Religious issues...

[prince_dios]

Thurienne Donall(sp?), ruler of Talinie, is described in Ruins of the Empire as being willing to crush non-Haelinite temples.

I'm curious how this sort of religious bigotry would fly in the BR setting. I mean, the gods themselves seem to get along(with the exception of with the Vos clique of Belinik and Kriesha) and their roles don't overlap all that much.

[Jaleela]

Birthright isn't the 21st century, it is a quasi-late-medieval setting, and to boot, there are TONS of places in the 21st century where that sort of religious "bigotry" (intolerance of other religions is a better description) exists all the time - ever hear of religious laws in Islamic countries? Are you aware that Scientology is outlawed in modern Germany?

My read of Birthright is it is the last thing from a setting with a touchy-feely modern Western Values System. ;)

[AndrewTall]

I see her stated position as her enforcing the idea of Haelyn as head of the pantheon - so she isn't outlawing other temples but she is demanding that just as their god should bow to Haelyn, their church should bow to hers, and so she should speak for their church on various external matters.

Just as in guild holdings many different industries can be represented by a single guilder, I see temple holdings as many temples represented by a single church - the individual temples can worship various gods but only one of them is 'head of the church'.

So Thuriene will happily permit knights of Cuiraecen - as long as they accept their role as heralds of Haelyn, etc and form part of the over-arching Northern Imperial Temple, priests of Nesire are fine as long as they tend the wounded and don't preach against Haelyn's just wars, druids of Erik as long as they tend the fields as part of the natural order decreed by Haelyn, etc...

[kgauck]

Here is my interpretation fo what's going on in the Northern Marches, by which I mean Talinie, Cariele, and Dhoesone. Similar things have been going on elsewhere, but the dynamic is different because the composition of things is different.

A generation or so ago, the temples of Sarimie figured out how to change their appeal. The nobility of the Heartlands had become more open to using their wealth to make more wealth. Their long stewardship of the land in Haelynite tradition had created a surplus large enough that they didn't have to husband it carefully in case of a bad harvest or storms, or other problems. As such, the temples of Sarimie were able to change their message slightly to extend their appeal from guilders and craftsmen and exclusivly urban folk, to nobles, and by their influence to their peasants as well. Suddenly Sarimie was no longer an urban townsfolk thing, but could be rural and urban. Nobles and their peasants focused more on cash crops, faming for profit, instead of putting production as a much lower value compared to susatainability, stability, and equaity. The temples of Sarimie took off, and we have the Celestial Jewel of Sarimie to show for it. However, the priests of Haelyn didn't just give up, they adjusted and tweaked their message. Haelyn isn't just about stewardship, its also about a just and equaitable social order. They could point to some of the hardships of the new agriculture, such as enclosure, and the loss of the commons, withdrawl of cooperative farming, and so on. Eventually (say, 10 years ago) the temples of Haeyln staunched the tide and now there is an equilibrium in the Heartlands.

But as things were getting tough in the Heartlands, Temias Coumain sent a promising young lieutenant, Larra Nielems, to Cariele to take advantage of an opening there as a new guilder on the scene, Mheallie Bireon, was changing things in favor of the guilds there. Rising guilds are always an opening for temples of Sarimie. The new message of Sarimie however, wasn't confined to the guilders and craftsmen and townsfolk. Larra brought the improved message of the Celestial Jewel to the Northern Marches, and among other things, found that the doctrine of Fitzalan, emphasising hard work, was a whole new way to turn Haelynite doctrine into worshipers in the temples of Sarimie. Why just work hard, when you can work hard and get rich doing so? Suddenly there was a threat to the temples throughout the Northern Marches as the Northern Reformed Church of Sarimie started expanding wildly on this new message.

So I see the Northern Marches as being forced to respond to this new, vigourous temple of Sarimie. The Oaken Grove has responded by putting Gunther Brant at the helm of their organization. As a Brecht convert to the faith of Erik, who knows better than a Brecht how to undermine the doctrine of Sarimie and teach the values of the Old Father of the Forest. In Dhoesone, the lawpriests of Haelyn have allied with the temples of Erik to combat the Sarimie temples and win the people back to tehir traditional faiths.

In Talinie, there is a movement, likewise to combat Sarimie by moving Haelyn towards Erik and presnting a combined doctrinal attack, but this is centered on Siobhan Riedhie, the heir presumptive, and not the Thane. The Thane is being encouraged by Torias Griene to adopt a hard line policy against followers of Sarimie, because Torias knows it will fail and make the temple of Sarimie stronger by trials. In the mean time, the NIT fails to adopt the ideology neccesary to win converts by persuasion. Perhaps the NIT becomes rigid and unswerving in combating Sarimie and binds itself into a corner with an unappealing doctrine it can't shake loose.

