New religion idea for Dwilight: Agrarian Faith of the Ancestors (working title)

[Tiridia]

Please let me know what you think of this idea. It is just a sketch.

- Temples allowed only in rural regions
- Worship of ancestors
- Player characters may become saints after death -> a guild is formed
- Saints may be elevated to deities when enough legend is built
- Food is sacred, and starvation a sign of ancestral anger

More of this later...

[Indirik]

Sounds like it could be interesting. I don't think I've ever seen anyone try to limit the placement of temples. Seems odd, as you're going to lose out on a lot of potential followers without temples in cities.

[Tandaros]

Please let me know what you think of this idea. It is just a sketch.

- Temples allowed only in rural regions
- Worship of ancestors
- Player characters may become saints after death -> a guild is formed
- Saints may be elevated to deities when enough legend is built
- Food is sacred, and starvation a sign of ancestral anger

More of this later...

I could see the flow of the seasons having a special spiritual role here too.

Cool idea.

[Chenier]

Temples in rural regions are a pain to finance and maintain...

[Telamon]

But aside from the rural limitation, this can be a cool thing.

[Perth]

Where are you planning on founding it?

[Vellos]

Temples in rural regions are a pain to finance and maintain...

Yeah, this would be a really hard religion to get going because of that.

[Tiridia]

Thank you all for your replies. Here is more sketching:

The feature of restricting the temples to rural regions is a risky one, that I grant. It is one of those things where you tied your hand behind your back to make the fight more challenging. I believe limitations are necessary in order to carve out some personality for a religion. But it is a gain if at the end it makes people interested in the religion. The feature also aims at a situation where the rural lands are more or less dominated with the ancestral worship, but the cities and towns have one or another faith in them. The AFA could not care less what the peasants in the cities worship, since they are the ones consuming the food and not the ones who help bring about the gift of the ancestors.

The feature might also result in a deeper divide between cities and rural lands, if the rural lords would tend to have one faith and the urban lords another. AFA would also see it more honorable to tend a rural region than a city, which might swim against the main current of the game. The faith would strive towards total control of all the rural lands on the continent, a goal which would probably never be achieved, but those are the best kind of goals anyway. Since food is a holy matter to the faith and an absolutely vital one to the realms as well, this would be where the faith might gain some leverage even if it would never control the cities. On the other hand, the faith would see it as a sacred duty of the rural lords to tend their regions well as to gain more of the blessing of the ancestors, so the realms would also benefit from this dedication. Hopefully interesting stories would be cooked up from these tensions.

Apart from the focus on food and the respect for the ancestors, AFA would have no other imposed values. The values the characters followed would be based on the saint or deity of their choosing, all conveniently located within the same faith. If there were a lack of a certain type of saint, all it takes to wait for someone to die and then begin to emphasize those character traits of the deceased noble that the player finds interesting and try to start a cult around that. Of course those interpretations might be contested, especially by those who actually knew the deceased, so conflicts such as this one would be commonplace, and potential for schisms would be readily available. AFA would leave it up to the lords to choose which sects to support, and would only insist the temples in rural lands to be left unharmed.

Another feature would be the rise of saints to deities. An order of a certain saint would after a time begin to accumulate legends, both of what the saint did when alive on the earth and what he has done in the otherworld. The otherworld can be seen in dreams, and a member of a sect may introduce a dream he has had to the other followers and if it sticks, it becomes more or less codified lore. A cunning banker saint might, for example, trick another saint (or even a deity!) by making an appealing bargain that the other party later regrets. When enough otherworldly lore is gained (and a sufficient number of followers), the saint is raised to a deity (and is given a new name). Then the leader of that particular cult is given elder status in AFA.

The main point here is to create a faith with very little forced dogma. Instead AFA would provide the framework into which the players could create all sorts of sects and cults, try to gain a following and then hammer their ideologies to the pantheon of the faith. Theology would become more or less a shouting match and what is valuable, just and right would be chosen by the participants, not the elders (the exception being some sort of ancestral reverence and food matters).

Where are you planning on founding it?

My character is located in Luria, so there. On the other hand, Niselur might be in a need of a new religion just about these times, so if someone over there finds this concept useful, it could be founded there as well by someone else. I would not mind.

The main point to keep in mind with this concept is that it is not a power trip for the founder, as he is more or less impartial with the saints and deities and has more of an administrative and perhaps a mediating role. I myself would found it on the spot if I did not already have a character concept that I would really like to try out. Now I am undecided. I might do it if there is definite interest to it.

I could see the flow of the seasons having a special spiritual role here too.

Yes, the cycle of seasons is important to the harvest, so specific seasons would focus on different themes. Winter, for example, would be the time of the wrath of the ancestors (risk of starvation, other inconveniences) and a time for reflections of the self and communities.

Temples in rural regions are a pain to finance and maintain...

I really like this self-limiting feature, so I would be very reluctant to let it go. It cuts straight to the core of the faith, with a touch of "live and let live" attitude. It is a feature that makes absolutely no sense in the powergamer's world, so those types would shy away from it. But if it is a feature that makes the faith utterly ineffective for gaining control of even the rural lands, then it must be reconsidered. A watered down version could exclude the cities and still get some of the tensions mentioned. By the way, badlands and mountains are also left out.

[Perth]

The feature of restricting the temples to rural regions is a risky one, that I grant. It is one of those things where you tied your hand behind your back to make the fight more challenging. I believe limitations are necessary in order to carve out some personality for a religion. But it is a gain if at the end it makes people interested in the religion.

