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Worldbuilding - Fantasy Religion
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if a character is a Cleric or Paladin describe that god in at least bullet points and note any needed game statistics or mechanics such as the gods domains) and build up the religion later when it is needed or when you have an intriguing idea. This also gives you an opportunity to see how the players react to your religions skeleton and build on what they like and what is important to your evolving setting and story. But if religion, gods, or a pantheon is a key aspect of your campaign setting idea, youll want to work it up in detail early during your fantasy worlds development. Creating a fantasy religion can be as long and detailed task as you want. After all, tens or hundreds of millions of people participate in the real worlds most popular religions and many of those people are teaching, writing and adding to the religion in different ways. Religion can provide another venue for conflict and drama in your game world. Detailing your worlds religions to any degree adds that same degree of depth to your world for a more rewarding experience.
Multiple Religions?
Many fantasy worlds have one pantheon of gods that interact with each other. While people may follow one god they believe all the others exist as well. Followers of a religion with a pantheon of gods would hold one god whose domain most directly impacted their lives in higher esteem, but they would also pay respect to the other gods especially as circumstances merited the respect. A trader might hold a god of travel or trade above the other gods of the pantheon, but he would certainly pay the god of fertility respect when a child was born or even ask a favor from a god of trickery if he was dishonest. Due to a gods domains (fertility, travel, trickery, etc.) some evil gods may gain some influence and power from non-evil followers. The personality and goals of the god may be independent of the gods domains from the perspective of the people. In the real world multiple pantheons of god(s) exist (even at the same time) and monotheistic and atheistic (here meaning a belief in a religious philosophy) religions exist as well. Depending on the specific culture and religion, followers of various religions may or may not believe gods from other pantheons are real or in the case of monotheistic and atheistic religions people do not believe any other gods are real. The Christian God is quoted as saying put no other gods before me which may imply that his followers may still believe in other gods as long as they put him first. The Romans were well-known to adopt many gods from the places they conquered. Despite these facts, there are also many cases where active wars were fought over one group disbelieving another groups religion. The notion of multiple pantheons often gets overlooked in fantasy games or relegated to simply the elves have a few different gods as do the dwarves, etc. But throughout history many pantheons have existed at the
same time. Often these vary by culture (the Greeks had their gods and at the same time the Egyptians had theirs) but within major cultures there may be multiple major religions if the leadership is particularly tolerant. Monotheistic religions or religions without particular gods are also often overlooked in fantasy settings. Too often people design a game world with a number of gods without considering that a religion might have just one god or no gods. A religion without any gods could be a pursuit of an idea such as logic or freedom. Therefore it is helpful to emphasize that here the term religion here is used for any religion, whether it has a large pantheon of gods, one god, or no gods. With that out of the way, there are multiple ways to handle whether or not your world has multiple religions (These classifications come from the excellent World Builders Guidebook by Richard Baker): Universal: The world has one religion. While different cultures may emphasize one god or aspect of the religion more than another, everyone generally believes the same gods or religious truths exist. Overlapping: The same basic religion exists throughout the world. However, different cultures and groups may refer to the gods by different names, have different approaches to achieve the same religious truth, or have slightly different stories about the gods. Contact: Each culture may have its own religion(s) and all of these religions truly exist in the game world. The gods of one culture know about the gods of the other cultures. They may even help or conflict with each other. Generally each set of gods has its place (Asgard, Mt. Olympus, the Abyss, etc.) in the game universes cosmology/planes. No Contact: Each culture may have its own religion(s) but deities of different religions do not know each other. Mortals may play a role here settling conflicts between the religions as each religion tries to have more influence than the others. One issue with multiple religions in a fantasy game setting is how can people handle multiple competing religions when priests for each religion can prove the religions existence through a simple cure spell? There are a couple of ways to handle this: In some cases people will disbelieve whatever they saw and say it was staged. Other disbelievers will claim some herbs were secretly used instead of divine power. In still other cases people can claim that the god in question is simply one of that persons gods with a different name. Most people do not travel to other regions so they wont be exposed to other religions. Religious conflicts can be very pronounced through active wars or they may be in the background where religions are trying to out-influence each other. The conflicts may be a combination of these if there are several cultures in your game world and depending on how compatible the religions are to each other religion. If a violent conflict is desired, those religions need to vary in some prominent ways or have some other significant cause of the conflict.
