Author Topic: Sorraine  (Read 23039 times)

Scarlett

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #15: April 18, 2013, 04:50:50 PM »
Sartanism was doing pretty well in Cathay for a while. Sorraine's loss to Ohnar West and subsequent Imperial buy-out damaged the credibility of both the realm and the church to most Cathayans (whether fairly or not). If the church had said 'Sorraine lost the war, to the victors go the spoils' and let the realm fall and rebuilt something new, Sartanism would probably still be the dominant religion in Cathay.

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But, to my mind, they were more the exception than the rule.

Henry II was probably further out than most, but so were really pious kings like Louis VII of France (ironically enough, Henry's spouse's first husband). If you were a typical medieval King you'd want to make sure that you had at least some of the bishops or archbishops in your corner, and that way everybody wins. You did have some big bones of contention like investiture, and of course the great schism.

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especially since the default stance of "all religions are equal, like I give a !@#$" i

I don't know that that is a popular opinion, at least in the FEI. Edmund is probably closer to thinking so than Galiard. The MAE used to be very influential and he's stuck with it for a long time, and he did respect the CoS for a while until it imploded. What you're describing is probably more a symptom that most religions don't have very active constituencies - the Order has some great key players, for instance, but apparently not a heck of a lot in the way of active followers.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but almost all major medieval conflicts were at least partly religious in nature.

I wouldn't say almost all. Probably more true of the Renaissance than the Middle Ages. You certainly had your religious conflicts like the Crusades (foreign and domestic) and the Reconquista but 'most' medieval conflicts were local. The Hundred Years War had jack to do with religion and while religious influence was a major component in several wars (let's get the pope/the templars/the archbishop's money in on this) the wars themselves were not usually religious. If I had to generalize I'd say that 'most' religious conflict - that is, heresy - never made it to the 'war' stage because it typically involved really lopsided conflicts where the heretics were rounded up and set on fire.

Though if you measured number of deaths rather than number of wars, you might come ahead there. The sack of Jerusalem in the First Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in the fourth, as well as the Albigensian crusade add up to a lot of bodies. There's a quote from the Albigensian that would make at least some Norrels proud:

'"Today your Holiness, twenty thousand citizens were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex."

The streets of Jerusalem were said to have been a sea of blood after the Crusaders were done with it.

The big difference even between SA on Dwilight and medieval faith is that the Catholic Church usually incentivized rulers to do things. SA has theocracies which the Catholics never really had. BM will never see a successful crusade under current mechanics that isn't just 'allied theocracies fighting the same people.' The First Crusade didn't have Kings going along and it was famously difficult for later Crusades to enlist Kings. The First Crusade appealed to minor lords and second sons on the material plane, and a handful of rich and influential magnates like the Count of Toulouse on the spiritual plane with its 'all sins will be forgiven' bent. In BM you'd need the ability for the Count of Someplace to make his own war on a third party without dragging his whole realm into it for this to work.

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Also, I just think the game would be more interesting if characters actually put some more weight into their faith.

I agree, but this is tough to turn into a game mechanic in a low fantasy world. I'd love to play a zealot. I just don't want to be the only zealot in the room.

Norrel

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #16: April 18, 2013, 05:12:33 PM »
Sartanism was doing pretty well in Cathay for a while. Sorraine's loss to Ohnar West and subsequent Imperial buy-out damaged the credibility of both the realm and the church to most Cathayans (whether fairly or not). If the church had said 'Sorraine lost the war, to the victors go the spoils' and let the realm fall and rebuilt something new, Sartanism would probably still be the dominant religion in Cathay.

Is this still the case? The CoS lost basically all of its followers, but, as I understand it, all those people are still Sartanists. They just don't hold to the Church.

Pretty hilariously, it seems like William's only real major contribution, religion wise, was destroying the CoS's grasp on Cathay.

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I don't know that that is a popular opinion, at least in the FEI. Edmund is probably closer to thinking so than Galiard. The MAE used to be very influential and he's stuck with it for a long time, and he did respect the CoS for a while until it imploded. What you're describing is probably more a symptom that most religions don't have very active constituencies - the Order has some great key players, for instance, but apparently not a heck of a lot in the way of active followers.

