The not-Catholic Church were the bad guys all along!

>the not-Catholic Church were the bad guys all along!

>Theres actually a secret cabal of not-Jews manipulating these Kingdoms from behind the scenes!

Told you they woz a right bunch of cheeky cunts.

>HEY GUYS
>HEY GUYS WHAT IF
>WHAT IF
>HEY
>WHAT IF DARK WAS GOOD AND LIGHT WAS EVIL

TWIST!
>the not-catholic church was actually just a front for a secret cabal of not-presbyterians

>setting has not-Protestants

>the desert kingdoms did nothing wrong!
>the war only started because The Big Church is evil!

>Setting made it out that the Not! Catholic Church is evil
>Turns out they are the ones keeping the Evil that will destroy the world at bay

>the orcs are actually descendants of an ancient race of super-beings who invented everything ever!
>they're only violent because they're oppressed!

>You're evil if you exterminate this group that was trying to exterminate you
>If you kill your enemy, they win

>Not! Catholic Church is keeping the Evil that will destroy the world at bay
>they use evil means that are almost as bad as what the Evil would be doing anyway
>only a reformation of the Not! Catholic Church can make the world better
>the real Evil was bureaucratic inertia all along

I got so sick of this shit with The Witcher 3 you have no idea.

Literally the first time you meet a priest of the not-Catholic Church he tries to trick you into murdering his drug dealer.

No matter how much my players want this to be true it is most certainly not yeah there are systemic problem in my early rennasance not Catholic Church but for the mist part it does a lot of good around the setting like funding hospitals and universities maintaining roads and aqueducts and providing for the needy the occasional evil not cardinal makes for. A singular compelling villain not an indictment of the whole operation quit trying to Martin Luther all over my setting guys.

I got to the part where you had to hunt down and kill the gryphon and gave up, felt like I was playing a Bioware game with it's try hard shit.

Well to be fair the Witcher 3 and the Witcher series in general always tried to portray a very grim, Sword and Sorcery style setting and a purely good religion with the best of intentions wouldnt really mesh well. In Witcher 1 they were shown as pretty corrupt too.

m8 it took me like seven times to kill that griffon but that's how long it took me to get used to the game's mechanics (and a ps4 controller)

once I knew what I was doing I was bored to death with how easy the game was, even on the highest difficulty and with the lightest gear

gameplay in the Witcher series has always been clunky and awful

Dont worry, you did not miss much.

>The not!catholic church is the source of evil
>There was nothing wrong with the doctrine
>It was only co-opted by corrupt demon worshippers and you have to help the few untainted priest to take it back

it's even worse than that, son.

The Witchers are villified in the world because the church published a series of works decrying them as devils.

Why would the church do this?

Because a Witcher cucked an influential priest.

I am serious. A witcher fucked a priests wife and so he wrote a political treatise portraying them as murderous monsters and used the churches influence to spread it

>there is an evil entity trapped in the not-catholic church's object of worship
>no one remembers that it exist
>it has corrupted half the religion but the loli pope is still pure but no one entirely trusts her

So, another Maleus Maleficarum?

Thats the general premise yes

I need this.

Well it's more that the real trouble caused by "the church" was a mixture of inquisitions (usually headed by people from the vatican who are using inquisitions as an opportunity to gain favor and capture a fortune from "heretics" so they can advance in rank back at the vatican) and the goddamn monasteries and their booze-hound/whoremongering/fight starting monks, which were especially a problem with monasteries in back country areas, where the monasteries could often end up enforcing monopolies on production of alchohol and similar neccesary staple goods with some rough monky business and the hiring of mercenaries.

>not wanting to save the Loli-Witcher

the fuck is wrong with you?

Sounds like the Imperium of Man.

You know, lore-wise WH40K is a clusterfuck of everything that was cool about sci-fi in the 80's, and the whole Catholic Space Nazi/Gothic Space Opera angle is the only thing about the setting that make it unique or memorable.

Ciri is only a child in a flash back.

In the rest of the game, she is a boring slog to play through that is supposed to get you invested in her well being as if you skipped the first two games and burned the books.

Congratulations, you missed one of the best games of the last few years. And didn't even get past the introduction.

Good job.