game world) into your own game world. However, unless you want to run an alternate history campaign or have an explanation using the same gods with the same names as a real world religion might be jarring for players interested in a fantasy experience. Further you may want to search for resources (a good book on the religion/mythology you are borrowing or a detailed on-line resource) to help you better understand the motivations and personalities of the gods or people who are part of the chosen religion. If you already have a religious concept in mind that is key to your game world keep that in mind as you consider these next decisions. Also, you should have some basic ideas about the culture behind this religion as the culture should influence some of your religion design decisions. (A seafaring culture will hold a water god in high esteem or it may have multiple gods with influence over water for example. A culture with a harsh climate may have harsh gods. Etc.) The first thing to consider is the size of the religion with respect to the number of gods. As mentioned above there are reasons a religion might have just one or even no gods. However if you are going to have a pantheon of gods and if it is going to be the Universal religion for the world consider keeping the pantheon on the large side. Or at least make sure the rest of your religions concept is expandable. A large pantheon would be few (2-6) major gods, (3-8) several intermediate gods, and many lesser and demi-gods (3-10 of each). But even if your religion is monotheistic, there may be a number of prominent heralds and leaders under the god such as Angels, Prophets, and Saints. Consider putting some time into designing these if it will add depth and prove useful to your game. Another factor to consider is how is the religion organized. World Builders Guidebook gives several ideas: Family: The gods are an extended family with roles and friction based on their status in the family. Racial: Each major races key feature is embodied by a god. (The Dwarven god might represent Strength, the Elven god might represent beauty, etc.) Elemental: Each god represents an element (air, fire, etc.) or quasi-element (lighting, tornadoes, etc.) Celestial: Each god is a constellation in the sky. Heroes: The pantheon is made of mortals who were somehow elevated to god-status. Natural: The gods represent natural things such as the sky and mountains or a number of plants or a number of animals etc. Stewards: The gods are themselves creations of a higher power given stewardship over the world. Bureaucracy: Each deity is a department in a large bureaucracy responsible for managing the world. Mixed: A combination of the other ways the religion is organized. A few others ways religions could be organized: Object: The religions is organized based on an object. The religion in the Rose of the Prophet books by Weis and Hickman was organized like a d20. Each god had his own side of the d20 and each edge or point was a domain such as Love, War, etc. A chess board is used as an example in a companion article here. Idea or intangible object: Perhaps each gods name starts with a different letter of the cultures alphabet or the religion is based on a single idea with different sub-religions based on different interpretations of the religion. The next factor to decide is how involved is the religion. While any religion should have some daily impact on its followers, this factor concerns how active are the deities in the lives of mortals. They may be completely oblivious to the lives of mortals because they have other concerns or they have a mutual agreement between each other to keep out of mortal affairs entirely. Or maybe the deities may severely restrict their involvement with mortals for some reason. Moving up the scale, perhaps the deities have some involvement with mortals when they arent too busy and some mortals may gain their favor but the gods only take an active role when necessary. On the other hand, the deities may be very active with mortals.
They may use mortals and wars between mortals as proxies for their own battles. They may frequently answer their followers prayers by granting favors and expecting sacrifices.
Domains
Finally we can get to the point of assigning domains to the religion. As we begin to assign domains, keep in mind that while a god may have a focus certain domains, he or she is still a god and has some amount of power over everything. A ship passengers prayer for a safe voyage may just as likely be answered by whichever god he normally worships as it may be answered by a sea god. But depending on the religion and the person, a ship passenger may be more likely to think of praying to the sea god in this circumstance as he is to think of another god. Also depending on your religion while all gods may have some power to grant a safe voyage the sea gods power may be a little or a lot more. If the religion has one god or no gods, it may be best to choose several domains that the religion emphasizes. As mentioned above perhaps the one religion has several sub-religions with different domains (points of emphasis) and priests may be part of any sub-religion. Example domains are: Elemental: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Lightning/Thunder.
