How does your setting handle religion?

What it says on the tin.
How do your sessions/setting handle faith?
Do they have unique pantheons?
How is the church viewed?
How are it's followers treated throughout the world?
How in depth are the religions themselves?

There are a few established faiths in the setting but the PCs are free to create one of their own as, such in real life, there were any number of cults and religious movements even if they are forgotten or merely personal interpretations or different views of the main faiths.

I feel that making too much emphasis on certain gods focuses to much story detail to them unless your game/setting involves dealing with them specifically but I prefer distant/no-gods (or at least overt ones anyways)

The Party members are all oddly charismatic and need a quick buck.

We mostly avoid religion at my table because of the diversity which only ends with us having a bunch of ooc arguments. I've done a bunch of worldbuilding about it, but never get to implement it much.

Well, not getting into the specifics of the gods, religion is generally split up between two varieties: public and private. Public religion is truly polytheistic, they worship all the gods the temple recognizes; whereas, private religion is made up of small cultish organizations worshiping specific gods, much like ancient mystery-cults. The latter is where you'll find actual divine magic, and that's for the really high up stuff.

Wait so you have to go to mystery-cults for actual divine magic and not the massive church?

I take the Eberron approach; divine magic is a thing, but the nature of the divine is still ambiguous and open to interpretation.

This has allowed me to design religion as an organization of policies and action rather than some two-dimensional "This is the God of X, their followers are like Y."

In my games gods are just as clueless as mortals about the big questions of "where did we come from? why does the universe exist?" they are just super-powered extra-dimensional people. So most religions focusing on the gods are just literal cults of personality dedicated to pleasing the gods personal whims, whilst actual questions of faith and existence are done by philosophers, who may or may not be part of a gods religion also if their god is okay with that sort of thing.

The gods are all assholes and the cause of all the problems of the world. Anyone who worships them is considered a madman to be put down before the gods take notice.

Yeah. It goes really well with low-magic settings. You'll find no public healing or resurrection. Being a cleric means you were with a cult for a while, and had to do a bunch of weird stuff and quests. It's worth it though, because you not only have magic, but are a high ranking official in a powerful cult.

Howard, is it you?

A bunch of militant atheists are destroying the world through their zealous insistence that there are no gods. As their faith and worship spreads throughout the land a powerful void has been summoned that threatens to kill the gods.

On my world, the Grand Empire of Humanity and Hin (Or just the Empire), along with the 7 High Gods, regulate the 72 avatars of the world in a semi bureaucratic fashion. Every region has their avatars that reflect the wants and needs of that region. It's of course all very political and such, and the High Gods measure their powers by how many Avatars they have patronage of.

>How does your setting handle religion?
There are a whole lot of gods, some big, some small, and few very concerned with mortals. Most gods are more like the God-Emperor from 40k, in that they're so powerful that believing in them lets you capture a small fragment of their power. Behaving in a way that contradicts the god's will separates you from them on an ideological level and severs the magical connection. Spells that commune with the god simply capture that god's attention for a bit and most of them are inclined to help those who are of a like mind.
>How do your sessions/setting handle faith?
Just like most do. Except in the case of The Lady. Any worshiper of her is punished for saying her true name either in or out of character.
>Do they have unique pantheons?
Unique is a strong word. Some of the gods are stolen (Crom and The Lady, for instance, are more or less directly ripped from their source) but some of the pantheons are unique, such as the gods of music.
>How is the church viewed?
Depends on the church. Most of the big overarching churches are viewed favorably.
>How are it's followers treated throughout the world?
That really depends. Follows of The Lady are mostly seen as degenerate gamblers. Followers of the Fire Bringer and the Lord of Red Flame are basically just considered to be stupid lizards (Kobolds and Troglodytes respectively who worship the same ancient red dragon (who is an asshole and decided being a monarch was more fun than being a god so he's doing that now))
>How in depth are the religions themselves?
Depends. If you worship Crom I hand you a Conan the Barbarian book and tell you to have at it. The Lady is literally made up of whatever superstitions the player holds (to the point that if they violate their own superstitions they are punished and they are rewarded for sticking to them.) Admittedly, she's fickle as shit so I just make up the given advantage or disadvantage on the spot but it usually involves dice (guessed her name yet?)