>Presbyterians
>agreeing on fuck all

it's pretty overrated desu

although, compared to everything else that's available, it's still pretty great

>Any form of autocratic government exists
>Players try and tear it down and replace it with a republic
>Any form of republic exists
>Players try and prove that it's corrupt at every level
>Any form of theocracy exists
>Players don't even try and prove that it's evil or corrupt, they just try and tear it down

I haven't even played any tabletop games for a while, but I'm wondering if putting a collection of loose tribes/clans would prompt them to try and form a confederated government to face an outside threat, or go full stormfag and try and exterminate everyone not in their tribe.

>The Church needs the help of the Pagan folk to defeat the threat at home
>They agree but they want to convert and keep parts of their old beliefs
How tolerant should an organized religion be if most other beliefs of the word are valid and true?

and thats why we love it

I said they were secret, not competent.

Just because she's not a loli on the outside doesn't mean she's not a loli on the inside.

And it's the inside you stick your dick, fool.

>The goody two shoes nature goddess is actually pretty fucking evil

The story behind the entire campaign was fucking insane becasue me and the other PCs were former people who died and the goddess gave us an opportunity to work for her

Hey, it's medieval fantasy. Few things were as brutal and corrupt in medieval times as the catholic church, come on now. The word Nepotism literally comes from popes giving jobs to their "Nephews", who were actually their MANY bastard children.

But yeah, overdone as fuck. I prefer having the leadership of my Not-Catholics basically just be ineffectual hedonists and greedy fucks that don't do enough to stop the great evil rising than making them the evil itself.

>Loli-Witcher
>letting ciri become a witcher
that's losing the forest for the trees user. emperor ciri is the objectively moral choice

also
>you can't fuck the imperial twins
is fucking bullshit

have you tried not playing with anarchists

>Few things were as brutal and corrupt in medieval times as the catholic church, come on now.

I know that but it gets to be completely overbearing when the not-Pagans are absolutely perfect in comparison.

I don't think they are anarchists, but they certainly have played more Video game RPGs with the evil governing body trope than they have ever played pen and paper RPGs.
I don't play with that group any more.

And yet, a nun is one of Geralt's most important contacts.

Depends on how much power the church has over the tribes after the threat is defeated.
More powerful? Purge the offending tenants of their tribal faith.
Less powerful? Accept the offending tenants and work to remove the worst ones over the next few generations. Offending tenants converted into something good become part of the original faith.

Isn't that the basic plot of the Ravnica Cycle?

>The only member of the Not! Catholic church shown in a good light is the grizzled priest who doesn't really believe in the church's teachings anymore

But it is true in the real life. So there is nothing wrong to use it.

you asked for it

Oh yeah, that's bullshit. If anything they were corrupt without pretense, Catholic church at least had to hide it a little bit, Druids just made it part of the job.

Fuck Christianity.

There are so many civilizations and indigenous cultures that are just gone because of this religion.

Same goes for Muslims with Egypt. Maybe Jews if you count the Canaanites.

>Fedora

I don't care.

Nah it was set in modern day essentially wee were given tactical gear and sent to places around the world to find people who were "Nature born" had spiritually connections to nature.

long story short we did this and the GM just goes fucking insane on us apparently the goddess and the nature born decide to go full control on the human race and exterminate those who oppose her when in the beginning she told us she wanted to better humanity. We also thought we were fighting demons when infact we were fighting humans/soldiers the gear she gave us messed with our minds the biggest shit was apparently our new physical forms were some form of nature wraiths.

We tried fighting back but failed though the nature goddess has a funny way of thanking her servants as our final reward she turned us all into a garden as a memorial to the day she took control of the world.

Fuck Spain.

There are so many civilizations and indigenous cultures that are gone just because of this nation.

Same goes for Rome. Maybe Greece if you count the lesser city-states.

>fedora

I don't care.

>WE MUST KILL THE DEMONS
>No PCs
>you are the DEMONS

Don't forget the Mongols and Timurids.

I like how you just conflate imperialism with monotheism like that without even a flicker of critical thought.

Because, for instance, it was priests like Bartolomé de las Casas who directed the conquest of the new world and the genocide of its inhabitants, right?

Also the Yamato, if you give a shit about a bunch of nippon aboriginies that is.

The gameplay is ridiculously janky. The movement is loose. The combat is horribly unsatisfying. I got horrible Triple Triad flashbacks from Gwent. I play games for enjoyable gameplay, not just a trendy grimdark fantasy story with pretty girls and swear words. If that was an introduction and I was so put off, I can't imagine what the rest is like.

...uh, religion did play a huge part in how imperialism played out. The colonization of South America in particular was heavily influenced.