Natural: Animal, Plant, Sun, Moon, Oceans, Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter), Sky/Winds, Dawn/Dusk Alignment: Chaos, Evil, Good, Law, Neutrality Conceptual: Death, Destruction, Healing, Knowledge, Love, Luck, Magic, Music, Protection, Strength, Time, Trade, Travel, Trickery, War, Wisdom When assigning these domains to your gods or religious aspects, try to have a reason why each god has each domain. Sometimes this may be obvious (a god of Death and Winter) but sometimes having no obvious reason can lead to a good story now or later. Ray Winninger has two key laws in his Dungeoncraft articles: #1 Never force yourself to create more than you need. #2 Whenever you fill in a major piece of the campaign world, always devise at least one secret related to that piece. #3 and #4 dont directly relate to worldbuilding. A good addition as #2.5 might be Some of the best background stories come from explaining something that isnt obvious in your campaign world. In that spirit, go ahead and pencil in a gods domains as Death, War, and Love. Then within a few bullet points try to come up with a reason for those domains. If you can, it will very likely be interesting. If you cant try it again with a different mix of domains. You may wish to experiment with this exercise a few times to get a set of domain groupings that is appropriate for the religion and culture you are developing. Based on the assignment of domains, the religion/gods can now start coming to life. Again, if you had a comprehensive concept for your religion in mind refer back to it to make sure the religion that you create will work with ideas you had.
The creation of Medusa and Minotaur and other creatures. Then there are sagas where the gods play a periphery or behind the scenes role, and mortals are the main characters: Noah rescuing two of each animal during the 40 days flood. The trials of Heracles by Hera. Prometheus stealing the secret of fire from the gods. Let your imagination run wild with these stories. Each religion can have its own, and a religion may even have more than one. On the other hand, dont spend a lot of time on these stories unless they will have a direct impact on the game or you simply enjoy the mental exercise. However, having a couple of these stories for each deity you need to develop at the beginning of your campaign will help you to know who the deity is when making decisions about how the deities relate to each other and how their followers worship them. When borrowing from real world religions or just pieces of them it is important to consider how being a fantasy game impacts the religion. For example, the Christian bible has two creation stories. You would have to develop a good reason why people might believe both in a fantasy world where high priests communicate with the god in question. Furthermore, a key feature of fantasy settings, magic, may impact the game worlds religions. What is the source of magical energy? Is there some contention between priests and mages? These may be important questions in a fantasy world.
on the deitys domains or some other factor. Instead of limiting a persons choice of a favored god based on alignment, each followers alignment can impact how he interprets that gods actions to a large degree. The follower can disbelieve some of the gods actions or interpret them in ways that most closely match the followers alignment. This is a relative concept however because it would be very hard (and therefore require a great story) to explain how a god who is very evil may be worshiped by people who are basically good. If a characters alignment doesnt match his gods alignment he may be asked to do things outside of his comfort area. This is another excellent source for good drama. This drama can largely be satisfied by compromises or explanations, but in some cases where one side or the other is steadfast there may be some consequences that impact the character in particular.
Summary
This extensive article should give you a comprehensive start to creating religions in your game world. While considering each point will lead to a religion with a great deal of depth, remember Dungeoncraft rule #1: Never force yourself to create more than you need. That said, a custom religion provides an excellent way to add a great deal of color and depth to your game world which will help make your campaign memorable. The religion design choices to make are endless, but the text above describes the major options available for the major design choices. Based on the choices you make, you can dive in to as much additional detail as you need or want to create. See also: Creating an example religion based on these guidelines and considerations. Text Copyright 2008, Inkwell Ideas Inc.
References/Further Reading:
Down to Earth Divinity by Ed Greenwood, Dragon magazine #56, TSR. So Many Gods So Little Time by Andrew C. Gronoshy, Dragon magazine #140, TSR. Dungeoncraft by Ray Winninger, Dragon magazine #258, Wizards of the Coast. Do-It-Yourself Deities by Stephen Kenson, Dragon magazine #283, Wizards of the Coast. Dungeoncraft by Ray Winninger, Dragon magazine #283, Wizards of the Coast. Dungeoncraft by Ray Winninger, Dragon magazine #284, Wizards of the Coast. World Builders Guidebook by Richard Baker, TSR 1996. Wikipedias History of Religion has a comprehensive list of real world religions through time and detailed articles about each religion.
11 Responses
1. Worldbuilding: Religion Design Inkwell Ideas - February 18, 2008 [...] Worldbuilding: Religion Design [...]
2.
Ben - February 20, 2008 Wow Joe this is not a blog post its a paper! Actually I like the way you broke it down from macro to micro and by categories. I rarely make such in depth considerations when creating a world but I am rethinking that now. Organic definition is what I generally rely on.