I think you make a good point about creating personality and uniqueness for the religion and I think this idea certainly has merit. But a someone who has founded a religion and been a part of many others, believe me when I say you aren't doing yourself any favors by putting purposeful limitations on it if you want it to succeed at all. Getting a religion to become successful is extremely difficult in Battlemaster.

That being said, I do think some of your ideas, even the limiting ones, have already succeeded in at least perking a few people's interests here and would certainly succeed in giving it some personality/uniqueness.

[Tiridia]

Perth,

In your experience, do you think it more important to gain noble followers or convert peasants? My working theory is that if you manage to gain noble followers, the rest will somehow fall into place over time.

Besides the prophet (mostly a silent figure), I think I would need one arch priest to lead the thing and a second to him, which would make three elder priests and a somewhat stable and collapse safe start. Three priests would begin to make a difference in peasant conversions as well. The actual structure of ranks in the faith would be very simple. A seeker for an aspirant rank and a follower for those members who have signed up with at least one sect (order for some saint). Anyone leading a sect would be promoted to elder status, and that's all there is to it.

Who's in?

[Tiridia]

So, the ball's rolling and I am committed to it all the way. I grieve over the other character concept, but this was just too sweet to pass by. Now please help me out with a proper name for the faith. And, by the way, it shall not be located in Luria after all, quite the _opposite_ actually.

[Perth]

Perth,

In your experience, do you think it more important to gain noble followers or convert peasants? My working theory is that if you manage to gain noble followers, the rest will somehow fall into place over time.

Besides the prophet (mostly a silent figure), I think I would need one arch priest to lead the thing and a second to him, which would make three elder priests and a somewhat stable and collapse safe start. Three priests would begin to make a difference in peasant conversions as well. The actual structure of ranks in the faith would be very simple. A seeker for an aspirant rank and a follower for those members who have signed up with at least one sect (order for some saint). Anyone leading a sect would be promoted to elder status, and that's all there is to it.

Who's in?

Noble's no doubt.

However, it's more about ACTIVE Nobles who CARE than anything else. Which is the hard part.

[Frostwood]

To get the faith to work out you will need something to work for: a goal-it would be interesting if there were some sort of goal required to become a deity-like for instance trials or something like that.  Like for instance you would have to gather certain unique items.

Founding a religion on Dwilight is doubly difficult because of SA-a lot of people have committed to it.  I find the people in the south in SA tend be hardcore, while in Niselur it is a little more toned back.

You are going to probably have to work the Bloodstars into it somehow, or accept it existence-at least at first, like the Cult of the Bloodmoon does, otherwise it is going to take a hard break in character to accept your religion.

[Tiridia]

However, it's more about ACTIVE Nobles who CARE than anything else. Which is the hard part.

Thus the core concept of the faith. The main body of the religion is more like an apparatus onto which you can hang whatever you wish to decorate it with, as far as values and virtues are considered. Central to the concept is that a new guy can walk in, start a sect about someone he considers a saint, get others inspired and run pretty much straight to the elder ranks. It is designed to be quite organic in the sense that it is very easy for the creative minds to begin to influence it. Those are the nobles/players that I am hoping to attract, when it is eventually founded. It is not too far fetched to describe it as a tool that enables non-priest characters to start their own religions (cults).

Naturally it will get more complicated once there are a few strong sects that disagree with one another on some major points. Intra-faith conflict is essential to a religion to avoid stagnation in the long term. Raising to power and influence shall be encouraged if only you can inspire the others to follow you. And what better way of gaining inspiration is to draw it on a deceased character that many loved and even more at least knew him? There is already a story to behind each new sect, and who would not like it if their former character was remembered and respected long since his death?

In fact, this is the only faith that I know of that enables your character to become a deity. Who can top that? ;)

To get the faith to work out you will need something to work for: a goal-it would be interesting if there were some sort of goal required to become a deity-like for instance trials or something like that.  Like for instance you would have to gather certain unique items.

[...]

You are going to probably have to work the Bloodstars into it somehow, or accept it existence-at least at first, like the Cult of the Bloodmoon does, otherwise it is going to take a hard break in character to accept your religion.

Yes, there will be plenty of goals to work for, though most of them will be generated together with others members. It will absolutely certainly not be very much directed from the top, but rather focus on serving the membership and enabling them to build their stories. The kind of characters that will in the long run become deities will probably be the ones that spark the most interest and who could serve as archetypes of this or that characteristic. What they sought in life will likely be what the sects will seek as well. So, to increase your chances to become a deity a you should lead an interesting and an unforgettable life.

As for the stargazers, there is no problem in acknowledging the worth of following the stars, but the question that Mirabelle will be asking in the future is that who would you rather go for an advice: something high up in the skies or something who has been here on this land before, who has an active interest in your success, who knows your family and who is part of your history? The stars might work for you, but if you have never been in contact with your ancestors, how do you know they do not have something valuable to teach you?

It is going to be quite tolerant and understanding. Besides, the ancestors only want the rural lands anyway. ;)

[Tiridia]

For anyone caring to help me out a little, I have two requests:

1) What should I name the faith? Anything I can think of seems either silly or is just arbitrary.

2) Calling the deceased characters "Saints" has a resemblance of... well, you know, a certain large RL church. I've thought of replacements such as "Legends", but the guilds would then look something like "the Order of Legendary Kepler". Perhaps it does not matter. Maybe they could be named "Ancestral Order of Kepler" but I am not sure whether the character limit allows that or not. "Order of St. Kepler" works with the abbreviation, but "Order of Kepler" would be even simpler. Or "Keplerian Order" or some other mutation of the character's name. Any thoughts on this? English is not my native language, so I do not always know what works and what is just silly.

Thank you for any ideas you might want to share.