Fuck the Imperium of Man

There are so many civilizations and xeno cultures that are just gone because of this religion.

Same goes for the Great Crusade. Maybe the Inquisition if you count the lesser xeno races.

>Heretic

I don't care.

Imagine how much better the natives would have been without men like de las Casas!

Without religion, what would Spain have even wanted with all that gold?!

On a side note, why are not!catholics legit actually so evil?

Abused my father when he was at school, abused my friend and his brother when they were at school, part of my family are hear no evil, see no evil fag hating not!krischuns and I got a lot of stick from them growing up a soulless atheist.

Can't not!Catholics just be like not!Sikhs? That would be nito.

Infinity has those Muslims who apparently got rid of all the bad ones

>and exterminate those who oppose her when in the beginning she told us she wanted to better humanity.
FWIW, the main way a population is "bettered" in nature is by the winnowing out of the unfit by selection pressures. So for a nature goddess, that's actually not as contradictory as it may seem.

Still pretty fucked up from a human perspective, but then why should you expect the ways of the wild to line up with civilized human morality in the first place?

>the not-catholic priest you thought was corrupt because he was clearly hiding something is actually part of a secret order meant to seal away several powerful demons
>he ends up saving your ass when your snooping accidentally sets one of these demons free

"Influenced" being the key word here.

See, this is where the fedora begins and ends: What affect did Christianity have on Spanish Imperialism? vs. RELIGION IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.

>Maleus Maleficarum
The irony there is that the Church and the Inquisition didn't use that book and often argued against it.

Fucking Calvinists

>the plot of three Dark Souls games

>talks about Calvinists
>posts dog
>not tiger

>the evil priest has a plot to usurp the not!pope
>turns out while he's actually self-interested, his biggest concern is that the not!pope is actually not particularly adept at administration, and time, effort and money are being wasted through general incompetence, which would be better spent on the works of the faith.
>I mean, he is still a dickbag, but the world will unarguably be a better place with evil priest in charge of the church

This is what an actual alignment test should look like.

>an alignment test should be an unanswerable debate
>that the GM is going to Rule 0 an answer to, regardless of the arguments presented, and the paladin will fall if he makes the wrong choice
>he may also Rule 0 the answer to be the one the paladin didn't pick, forcing his fall

This is why Alignment should ignored unless the campaign is going to fully involve the cosmic forces of the planes, and all that entails.

I think that was GRRM's biggest gripe with fantasy in general, was that being an effective leader and being a moral and upstanding leader are not exactly the same thing.

Are you me? I'm making a priest like that but he's fine being part of the ruling Council than being the Pope.

>the not catholic church isn't evil as a whole, but is being led by Lucifer disguised as the fucking Messiah!

On the other hand, GRRM isn't exactly good at building a good leader himself.

>The one that will kill him is Not!Jesus
>In a loose definition

>and then Lucifer called for a new crusade

Well, I mean, if half of them are corrupted, yeah, that makes sense.

Lucifer did nothing wrong.

To a point.

The issue I've always had with Dark being considered 'good' in Dark Souls games is that being Hollow is the natural state of humanity in the Dark Souls universe, and ultimately the fate of humanity should an Age of Dark come to pass (until the next Age of Fire comes along, anyway).

But being hollow is fucking awful. You're just a mostly-mindless zombie. An Age of Dark would doom all of humanity to mindless, static existence so how can one possibly put forth the idea that an Age of Dark is beneficial when by canon standards it would be a time of suffering for all of mankind?

And then Dark Souls 3 comes in and flies in the face of all established canon saying there's actually an entire nation of hollows that are apparently fine, but it feels like so much of an asspull I mostly ignored it.

Why is he in Hell then?

Why do you assume Yuria is being honest? She is extremely motivated to lie, she is personally a rampant murderer, she works for a church that actively lies to its adherents to get them killed if they fuck up, and she can only get what she wants if she convinced you to do the job.

Assuming Souls NPCs are honest is audacious.

Because he lost against Michael.

Like, his whole crime was going against God on the issue of what to do with humans. Lucifer wanted to get rid of them because they were terrible creations, but God wanted to keep them around for some reason. (And this was before the Flood, mind you). So Heaven goes to war, Lucifer loses, and gets kicked down into Hell for being the belligerent party.

Isn't this the plot of FFX?

The descriptions of several items and the existence of the Pilgrims confirms that sapient hollows are indeed a thing.