I'm not really talking about Galiard. But if you look at everyone else, it seems that religious tolerance is the mode du jour. Velax, Edmund, probably Rhosmyria, Ingall, and then hundreds more who aren't at the ruler level. So yeah, I'd say it's a pretty damn popular opinion. And this is on the second-most fanatical continent in the game.

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I agree, but this is tough to turn into a game mechanic in a low fantasy world. I'd love to play a zealot. I just don't want to be the only zealot in the room.

I don't think a game mechanic is necessary. It'd be helpful, but not necessary. The major problem is the culture; as you said, nobody wants to be the odd one out. Once the ball gets rolling, however, you get a shift. You can see something akin to that on Dwilight.

And you wouldn't be the only zealot in the room, at least in Cathay. William's a pretty hard zealot (though he's softened up in recent years), as are a few others.

If people can find ways to be zealots in the real-life information era, you can find a way to write a fictional zealot in a low-fantasy setting. I did it.
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Norrel

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #17: April 18, 2013, 05:14:16 PM »
'"Today your Holiness, twenty thousand citizens were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex."

Welp, looks like I need to find an excuse for William to commit religious genocide. What a badass quote, holy !@#$.
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Hroppa

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #18: April 18, 2013, 05:30:55 PM »
Despite the church's corruption etc it had pretty intense ideological influence. Any individual Pope might not be able to have his way, but as an institution the church influenced behaviour quite significantly. One reason for its immense wealth was that nobles kept leaving it lots of money, to get them into heaven!

Unfortunately this kind of thing requires more RP investment than most people consider worth bothering with. A sufficiently widespread & active church can reduce the ideological legwork required, e.g. SA, but then you have the problem of coordinating people into the same church. In particular, I've found, getting motivated and active priests together around the same idea can be tricky.

Scarlett

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #19: April 18, 2013, 05:37:11 PM »
I think you do need a game mechanic to incentivize people in the same way that medieval nobles were incentivized by a, uh, life mechanic.

You could tie it into morale or loyalty (as it already sort of is for region lords) but also battlefield performance. You could tie it into recruitment or recruitment centers: the availability of holy orders. This requires a decentralization of recruiting from 'everybody gets troops in the capital' to 'everybody recruits their own subjects', which has been talked about for a long time but is such a big change that I doubt we'll see it anytime soon.

The trouble is that even with SA on Dwilight, most of its magnates are also secular magnates. You don't have many people whose primary duty is to the church, and even if you did you'd need such people on the local level as well. You need a reason to give a crap not only about the Pope but also the local monasteries and abbeys. Gold and soldiers make for pretty good reasons.

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Is this still the case? The CoS lost basically all of its followers, but, as I understand it, all those people are still Sartanists. They just don't hold to the Church.

I would love to make the sCoS an actual player in these things but with the invite to sermon bug I don't see that happening any time soon.

Norrel

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #20: April 18, 2013, 05:42:42 PM »
I would love to make the sCoS an actual player in these things but with the invite to sermon bug I don't see that happening any time soon.

If it weren't for this pesky war you decided to start, William would already have gone to the temple and got himself converted, haha
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Scarlett

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #21: April 18, 2013, 05:46:06 PM »
Hey, I've got nothing to do with making our little war into a huge war. Galiard doesn't go to war out of boredom. You should know that, you've tried to make him do it enough times. :)

Lefanis

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #22: April 18, 2013, 05:56:45 PM »
... Ingall,

Given Ohnars lovely position, expressing any more zealotry than we do already would be akin to painting a big target on our chests. The little attempt of the Way of the Dragon to stir up followers raised enough heads by itself.
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Norrel

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #23: April 18, 2013, 06:06:35 PM »
Given Ohnars lovely position, expressing any more zealotry than we do already would be akin to painting a big target on our chests. The little attempt of the Way of the Dragon to stir up followers raised enough heads by itself.

