Church was not universal in Medieval Europe--there was the Eastern (Greek/Russian) Orthodox branches and eventually Protestantism--but that's not the point. Even the major non-Christian religions were monotheistic--polytheism was very rare in Medieval Europe.

Also, I only bring up the religion of Medieval Europe as a comparison to how things are portrayed in most RPGs. I'm not intending to make this a discussion of real-world religion, so please don't take the discussion in that direction.
GURPS fantasy setting (Yrth) uses real world religions.

Al-Haz: Shiite Islamic
Al-Wazif: Sunni Islamic
Araterre - Island nation. 16th Century Catholicism brought into line by Banestorm Church. strong Huguenot "heresy".
Cardiel - Formed from the former Islamic Nation of Al-Kard, which was conquered by Megalos, but lost control of Cardiel. Nominally Catholic, practices tolerance of other religions.
Caithness: Catholic
Megalos — The largest nation of Yrth, Megalos is a human-dominated Christian Empire. Catholic
The Nomad Lands: Pagan
The Oceans
The Orclands: Anti-The Eternal
Sahud - Quasi-Asian nation on the northern coast of Yrth. Buddhist/Shinto
The Great Forest. Elven worhip of the Eternal
The Southwestern Wilderness
Tredroy: City of Three Laws — Tredroy is a city divided between the rule of Cardiel, Al-Haz and Al-Wazif.
Zarak — The Underground Kingdom of the Dwarves. Dwarven Worship of the Eternal