Enter the bold PC's.

[kgauck]

My read of Birthright is it is the last thing from a setting with a touchy-feely modern Western Values System. ;)

I find Birthright full of the touchy-feely, and I take a bat to it all over the place. Its full of egalirarianism and suspicion of nobility, in a game where you play nobles. Its enviromentalism is all over the place, Talinie especially. There are some traditional value systems that get at the same end but don't sound like political fasions of the 1990's.

[prince_dios]

My read of Birthright is it is the last thing from a setting with a touchy-feely modern Western Values System. ;)

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. I'm well aware of the benighted state of the Middle East, et cetera, et cetera.

In Anuirea, unlike the real world:
1) You can cast a spell to prove your God is real.
2) The Gods have mostly friendly relationships; some are even married. I don't see how any, say, Cleric of Haelyn could justify cracking down on the follower's of his deity's wife or son for any reason.

[kgauck]

I hardly see a friendly relationship between Haelyn and Sera. Without the obvious emnity between Haelyn and Belenik, or Erik and Kriesha, I think the relationship with the most rivalry is Sera and Haelyn.

[ryancaveney]

In Anuirea, unlike the real world: You can cast a spell to prove your God is real.

We have this argument a lot, it seems; most recently just three weeks ago at http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3796.

My summary of that discussion is no, you can't prove anything by casting spells except that you can cast spells, because you can be an atheist and still cast spells -- in fact, the best wizards on Cerilia are all elves, none of whom believe in gods.


Ryan

[ryancaveney]

I think the relationship with the most rivalry is Sera and Haelyn.

Not Erik and Sera?


Ryan

[Sorontar]

Erik's biggest issue is wanton destruction and lack of regrowth so Belinik and Kriesha are the bad ones. Erik does have issues with Sera about greed making people get more than the community needs from the world, but I suspect that the rivalries really come down to the individual churches. After all the Emerald Spiral and the Oaken Grove have different views on urbanisation and merchanting. Also, individual clerics have likes and dislikes about the other religions/Gods. For instance, my Druid of Erik dislikes the use of necromancy by a Priest of Sera, especially "animate dead". I don't know that this is an issue that the churches or gods would really concern themselves about since it is not one of main fields of Sera.

Sorontar.

[Gman]

Some of the god's may very well get on but I'm pretty sure their worshipers will fail to.

Without worrying about alignment differences (and most gods have a variety of alignments as worshipers) - consider this.

Churches are full of people with many and varied agenda's and political aims.

These may or may not coincide with the aims of the State (Lords/rulers)

Even within the church of Haelyn many different "brand names" exist

Imperial Heart/ Orthodox/ Western Imperial - Forget altruism and happy co-existance -These churchs are often run by Politicians with the aim of personal power not pious well mannered faithful worshipers.

Do god's involve themselves in the every day politics of their church - NO.
Do people in those churches choose to interpret their holy writ in some way that advantages them the most. YES.

Does the Paladin get orders not to step in to a trial by combat (lets say Peasant vs lords champion ) from a High priest (who isn't Lawful good) and has an agenda - bound to happen!

CONFLICT SCISM CHAOS !!!
Worshipers of same god both believing they have the right of it going to war! Happen/happens all the time (read Reformation histories!)

Question - why doesn't god intervene - Why not stop giving clerical spells to one of the sides???

Answer - Mabey both sides have a differing perspective of the truth and no one side is any worse than the other.
- Maybey they should challenge the authority of the High priest who ordered the first attack and stop blindly following orders.

Mabey its all a test or just mabey the gods are really just sitting around in Valhalla Partying and don't give a toss - see Thor- OOTS (Order of the Stick)!!

But the thing is in all this that there are lots of Roleplaying and Political complexities to play with as a GM ! Does the Paladin follow his heart or the Rule of Law - can he go Rogue and still be Lawful or will he have to play the system against people that really may just blacked his name frame him - excomunicate him and send the assassins round (all for the good of the church of course)

Petty Petty mortals doing petty petty mortal things - not worth the time or bother to intervene! (Remember D&D gods are also not Omniscient!!)

[Gman]

The Elfies also had to recognise that Divine magic is why the humans kept obliterating them.

So me thinks that that would have to have a more sophsticated view of the universe - something like

Just because Powerful beings can grant others power doesn't make them divine but pretty royal pains in the butt who we hate. (Hey and why would you want to worship some human who got a bunch of power at Deismar)

Stupid humans call them gods but we intend to ignore them as much as is reasonably possible.

