I have
played Dungeons and Dragons for more than 15 years. Lately, I have only just started playing
again with any regularity, but I still have numerous ideas and want to use my
blog as a creative outlet. This is going
to be a reoccurring thing as I just keep hammering out things and not all of
them can be turned into elements in my “random fantasy novel ideas” folder.
What Have I Got: What a Wonderful World
Last time I
talked about borrowing from history.
That the eras as we think of them today were vast, both in length of
time and in how big the area they refer to could be and to adapt them with that
in mind. What you consider the core or
best aspects of a historical era might not even register with someone else.
I also
talked about the importance of ambiguity. When introducing characters, places, and
events to your world you want different people in the world to have different
assumptions and dispositions toward those elements. Maybe no one knows exactly what happened or
why, only that the fallout from the events was so bad that everyone forgot what
started it.
The idea
here is sort of a continuation from those in part one, when I talked about
using published campaign settings and borrowing elements from other areas of
fiction for adaptation. All of this is
very top down and broad strokes. So, let’s
look at something specific, Religion.
I should
warn you, occasionally this blog reads like the mad ramblings of someone who
has tried to condense the topic of religion into less than 2,500 words.
Cause it is that.
Wrath of the Gods: Getting by with the Bare Minimum
Dungeons
and Dragons, in its most common incarnations embraces the idea of a pantheon of
gods. A collection of powerful entities
that either created the universe or embody aspects of it. This is in the same concept as the religious
traditions of Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, the Norse, and even Modern
Hinduism to an extent.
In many ways,
the game is set up for this sort of thing.
Having a collection of very real and very personal gods that regularly
interact with mortals, jockey for position against each other, form alliances
and break them with aplomb, all of this is the sort of classic drama that forms…
Well, the Classics.
In many
stories of heroism or tragedy in Ancient Greek plays gods would appear, cause
trouble or instigate a conflict, watch as it played out picking favorites and
twisting circumstances, and often the power of the gods was what ultimately
settled many conflicts. The literary
term “
Deus ex Machina” means “
God from the Machine” and refers to a literal
crane used to lower an actor or statue playing the “god” onto stages back in
Greece so that the character of Zeus of Athena could use their power and wisdom
to resolve the play’s conflict and deliver the moral. By modern conventions I imagine many of these
plays to be kind of shit.
Much of
what we understand about heroic adventures (at least in Western Civilization)
comes from stories taken from Greece.
The search for the Golden Fleece, with prominent supporting character of
Hercules; the defeat of the Sphinx and subsequent mother sexing by Oedipus,
caused by trying to thwart prophecy; and the supreme mother of all heroic epics
in the West, the Iliad in which numerous demi-gods, numerous gods, and numerous
mortal heroes and heads of state clash because of events set into motion over a
beauty contest held by the gods.
Gods, insane
with power and capricious in their dealings with mortals are a big part of how
heroic fantasy is conceived of and having a handful of these guys floating
around to use as quest givers, reasons for cults, patrons for Paladins and
Clerics, or just to have something to write parables about is important for how
the world works.
You can
have a world in which no one is a demi-god and no one has ever seen a god face
to face (welcome to Earth), but people will still believe in something. It is human nature. Better to have this kind of idea spelled out
ahead of time instead of just trying to wing it, religious improve can be all
over the place and have questionable continuity that can lead to conflict (again,
welcome to Earth).
You’ll need
a
gaggle of Gods. That sounds silly,
because the term for a large group of gods is “host” not gaggle. Let’s move forward with these small
assumptions, “There is a pantheon,” “The pantheon is all inclusive,” “There is
no monotheism or other system of belief that denies the existence of any
particular god,” and “Different groups emphasize the worship of different
particular gods”.
The Gods Must be Crazy: Using What You Know
This is
where you have a choice to make, much like with using published materials in
the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk it is very easy to just pick a real-life
Pantheon (I recommend using something that is not currently being worshiped to
avoid offending someone who thinks you are making fun of their faith) and going
with that.
It is easy
to say GREEK and everyone role with Zeus and Co. You have plenty of legends you can work from
and bend them to your own understanding.
You can do what Hollywood has been doing with them for years via scraping
the bottom of the Public Domain barrel.
