The Path of Conflagration: From Ash unto Flame

[CryptCypher]

End of an era... And the rebirth of opportunity. The Path of Ashes may be over, but the Conflagration has only just begun...

Letter from Sigrid Gudrun Auru'in   (1 hour, 23 minutes ago)
message to all nobles of Redhaven

...The Path has come to an end.

Religion Lost   (2 hours, 9 minutes ago)
message to everyone in The Path of the Paragons

With the loss of its last temple, your order The Path of the Paragons has lost its powers and influence, forcing it to close down. The order has been disbanded and your membership terminated.

Sigrid Gudrun Auru'in
Baroness of Sermbar

Lets take this opportunity to rekindle the [Xavax] Flame - the Old Way.

Out-of-Character from Sigrid Gudrun Auru'in   (just sent)
message to all nobles of Redhaven

:| Well that was terribly anti-climactic.

Our downfall is quite clear: we made the faith too insular and it never had a chance to gain traction. We can have a faith that deals primarily in Xavax-inspired lore, but without excluding others in the process. Its all about keeping things dynamic enough to apply to other cultures, and substantive enough to merit interaction between its members and outsiders. Unfortunately, we lacked both options.

Beside using its channel as a clandestine political faction headquarters, there was little-to-no actual interaction of faith or lore, nor development of such. If any took place it did so in private channels or long ago - making the organized religion and its channel a pointless exercise in the first place. Add the fact that our Saoi had zero tolerance for alternate ideas and excommunicated the first person who expressed a challenging view, and we were dead before the blood dried.

Since no one else can spare the time & effort to keep faith, allow me to propose a [counter-] reformation, hearkening back to the multi-national origin of Xavax faith.

I believe that a clever splicing of Paragon-Path and Phoenix-Cult, with some new ideas thrown in, will fare better than the Path did.

If anyone has any ideas, lets get the ball rolling. I have no problem making Sigrid a Priestess - as a younger character it prevents the Xavax from losing far more experienced and important characters and denying Redhaven their substantial recruitment pools.

RP was always my strong suit anyway. I can contribute far more as a diplomat and deal-pusher than an extra body on the field.

[Anaris]

If you feel the need to found another religion, I strongly urge you to make it an aggressively inclusive religion, politically speaking. Don't make it Yet Another State Religion that's just going to be treated as an extension of the realm...because that's what it is.

And if you make it a religion that's "primarily focused on Xavax-inspired lore", that's exactly what it's going to be seen as, and your potential follower base will never be larger than your realm (in fact, it will almost inevitably be smaller).

What BattleMaster needs isn't more religions. It's better religionsâ€"ones that can actually attract people to them by being interesting and non-realm-based. Only then will they be able to create conflict separate from realms.

[CryptCypher]

True - but I can't just outright say that without backlash from anti-reformist elements ;)

The original Xavax faith was all-inclusive, and quite aggressively-so. I made sure of it.

I'd like to go back to those ideals, the ones that helped -shape- Xavax, as opposed to a cult that merely reflects what Xavax has become.

[Eduardo Almighty]

What BM need is more people playing Priests (I doubt it will happen) or just find a way for religions to survive without Priests, with Lords being able to enlarge the temples. What's the problem in having regional religions!? We don't need SA everywhere. We don't need a Church of Humanity in every continent. Why are the Devs insinuating and calling for broad rather than small and regional religions?

Follow the easy way... forget religion and just found a guild. Religions are already dead.

[Anaris]

What BM need is more people playing Priests (I doubt it will happen) or just find a way for religions to survive without Priests, with Lords being able to enlarge the temples. What's the problem in having regional religions!? We don't need SA everywhere. We don't need a Church of Humanity in every continent. Why are the Devs insinuating and calling for broad rather than small and regional religions?

Because a continent is already "small and regional". And, frankly, either a religion is designed to be acceptable to a single realm or a realm and its close allies, or it's designed to be acceptable to most realms.

And because in real life, religions have not generally been "small and regional". Sure, they may start out that way, but the ones that actually matter? They're continental or global.

And finally, because we've watched the pattern of how religions have worked in this game for a number of years now, and the "small and regional" or state religion thing just isn't making any real difference in interactions. SA does. Maybe you don't like the way SA is run, or the specific differences it makes, but the fact is, a broad-based religion that covers a significant chunk of a continent is an entity that can create (or defuse) conflict in ways that are separate from Realm A wanting Realm B's land or Doge Kepler pissing off High Poobah Rasputin.

[Eduardo Almighty]

The SA is the only exemple of a functional religion I can remember for my whole time in BM... but unfortunately it has nothing of religious. So if you want to go to the religious, ecclesiastical or mystical instead of listening to a lot of Crixus disputing who spits the furthest away, you're in bad luck. It is not a matter of liking how they lead SA or not. But perhaps you should consider that when you talk about religion, not everyone considers SA a good example just because it "worked" the way the Devs wanted religions to be.

In EC, I can remember only one event of religious friction between the Church of Humanity against the Sacred Grove, mostly because of the propaganda of "humans vs elves" thing. I don't remember other religious strife... and in the end, Ecthelion just wanted to bring every religion in, letting Sirion's own religion to vanish with him. Maybe Xavax can achieve this because they are diversified and fragmented, so they can create two different religions, one in the south and one in the north and then seek for some conflict.

In any case... without Priests or interested people, any advance in any direction is useless. Between SA and a guild, a guild would serve the same purpose.

[CryptCypher]

SA had its moments. At least, it did back in 2012 when I was exposed to it. My favorite character was that loon Glaumring. :)