3. Worldbuilding: Fantasy Religion Design Example Inkwell Ideas - February 23, 2008 [...] through the Fantasy Religion Design Guide, our first step is to decide on the scope of religions on the world we are creating. For the [...] 4. Worldbuilding: Local Area Design Inkwell Ideas - March 5, 2008
[...] other concept first or in depth and in tandem with the local area. An article is available here on designing fantasy religions and an example is also [...]
5.
James - June 16, 2008 Actually a very brilliant article, and quite useful. I have to disagree with one point you made: it is fairly easy to explain a Good person worshiping, even being a CLERIC of an evil god: Reversed Spells and Appeasements. For example, you might have an order of Physicians who serve the God of Disease, Khelios. Khelios hates humans with a rank passion and is always trying to torture and destroy them. The Physicians work tirelessly to appease him with their surgeries and purgatives. Occasionally he relents, and allows them to destroy an entire class of Disease (such as Polio). (Same with the lord of the flies, a volcano god, a God of storms, etc.) For the other extreme, we have a Spider Goddess who was originally worshiped by hunters and trappers. (IMC- in my campaign.) When a group of her worshippers were driven underground, they became bitter and began praying to her for vengeance, for the power to trap their enemies and, finally, each other. IMC There are still hunter-gatherers who worship her good sideand generally have no idea why humans run screaming from them. Most scholars looking at this consider her somewhat insane.
6.
Istahn - August 22, 2008 Personally, I skirt around the issue of good worshipping evil and things of that nature by making all the gods in my campaigns pantheon above alignment. I tend to think that a divine being would exist in a state of consciousness far beyond simple mortal moral concepts. In this fashion Im making the various worshipper cultures the good or evil of a god. Like in the above example, good-willed hunters or evil drow might worship a spider goddess (or in my campaign, a god of beasts) and even call the same god different names. Their cleric powers are essentially the same, but the implementation of those powers will be radically different. One person uses a rope to help someone out of a well, another one uses it to strangle someone. In either case the rope itself has no moral code. I use gods in much the same fashion. I also tend to cross spheres. My elder gods each have several spheres. The fire god is also the sun god and the god of summer. The earth god is also spring and the mortal realm. The ice god is also the god of darkness (whom flees from and chases the sun gods fiery chariot, his star-riddled black cloak trailing behind him) and winter. The wind goddess is also goddess of the moon and autumn. In this way the spheres of the individual gods have things that I feel make sense for them but their spheres are broad enough to not be pinned to a moral force. Leave the morals to the mortals, just like in the real world.
7. Flavoring a Game World with Religion Inkwell Ideas - November 7, 2008 [...] which is something Ive thought about before. I wont rehash those articles. One describes designing religions for game worlds and another walks through a couple of examples. Instead, the
focus here is how to make a game [...] 8. 10 Ways to Vary Your Game Worlds Cultures Inkwell Ideas - July 31, 2009 [...] Religion: One key attribute of a culture is the religion of the people. If a religion has a pantheon of gods, people in that same culture may worship different gods. But generally a culture will not have active followers of multiple separate religions. (More on designing a fantasy game religion.) [...] 9. religion in fantasy novels helluo librorum - September 24, 2009 [...] Wetzel at Inkwell Ideas has a great article with Worldbuilding: Fantasy Religion Design Guide, and a subsequent post, Worldbuilding: Fantasy Religion Design Example. These are really handy if [...]
10.
Geoffrey Sears - June 7, 2010 I am becoming a regular to your site because of articles like this, and your hexographer tool. I honestly have been inventing pretenses to design worlds just so I can use the articles and tools you provide. You also, because of two references I think I read from you, caused me to dig out my copy of world Builders Guidebook which has survived two Ebay book purges. I just couldnt let it go. If only I could find enough time and gamers to fill the void populated with worlds left static. Thank you for your continued contributions to the community. They are appreciated.
11.
AD&D Grognard - November 18, 2010 Excellent article. I noticed a few things in the References/Further Reading section: The Down to Earth Divinity is in Dragon #54 (I thought I knew those issues fairly well and it caught my eye) There are 2 earlier pieces in Dragon: Choir Practice at the First Church of Lawful Evil (Orthodox) the Ramifications of Alignment #24 Of the Gods #29 And #142 has Made-To-Order-Clerical Orders I know there are a few more and Ive been amazed that something that plays such a big role in the game has such little coverage (trust me, I have been hunting high and low) so this article was GREATLY appreciated.
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