Maybe you
want Zeus to be past the horny days of his youth and looking to act more as a
wise mentor to the younger gods who are coming into their own. Maybe Zeus has left Olympus and now a divine
civil war might break out between Athena and Poseidon over who is the new head
of heaven. Maybe you want things to be early
in the timeline, and you want the Titans to be in charge, in which case you are
going to have to explain why humans are not in their pre-Prometheus state of
having four arms, four legs, and two faces.
Maybe a
reinterpretation is all the fun a creative exercise you want, but you might run
into a player who is a Classics nerd who wants you to stick to the legends and
might get cross when you don’t, the same sort of argumentative BS I mentioned
as a potential issue with published campaign settings only in miniature.
In all honesty,
this can be plenty of fun and if your campaign world all takes place in an area
that is a tight grouping of city states like the Greek Islands were, each with
a patron god and all pushing to be king of the hill this will save you a lot of
time. It can also be a lot of fun when
taken out of that setting. Imagine
Ancient Greek Gods but during a different era of history, I do not know how the
Protestant Reformation would look different with the Greek Pantheon as the
point of contention, but just that sentence alone could spawn a series of
fantasy/alternate history novels.
Going a Step Further: Making Stuff Up
If the
easiest thing you can do is take a something that already exists and squish it
up to your heart’s content so that it feels like your own, please do. That’s what Rome did with the Greek Gods and
people didn’t needle them about it. But
let’s try and do something that is both easier and more difficult, making up
your own stuff.
It is
surprisingly easy to make up names for gods, Grisonant, Malpropre, Cul, Putain,
and Autres. You can just put a word into
a translator and pick
French to kick out some “names” that will have a vague
context but be exotic enough to sound like… something.
I would recommend
having at least 5 gods, especially if you are going to be using the Alignment
axis for morality in the world. A god
for each of the corners and the center square will allow any Cleric in Third
edition to play any alignment and have clear guidance as to who they want to
follow. Here are five Greyhawk gods to
serve as examples: Heironeous-LG, Kord-CG, Hextor-LE, Lolth-CE, and Boccob-N.
You can
then differentiate locations and nations by the names they use for the gods,
sure Heironeous is called that in your campaign’s Paris-espy, but in London-espy
they refer to Heironeous as Uther, and in Amsterdam-espy they call him
Vangaret, and in Spain-espy he is Cid.
Whatever your starting point, no matter how few gods there are, people
will still go to war about what the “right” name is, the proper headgear to be
worn during services, or whether the Sabbath in on Saturday or Sunday.
It is easy
to create tension between the gods; it is perhaps even easier to create conflict
within individual churches or fine details.
 |
| Honestly, you could create an entire pantheon based off of the Warcraft art you find by googling random fantasy names. |
Mother
Nature could be a god of seasons, wild animals, trees, and fertility. Dagon, god of the oceans, storms, secrets,
and omens. Moloch, god of war, fire,
metalwork, and passion. Discord, god of
madness, humor, entropy, and dreams.
Cronus, god of time and space.
Think of all the things covered with just those 5 names. Did anything feel left out? Did anything feel incongruous? Did anything feel unnecessary? Are you offended that I listed Discord as a
patron of dreams instead of
Princess Luna?
 |
| "Oooh, Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me thru the night!" |
Gods are
allowed to seem strange, they are gods.
They are big and powerful and jealous of everything. They snap up being gods of anything and
everything because they want power. You
might have a god of trickery, who is also the god of mice, odd numbers, clowns,
and other useless shit.
Those
stupid little bends can be a lot of fun and add a lot of funny little chuckles
at the game table, for instance: In a post-apocalyptic world, there is a shrine
to a god of the woodlands, his symbol and form are of an unassuming mythical
creature, they were called “squirrels” … or maybe it is “ducks” which is the
word for a reptile with a shell on its back?
Not that it matters, they are all gone now.
 |
| The god of the "squirrels" or possible "ducks". |
One Step Forward and One Step to the Side
Rather than
make a whole new pantheon whole cloth let’s instead do a combination of both
borrowing and building. There are
numerous cultural figures that people see in Americana, we see them as symbols
or totems in displays of strength and wisdom, but if we were to find these
statues in the ruins of an ancient civilization we would label them gods
without question. Let me throw out some.
Let’s take
a quick moment to say, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington,
and Teddy Roosevelt have their faces carved into a mountain. A mountain that was considered a holy place
centuries before the US ever existed.