I'm not blaming you, I'm just stating the facts. That you are forced into the position is sort of my point.
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Ender

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #24: April 18, 2013, 07:43:09 PM »
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I'm not really talking about Galiard. But if you look at everyone else, it seems that religious tolerance is the mode du jour. Velax, Edmund, probably Rhosmyria, Ingall, and then hundreds more who aren't at the ruler level. So yeah, I'd say it's a pretty damn popular opinion. And this is on the second-most fanatical continent in the game.

I'll admit to this. Edmund has religious preference, but it does not influence his major decisions. As a follower of the Order, he'll tweak things where he can to help their spread and give support to other members of the Order when asked. He's not overly fond of the Church of Humanity as of late, so he ignores them, and he really doesn't like Sartanism (even pre-Order Edmund didnt like Sartanism), so he'd gladly fight against them. Everyone else he ignores.

When it comes to major political decisions I keep the peace and nothing more. There's no gain in Edmund becoming a religious zealot in a realm that, for the most part, preaches tolerance and cultural acceptance. That's not an OOC decision either, but IC considering the way the world around him is.

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I agree, but this is tough to turn into a game mechanic in a low fantasy world. I'd love to play a zealot. I just don't want to be the only zealot in the room.

I played a religious zealot before Edmund and thought it was huge fun. The Trinity under Cid was harsh, unforgiving, and brutal and he was uncompromising in his beliefs. I don't think many people liked him, but he was carrying out a mission from the gods and he loved it.

More incentives in the game for characters like that to exist would be great.

Norrel

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #25: April 18, 2013, 09:56:09 PM »
More incentives in the game for characters like that to exist would be great.

Aside from having peasant followers actually contribute something (which the devs have repeatedly rejected), there isn't much. So long as religions are a net loss, there'll never be a real impetus for expansion, as there is for realms.
“it was never wise for a ruler to eschew the trappings of power, for power itself flows in no small measure from such trappings.”
- George R.R. Martin ; Melisandre

Phellan

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #26: April 18, 2013, 10:23:07 PM »
Aside from having peasant followers actually contribute something (which the devs have repeatedly rejected), there isn't much. So long as religions are a net loss, there'll never be a real impetus for expansion, as there is for realms.

Lack of incentives is a huge problem.

The Order has one of the largest peasant bases on the Island and has a fair number of Nobles.  But we have no real actual "power" or way to galvanize or give incentives to our player base.   There are WAY to many regions with 95% followers of the Order and a heathen Lord.

We'd love to be more zealous - we use to be, and we had all the secular "we love every faith" Realms try to wipe us out because we actually RP'd like we wouldn't tolerate opposing faiths.    The lack of caring in the Order is mostly a result of that backlash now. 

Hard to be "hard line" when the only thing you get from it is cast out by people who want everyone to get along (and then the game gets boring).

Norrel

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #27: April 18, 2013, 10:31:23 PM »
We'd love to be more zealous - we use to be, and we had all the secular "we love every faith" Realms try to wipe us out because we actually RP'd like we wouldn't tolerate opposing faiths.    The lack of caring in the Order is mostly a result of that backlash now. 

Hard to be "hard line" when the only thing you get from it is cast out by people who want everyone to get along (and then the game gets boring).

I find that kinda tragic.
“it was never wise for a ruler to eschew the trappings of power, for power itself flows in no small measure from such trappings.”
- George R.R. Martin ; Melisandre

Indirik

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #28: April 19, 2013, 01:51:13 AM »
It definitely requires players to willingly have their characters submit themselves to the religious authority. Get enough people like that in secular power positions, and you can make something happen.
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Phellan

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Re: Sorraine
« Reply #29: April 19, 2013, 03:07:14 AM »
It definitely requires players to willingly have their characters submit themselves to the religious authority. Get enough people like that in secular power positions, and you can make something happen.

Yes, but that is true for anything in the game.

Velax is "emperor" because people with authority will submit to him.   It is no different and doesn't require game mechanics to implement.

Religions really dont have any more influence or power than what the players give them.   Which is a shame - the priest game could be a whole lot more fun and intricate if there was more influence to be wielded.

That said, I've run a priest character for years.   Its amusing at least to try.