Being a pure athiest would require them to deny Divine magic and the existence of highly powerful beings that killed a good proportion of their population at Deismar in one way or another.

Not rational and elves ain't stupid. - but they have good reason not to follow gods!!

[irdeggman]

Remember its all politics.

Temples are not run by the deities they are run by the regents.

There are large scisms inside the worship of each deity themselves.

IHH and OIT, etc.

Would the OIT merely allow a regent of the IHH to attempt to start a new temple in Diemed? I don't think so.

"Crush" can mean a lot of different things. It doesn't necessarily mean to use "force" - most of the time it has to do with using "influence" and trying to sway public opinion.

Theocracies have an entirely different set of challenges and perspectives than do standard ruler based provinces.

[Thelandrin]

Being a pure athiest would require them to deny Divine magic and the existence of highly powerful beings that killed a good proportion of their population at Deismar in one way or another.

Well, that is applying our monotheistic meaning of atheism to it. In Cerilia, atheism might well be defined as denying the value of the New Gods or simple outright refusal to treat them with anything more than common courtesy. When something is real, such as divine magic, you can't deny that and, as has been pointed out, could even be rationalised away by Elves and mortals as not even connected with the Gods.

[kgauck]

In Anuirea, unlike the real world:
1) You can cast a spell to prove your God is real.
Ryan presented his excellent counter to this argument and I will now repeat my argument.
1) People hunted witches because the believed that whatever they were doing, it was malcious magic. Do you believe in witches?
2) People were punished as witches for stealing consecrated bread because it was belived to be magical. Find any criminal charges pressed for people stealing the communion host. You can't because no one believes its magical.
3) People disinherited their children to give wealth to priests to recieve absolution for various crimes. They did not seek absolution from God, they went to the priesthood, because they believed the priests wielded this kind of power. By the end of the middle ages, the Church owned about a third of the land in Europe.
4) People believed in spells and magic of whatever nature, that when authority figures proclaimed people anathema, they died. The didn't cast a 7th, 8th or 9th level spell causing death. The victim simply believed the authority figure and gave up hope. The actual cause of death in modern cases in primitive socities where this occurs is usually from dehydration. People stop eating food and drinking when they assume they are all but dead. And this kills them. Others, believed themselves in such jepoardy that they performed tremendous pennances (see disinheriting your childen above).
5) When English and French kings would go out among the people, the people wanted to touch their garments because it was belived that touching a divine figure like the king would cure certain diseases.

People believed in religion and magic as much in the middle ages as if someone had laid down emperical date from double blind studies using the best research techniques.

[Dcolby]

I find Birthright full of the touchy-feely, and I take a bat to it all over the place. Its full of egalirarianism and suspicion of nobility, in a game where you play nobles. Its enviromentalism is all over the place, Talinie especially. There are some traditional value systems that get at the same end but don't sound like political fasions of the 1990's.

LOL My players will drive the touchy feely out of a setting so quick your head spins..

[Jaleela]

I thought I should add that not all the gods in a pantheon, of the same alignment, will necessarily get along all the time. A great example of this is to look at ancient Greek mythology, and the Trojan war. Zeus and Hera were maried, but Greek mythology basically gives us this being a difficult marriage at best.

I also would third the point so ably put out of real world rivalries between people believing in the same diety, and also, the strong belief in both the miraculous, the power of relics, and 'natural magic', as well as forbidden magic in the Middle Ages - Richard Kieckhefer wrote two excellent scholarly books on the subject - "Magic in the MIddle Ages", and "Forbidden rites", the latter beibg a 15th century German work on Necromancy (not in the D&D sense, but summoning spirits, demons, and the like, and compelling them to do your will).

People used to look in the porch of a church to see an image of St. Christopher before setting out on any journey (interrupting the mass, and annoying the priest who then turned around and wrote sermons damning the practise, which is why we know about the practise), as they believed seeing an image of St. Christopher would infalibly protect them on their journey - as sympathetic magic, rather than as a proper part of Medieval Catholicisim.

Definitely, people believed as absolutely in these things as we believe the earth revolves around the sun, or in germs and micro-organisims. I think that the religions of game worlds should have the same sort of authority in the game, and the same sort of absorbtion for NPC's attention as they did in our history, so as to give the campaigns depth. Besides, it is one more realistic source of conflict.

[AndrewTall]

I see a lot of the confrontation being between rival sects of the same god - if you win you get direct converts, etc as opposed to some surly less than half convinced peasants cowed into following a god they believe false...

