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Thread: Harvest god: Erik or Avani?
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01-11-2007, 09:15 AM #61
I would hold that religion, especially in a world where clerics can actually ask for miracles to happen (which is, pretty much, what cleric spells are), does not quite fall under the premise of how people perceive it per se; for all we know, people waged wars in the name of a religion they never had any clue whether their beliefs were absolutely true - because they believed in it!
[Note that it's always demagogues that run such campaigns.]
Now, consider how this relates to Cerilia: we have 11 deities, of which interestingly enough all 3 of the new ones (the divine children of some of the people that ascended to godhood in Deismaar) are chaotic (the force of change?)! How would one go about believing in these?
Consider their portfolio for a moment - the elder gods are Nobility and War, Mourning and the Seas, Reason and the Sun & Secrets and the Moon + Magic, Nature, and Commerce: aspects as ancient and fundamental in Cerilian society as one can have. On the other hand, you have Courage and Personal Combat, Love and Passions, and Darkness and Larcey: all themes a little too adventurous, youthful, foolish, even. Or are they? Aren't they the fields in which youth excels or strives to do so?
All in all, religion in Cerilia is deeply reasonable, because the deities are, in fact, very human in their own ways - not as deified human aspects in humanoid form, but deified humans! How can you not relate to something like that?
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01-11-2007, 10:34 AM #62
At 07:55 PM 1/9/2007, irdeggman wrote:
>The Vos are pretty much "owned" by their religious leaders of Belnik
>and Kreisha and thus are very much against (as a whole) other
>deities. They would most likey view Avani and Rounil as week and
>there is that propensity against arcane magic for their culture too.
>Sera is again economics, which is also a week profession. Nesire
>has use as the goddess of the sea. Haelyn is worthy of respect as is
>Cuicean. The others are pretty much not "strong" enough to be worthy
>of worhsip of the Vos.
Actually, the best represented god among the Vos is Rournil since his
worship predated that of B & K. (Well, his predecessor`s worship did....)
There is colour commentary that indicates that the Vos have little
regard for the Cerilian gods other than B & K, but if one goes
through the TotHW one finds that though those gods certainly dominate
the temple holdings they do not dominate them in a way that is
exceptional compared to other regions of Cerilia. Vosgaard is rather
scarcely developed when it comes to temple holdings, but if we
exclude the elven and humanoid domains several other gods are pretty
well represented. Zoloskaya, for example, has no temples to B & K,
and Ruornil`s temple holdings in that land are described as
"overwhelming." I haven`t done a comparison of holding levels by
region or anything, but it would be interesting to see how the
various gods were represented there in comparison to, say, Erik`s
temples in the RH.
I think we should bear in mind when it comes to the Vos that a lot of
the material we have on them is meant to be from the Anuirean POV and
is suspect.
Gary
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01-12-2007, 04:13 PM #63
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A different argument
AndrewTall: I'm not going to try to gainsay your decision not to include the Cerilian gods as actors in your campaign -- your game, your call, as always. However, I think there are a couple of things you and others might be overlooking; and since you've actually addressed a lot of things, and quite well, I'd like to go through this point by point.
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
I want to stress that this is, ultimately, a mechanic; if you can come up with a way around this problem, and it's in your game, then have at it. My point is that there are rational reasons that the people in the Birthright setting do not, as a whole, have a problem with their divine pantheon as a rational proposal -- it exists and has an indirect but noticeable effect on the world.
Originally Posted by AndrewTall
As far as various individuals not worshipping the "local god" -- of course! No society with any sort of freedom can enforce universal reverence of anything. This isn't just common sense, it's in the Birthright mechanics -- that's what level-0 temple holdings are for, and why larger provinces can split up temple holdings. Down in Anduire, Haelyn, Eric and Cuiracen exist side-by-side quite well, and this mechanic reflects that. In cultures where not worshipping a particular god carries significant social or legal penalties, worshippers of different gods might attend services anyway, but they'd still probably hold secret meetings and services. And really, certain gods and goddesses are better worshipped in secret anyway.
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