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In this months column, well tackle your favorite subject and mine . . .
Religion!
Ok, you can stop running and screaming now. No matter what your
feelings about organized religion, chances are the inhabitants of your
world arent going to feel the same way. Those silly little fictional
characters are going to get together and start a religion whether you like
it or not.
Actually, I find that making up religions is a lot of fun. Not only do I get
to use lots of cool, hard to pronounce names that werent quite
appropriate for cities and too cool to waste on boring kings or whatnot,
but at the same time I get to poke a bit of fun at Earths religions.
Now, it may be tempting to make a religion dedicated to worshipping the
great god(dess) Gee-Ehm, giver of life and creator of everything. I mean,
after all, if your players arent going to give you the respect you deserve,
you might as well make the peons of your world stand up and pay
attention, right? However, some people might see through this, so you
probably need to use a little more creativity.
Lets start with theistic religions first, because theyre so much fun. You
can do a monotheistic religion, but most historical religions have been
polytheistic, and besides, that way you can use up more cool names. If
you opt for a polytheistic religion, you have a LOT of details to work out.
Not only do you have to decide what each gods "domain" is, but you
have to decide how well they get along with the other gods. Many
mythologies here on Earth speak of conflicts among the gods.
Some early religions speak of gods and goddesses being created
together as husband and wife. This is one option to use. Another one is
to have a king and queen of the gods and make them the parents of many
of the other gods. A nice, big, dysfunctional celestial family! (sorry, Im
slap-happy today) Dont forget the option of having your gods sleep
around with mortals and create the occasional demi-god.
Once youve made up your single god or your entire pantheon, you have
to get down to the hard stuff. First, while you dont have to tell your
players what you decide, you need to make a mental note of whether or
not the gods are real . . . Or, if you have conflicting religions in various
cultures (which always makes for a fun experience, especially if you have
members of opposing religions in your party), you have to decide which,
if any, are real.
This is not a light decision. While it can be really cool to have the
goddess of the forest to show up and personally thank the characters for
stopping the raging forest fire, it can be hard on any atheistic characters.
Cant you just imagine the poor guy insisting for the rest of his life, "It
was a group hallucination!"? And, for that matter, if you decide that the
gods behind a religion arent real, you need to decide what makes people
believe in them, and if clerics happen to have powers that are a "gift"
from these non-existant gods, where does the power really come from?
Unfortunately, not only do most RPGs not address whether or not their
gods are real, but they pretty much make one religion for an entire world,
and that religion pretty much consists of a list of the names of the gods,
and what spells or powers (if any) their clerics and/or paladins get.
Apparently the creators of this game never went to church or synagogue
to discover that religion consists of much more than a god or gods!
As we can see from religions current and past, gods expect something of
their followers. Praise, worship, prayer, and sometimes even sacrifice.
And it wasnt a simple matter of just do it your own way whenever, there
were set times and set rituals to be done. Without these trappings,
fictitious religions seem, well, fictitious and hollow.
Fully developing a religion is a lot of work, but you may find it very
rewarding. Clerics will seem a lot more realistic when they schedule their
adventuring around holy days and the time of day when they have to
make their prayers. Not only that, but it adds further depth to the world
as a whole.
Non-theistic religions are an interesting avenue to explore. They can be
everything from just a philosophy on how to live, to a deep reverence to
nature, or even ancestor worship. For that matter, some race or cultures
religion could be nothing more than a deep-seated belief that theyre
better than everyone else. While you may argue that thats more of a
philosophy than a religion, Ive certainly met some people who felt they
were so superior that they should be worshipped *winks*
Disclaimer: AJ is still not an expert. Feel free to disregard her advice.
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