I removed sapient deities from my games to clear the issue but even without doing that don't see an issue with two churches - powerful political entities struggling to dominate morality and power in a community - from having very serious disagreements. They may attack each other with persuasive argument rather than military assault (mostly) but opposition is natural for them.

As a present day example just consider how the Irish catholics and protestants have got along for the last few centuries - and they worship the same god and read from the same bibles... as I think the jews, muslims and christians are all supposed too follow the same deity as well...

If you can have conflict within the same religion, you can certainly have it between 'different but allied' religions...

[ryancaveney]

Ryan presented his excellent counter to this argument and I will now repeat my argument.

To which I have no objection. =) I say, "you can't prove it," and you say "you don't need to prove it," and both are correct.


People believed in religion and magic as much in the middle ages as if someone had laid down emperical date from double blind studies using the best research techniques.

Which is why, even though in my own personal, idiosyncratic view of Cerilian cosmology, there really are no gods at all and furthermore there never were, I still have lots of people (more, surely, in Rjurik than Brechtur, but many even so in cosmopolitan Danigau) who believe that there are. Whether someone believes in a god and whether they are factually correct to do so are entirely separate things.


Ryan

[ConjurerDragon]

prince_dios schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3850
> prince_dios wrote:
> ...
> I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. I`m well aware of the benighted state of the Middle East, et cetera, et cetera.
>
> In Anuirea, unlike the real world:
> 1) You can cast a spell to prove your God is real.
> 2) The Gods have mostly friendly relationships; some are even married. I don`t see how any, say, Cleric of Haelyn could justify cracking down on the follower`s of his deity`s wife or son for any reason.
>
Marriage is not always a guarantee of a friendly relationship. Turner
and Douglas in "Der Rosenkrieg" (rose wars?) would be a nice example ;-)
Clerics of Haelyn and Cuiraceen are fundamentally different in the Law
vs. Chaos axis. The traditional lawful ruler of heaven and his young,
impulsive herald can have similar differences as Haelyn and Belinik.
And when a Cleric of Nesierie requests that the dead be mourned and all
wear black Haelyn cleric might see no reason to mourn but instead may
order a banquet and festival in honour of the soldiers sacrifice doing
their duty to their liege lord.

[Elton Robb]

1) You can cast a spell to prove your God is real.

Oh dear.

:D

[kgauck]

I disagree that Haelyn and Cuiraecen have differences in philosophy. THey seem very much in harmony. Where they differ is in the acceptance of disription to achieve moral ends. Haelyn has difficulty doing anything more than withdrawing his support for the bad ruler, leaving them to their fate. Cuiraecen goes right in and topples the bad ruler, but both are in fundamental agreement about who is good and who is bad. Cuiraecen's description of chaos is a way of describing his impetusousness, unpredictability, and his willingness to cause a mess and be distruptive. But there is no ideological conflict with Haelyn, and of all the family's described, the Haelyn, Nesirie, Cuiraecen family seems more cooperative and interactive than Erik, Avani, and Lara, who seem cooperative and interactive, or Ruornil, Sera, Eleole, which seesm strained.

I take the descriptive text far more than the alignment tags they have been given. Without the alignment tags, I would not have emphasized Cuiraecen's unpredictability, his impetuousness, and so on campared to Haelyn. So I am pleased with them as far as that goes, but I go with the descriptive material first. Haelyn and Cuiraecen get along well.

[Dcolby]

Haelyn and Cuiraecen get along well.

I would tend to agree, when one looks at the physical locations of the Haelyn and Cuiraecen churchs one will usualy find the other in close quarters. Beoruine, Tuornen, Ghoere, Mhoried... etc etc all have both churches of H & C and they rarely are described in descriptiove texts of "openly" thwarting the other. There may be some positioning between the two, and each D.M. is free to run things as he see's fit but to me it is clear that in most nations the two Churches are if not complimentary they are at least willing to co-exist.

It could even be said that it is to a rulers benifit to patronize the church of both the father and the son. One supports his rule and the feudal order upon which it is based and the other gives support to his martial ambitions and channels the warlike Anuirean nature of his more aggresive and younger nobility.

I know the game material does not support it, but you can almost see how as a youth a man might favor Cuiraecen, and as he grows in maturity and responsibilities he favors Haelyn.

Perhaps even priests of the two migrate as well.

At least in my campaigns these two worships are very close. Not always agreeing, but often allied.