Yuria's a murderous piece of shit, but she's not lying about that bit.

Sounds just deep4U enough to be FF.

Okay but

>actually an entire nation of hollows that are apparently fine

The Pilgrims and the Hollows in the Usurper ending do not seem fine to me at all.

Like I mean you can assume that they actually are fine and that Yoel is just fucked up because he walked for years wearing a rock and the Hollows at the end you only see for a few seconds.

But it's as big an assumption as assuming it's a complete mess. Less, I'd say, given the only functional person from Londor you see is a psycho killer, all their rituals are murderous and involve betrayal, their miracles can break a Fire Keeper from just knowing them, and they are led by Kaathe who is as big a treacherous piece of shit as Frampt.

It could just as easily be that the whole place is a complete fuckmess that went the wrong way when the world started ending and went 'fuck the fire', but was large and powerful enough that it hasn't collapsed completely yet.

We'll see in the DLC, I assume. One of them has to be Londor.

Nah, the Yevonites in FFX were simply a religion that revered Yevon out of fear of Sin, thinking that if they "repented" it would eventually stop coming.

As is stated in-game, it's the Aeons that grant summoners their power, not the temples or the teachings.

WE WUZ GORK N MORK!

>But being hollow is fucking awful. You're just a mostly-mindless zombie. An Age of Dark would doom all of humanity to mindless, static existence

Not necessarily true.
The undead curse we see in games 1 and 2 started when Gwyn linked the fire. The "hollowing" we witness seems to be a result of the curse of the darksign, which 3 proved to be a separate entity from humanity. Hollowing occurs when an entity loses ALL the constituent souls that make up it's being, both light and dark alike. I like to think the "asspull" of Londor is actually possible because of something Aldia did after the end of Dark Souls 2. That old burning bush did have quite an interest with tinkering with the curse itself, and he might have caused the division between Dark Sigils and the Darksign we see in 3. That division itself could be what permits humans to hollow without losing themselves- the souls of fire are lost on death, but the dark soul is unaffected, which gives the hollows of Dark Souls 3 their wrinkly appearance while retaining their... Well, humanity, so to speak.

As it stands, this should, theoretically, allow humans to survive the fading of the first flame, and to claim it for themselves, if they please.

tl;dr= Hollowing is the result of losing all souls, including dark. Pure humanity without the curse of fire is not well understood.

I admit, I am biased thanks to my desire for a good ending where the PC becomes the King of man with that Q.T. Anri as his queen, leading humanity to a new, different, and unknown future. It seems certain that any DLC in Londor will prove that the usurper ending isn't all roses and candy... But I want to believe.

>Yuria's a murderous piece of shit,

You mean a murderous BABE who wears the coolest headgear in the game.

Ah, so your QM is leaning to realism.

Your clerics pray every day, right Veeky Forums?

>The not!Catholics and not!Muslims are at war
>But actually both of them are entirely innocent and dindu nuffin
>It's "a small group of radicals" within the not!Catholic Church that are the evil ones
>the not!Crusaders are a bunch of bloodthirsty fanatics who care more about slaughter than anything else

*BLAM*

>My little sister can't be this pious!
A new anime that will become an instant classic

If I pulled that mask off, would she die?

I've always wanted to use the original ending to Red State, having a family sect being the only ones who got it right, despite being nuts.

>not-Catholicism is the protagonist's religion

You're drunk, Gustavus Adolphus. Go home.

>not eastern orthodoxy and not animistic paganism are both valid and should spend more time fighting against cosmic horrors instead of one another

ha ha it's time for Sabaton posting

GUSTAVUS
ADOLPHUS
LIBERA ET IMPERA

I'd love to agree with you, but the opening cinematic for Dark Souls 1 would imply that the mindless hollows really are the default of humanity.

>And from the Dark they came, and found the souls of Lords within the flame

During this phrase you can see hollows being drawn towards the light, shuffling towards the First Flame like moths. It's souls which grant hollows their power and clarity of mind.

Though you're definitely right about one thing. Yuria is one of the best designed NPCs in the game.

>the church's religion was started with good intention and helped people a lot
>later on , random powerful members start to interpret the scripts to their own advantage
>reformation wars by some good individuals

>in the end it turned out to by a boy-fucking cult
>even the head of the church tries to defend the guilty priests
>claims victims to have seduced the priests
>tries to lower the age of consent written in the law