They’re deified to a comical extent, let’s move past that though,
because that might cause some uncomfortable reflecting on the absurd levels
American Exceptionalism operates on. So,
let’s exclude real people.
 |
People make jokes that there is no more room on Mount Rushmore.
I always took that statement too literally and replied with, "Yes, there is, it is a huge god damn mountain". |
Lady
Liberty is the largest statue in the world.
She is not a real person, but never the less has a decree written in
giant letters and carries a symbol of what she is and does. She is a God.
Justice, a
blind woman waving around a sword in a courthouse is not a real person, but (and
here is a fun thing) aside from being a woman and representing Justice, she is
totally different than the Greek gods of Themis and Dike whom she was
originally based. For instance, American
Justice is only blind because she was drawn that way to
mock
how ineffective the Justice system is, and somehow that was taken
as part of the package and sold as a positive!?
Though I
suppose Justice’ blindness could be a direct subversion as the Ancient Greeks
had the belief that beautiful people were chosen by the gods and thus “proved”
their moral superiority by stripping in court, so they would sometimes have the
equivalents of judges and juries look away to keep their objectivity.
Uncle Sam
is a combination of multiple figures in Americana, mostly Lincoln obviously,
but he is effectively a god, especially when he is explored in DC comics as
having magical powers tied to idealized notions of America, like living in a
mythical extradimensional place called “the Heartland”.
How about
the Eagle we see everywhere? With a
shield, an olive branch, and a claw full of arrows? Nobody want to call that a symbol of divinity?
Let’s move
beyond the positive ones, how about Slender Man? An otherworldly terror that hunts children in
the night and has no face but many hands?
Sounds like something from mythology.
Then there
are figures like the Man in the Moon, Santa Claus, or the Grim Reaper. All of these things have domains over the
night, generosity and good cheer, or freaking DEATH. How about Lady Luck? Or Bigfoot?
His symbol of course being a plaster cast of a really big footprint.
The
question of, “What strange fictional characters keep showing up in our culture
that could be reverse engineered into a mythology?” You know, like how Abraham Lincoln fought
vampires, freed the slaves, and then died for our sins; that is why they
rebuilt a wonder of the world with Lincoln in the place of Zeus.
 |
| Seriously, this is meant to evoke the Statue of Zeus, one of the original 7 Wonders of the World. |
The Future: I have to write a more dedicated series on
this
I have
plenty of ideas of how to outline and develop more substantive religious
material in a fantasy setting, I will write about that down the line in what
will perhaps be far too long a series of blogs.
If this entry has been a little lacking on the nuts and bolts that is by
design, this is more about ruminating on the basics of drawing inspiration and
seeing how you could borrow and adapt existing stuff or make subtle
permutations to ideas you have.
The Beg for Attention:
This is an
incredibly shallow look at the topic of religion, this is done deliberately. Religion as it is depicted in fantasy gaming
could be several blog entries all its own (I have already started kicking
around a better plotted series of entries for just that purpose). As someone who owns a copy of “God’s Breath”
and has had my entire adult life affected by people’s incredibly poor grasp of
religion, I prefer to keep it shallow.
Real life
religion is a lightning rod for misinterpretation and crazy. To me, it doesn’t matter what you believe, so
long as you follow some variation of the Golden Rule, and it is important to
know, that no matter how black and misery inducing any act of heresy is derided
for being, some asshole is going to go whole hog into the practice of
worshiping it.
Real life
religion is complex, deep, arcane, and keeping this topic light is key to
enjoying it in the context of a game.
Keep it light and have fun.
First Impressions 5th Edition
Since we
are talking about religion I thought I would point to a monster that is all
about starting strange cults to gods that do not exist and somehow still
getting super powers from doing so, the Kuo Toa. Why did I want to focus on them and not
something more substantive like demons?
Because this picture of the default Kuo Toa is adorable.
 |
| "Welcome to weekend cult services. Can I interest you in a Sprite? It is my favorite soda." |
Because of
the necklace and face things I keep thinking he is giving me some thumbs
up. To see if I was alone in this common
mistake I did another facebook poll of a RPG group I belong to and see if
anyone else shares my illusion about this Fish Man being so encouraging. Apparently, they can at least see where I am
coming from.
______________________________
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