[DanMcSorley]

On 6/7/07, Dcolby <brnetboard@birthright.net> wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> Haelyn and Cuiraecen get along well.
> -----------------------------
> I would tend to agree, when one looks at the physical locations of the Haelyn and
> Cuiraecen churchs one will usualy find the other in close quarters. Beoruine, Tuornen,
> Ghoere, Mhoried... etc etc all have both churches of H & C and they rarely are described
> in descriptiove texts of "openly" thwarting the other. There may be some positioning
> between the two, and each D.M. is free to run things as he see`s fit but to me it is clear
> that in most nations the two Churches are if not complimentary they are at least willing to
> co-exist.
>
> It could even be said that it is to a rulers benifit to patronize the church of both the father
> and the son. One supports his rule and the feudal order upon which it is based and the
> other gives support to his martial ambitions and channels the warlike Anuirean nature of
> his more aggresive and younger nobility.
>
> I know the game material does not support it, but you can almost see how as a youth a
> man might favor Cuiraecen, and as he grows in maturity and responsibilities he favors
> Haelyn.
>
> Perhaps even priests of the two migrate as well.
>
> At least in my campaigns these two worships are very close. Not always agreeing, but
> often allied.

You can go a bit farther with this. In my early-modern Birthright
game, not only were the churches of Cuiraecen and Haelyn allied, the
churches of Nesirie fit into this group as well. She is Haelyn`s
wife, after all, and Cuiraecen`s mother.

So you ended up with a triple alliance of faith, all three gods
worshipped in all Anuirean temples. Nesirie tend to be most prominant
along the coasts and with women, Haelyn with the ruling classes, and
Cuiraecen with the warrior class. There were obviously orders,
abbeys, nunneries, and such devoted to each of them separately, but
the most prominent church in Anuire was the Unified Imperial Temple.

The poorer, discontent classes worship at the unified church, but also
favor the third generation of gods, the sanctities. The most popular
of these is the daughter of Cuiraecen and Laerme. It`s a dangerous
time to be a ruling noble. Her name, of course, is Liberty.

It`s been a while since I ran this, I can`t remember what the other
sanctities were. I think one was the child of Cuiraecen and Eleole,
but I don`t remember what I called her (him?). The sanctities were
the saints of various virtues. Liberty, Charity, Equality,
Fraternity, that sort of thing. Saint Liberty was the one that
figured most in the game.
--
Daniel McSorley

[ryancaveney]

you can almost see how as a youth a man might favor Cuiraecen, and as he grows in maturity and responsibilities he favors Haelyn

This is an eminently sensible idea, and one I heartily encourage.


Ryan

[cccpxepoj]

You can go a bit farther with this. In my early-modern Birthright game, not only were the churches of Cuiraecen and Haelyn allied, the churches of Nesirie fit into this group as well. She is Haelyn`s wife, after all, and Cuiraecen`s mother.

So you ended up with a triple alliance of faith, all three gods worshipped in all Anuirean temples. Nesirie tend to be most prominant along the coasts and with women, Haelyn with the ruling classes, and Cuiraecen with the warrior class. There were obviously orders, abbeys, nunneries, and such devoted to each of them separately, but the most prominent church in Anuire was the Unified Imperial Temple.

The poorer, discontent classes worship at the unified church, but also favor the third generation of gods, the sanctities. The most popular of these is the daughter of Cuiraecen and Laerme. It`s a dangerous time to be a ruling noble. Her name, of course, is Liberty.

It`s been a while since I ran this, I can`t remember what the other sanctities were. I think one was the child of Cuiraecen and Eleole, but I don`t remember what I called her (him?). The sanctities were the saints of various virtues. Liberty, Charity, Equality, Fraternity, that sort of thing. Saint Liberty was the one that figured most in the game.

man you where inspired with a French Burgoase Revolution.(" Burgoase" maybe i'm not writing it right but cant find a word in dictionary)

[Jaleela]

We have this argument a lot, it seems; most recently just three weeks ago at http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3796.

My summary of that discussion is no, you can't prove anything by casting spells except that you can cast spells, because you can be an atheist and still cast spells -- in fact, the best wizards on Cerilia are all elves, none of whom believe in gods.


Ryan

I should also point out that historically, polytheistic societies have never had a problem in believing in other socities' gods. They tended to honour different gods worshiped in different locations and circumstances, but believed in the especial efficiency, or relevance of their own gods. The Romans are a great example of this, but the tendancy was all over the ancient world.

You could look at it like modern Catholics look at their patron saint - they believe in them all, but are especially attatched to their patron. A foreign deity would be seen as a deity, but the person may believe that the foreign deity might be ambivalent to them, or even hostile, or that 'when in Rome'... in regards to worship.