They're Henotheists.

There was a time when the gods walked among them with such regularity that, in cities with its greatest temple, a devotee to any of the given divines would be hard pressed to go a week without at least indirect contact with them. Then they went away. No one knows where, but they left.

Cue the one remaining god arising in all the confusion and chaos to announce that all the property, material goods, and intellectual rights of the heavenly realms have been bought out by none other than the illustrious god of commerce, up to, and including, temple sites, divine attendants, trademarks and copyrights to all forms of divine blessing or miracle working, proceeds of pilgrimages, relics, holy scripture, creative control on all current and future religious holidays (and, in the case of the secular god of paradox, quite a few of the nonreligious ones.), and a majority control in decision making from every single member of the divine parliament (except for the god of laziness, its been so long since he left his pocket dimension that not even the gods believe in him anymore.).

What preceded this, unbeknownst to mortals, was the biggest divine scandal since the creation of chickens (don't ask). Half the divinities left to unknown parts of the universe right then and there out of disgust. The rest resisted, led by the gods of war, justice, and charity, but it's hard to resist a power mad god when he owns your entire arsenal and heavenly host. They got evicted.

Now there is one commandment: The markets are sacred, protect and expand them with utter devotion.

And so rises the 'Holy Theocracy of the Marketplace', long may it trade.

*tips fedora*
M'lady
Just kidding, it's pretty neat to have false religions. not every setting needs to be fantastical and have gods, and even if there are gods whose to say all the worshipped gods are real?

The Lady being the one of the same name from Discworld?

The Dwarves of my setting follow the wisdom of the Three Brothers.

It depends on race, region and even community, very much like real life. Except that many of the things worshipped are real.

Each race gets it own pantheon of gods, and there are the ancient spirits of the world that oversee its continued existence, and the various angels and demons and other such things. And usually each community has its revered dead, the saints who intercede on the the livings behalf.

Sometimes there are cults of personality that pop up, sometimes guided by narcissism or psychopathy, but more often guided by things looking for souls.

There are the ancient alien AIs of the ratfolk who have ascended to godhood, the strange cult of the clockwork goddess who governs the machine city of Mechanum, and other such iron gods.

Basically, I threw as many religious things as I could at the setting along with everything else and have been working them all in together into a consistent setting. If I find some cool new thing from wikipedia or PF or D&D or anywhere else about some weird god or cult, i'll find a place for it and twist it in.

Healing is magic practiced by mages. Clergy is just another profession. Anyone can mess with undead, given the right components.
>so edgy
templars preaching peace and love while crushing skulls with a footman's mace and then healing them back up again is too much disbelief for me to suspend, sorry

The Gods mettle in mortal affairs, so the pantheon is confirmed and universal. Their existence being order of the day and them constantly assuring they have a plan for humanity, simply acknowledging their existence in day to day life is enough to not draw their ire. Attempting to deny their existence is swiftly corrected. The Church and the ecclesiary study the Words of the Gods and the saints they send in order to understand what they see as just. One of the Gods is the Goddess of Truth, the most hotgeaded of all the divines, so any attempt to corrupt the faith is thwarted with an awe-inspiring bloodbath.

Paladins are those who take the true word and mold themselves to best convey the Word of the Gods to the world. Paladins of Warfare are adaptable weaponmasters with the answer to every situation. Paladins of Truth are seekers of truth and Liar Hunters, assassinating (in the old hashashin fashion, such as doing drugs and stabbing them in broad daylight) corrupt nobles and exploring ruins of ancient civilizations. Paladins of Magic are best known as Archmages, for many seem to refuse those who require ground bones and minced human flesh for their most powerful spells to be following the Word of God. Anyone may become a Paladin, so long as they know their God's Words and follow the footsteps of Saints, but official recognition requires some examination.