Tell me about your fictional theology, Veeky Forums

>Magical realm potential.

Expand.

Sounds like incest to me.

this youtube.com/watch?v=QBF02AatjxU

youtu.be/U8NNHmV3QPw

I have watched this entire video more than once.

Aw, that's like entry level theological magical realm

I couldn't decide what interpretation of Death/The Reaper/what a god of death should be in my setting. So, I made it that there's countless beings responsible for harvesting/guiding/reaping the dead (or those doomed to die) and they can appear based on the beliefs of others nearby, powerful artifacts or hollowed areas, certain methods/rites of death, etc.
They have clerics, often competing as some guide the lost souls of the dead and protect them while others want to reap wanton death.
So far the list includes a bunch from mythology and modern media including Thanatos, the Ferryman, Ankou, the Black Dog, the Lady of Death, the Reaper, Old Rattlebones, the Kindred, the Grey Stork, the Horseman, the Dullahan...
And while there are divine casters in the setting, they're not directly influential/totally active. A bit more active than Eberron, but still relatively ambiguous with lots of regional variances in worship/perception. The afterlife or lack thereof is shrouded in mystery; anyone who's ever been brought back to life has no more than a vague recollection and even the clerics of the ferriers of the dead have no clue.

>it's this thing again
The most retarded shit I've ever seen

Some neat ideas for a fantasy setting in there though

The World was originally populated by Skeletons until the Flesh crash landed on the planet and enslaved Skeletonkind. This system became so perverted, that the Flesh fully integrated Skeletons into their biology, forcing them to reproduce at the same time so that every Fleshspawn may be gifted a Skeleton slave at birth.
The declared goal of the church ist to free all Skeletons from their shackles and help them reclaim their place in the world.
Unfortunately they are finding it hard to rally their spirits after millennia of slavery, although they are hopeful that their new psychotherapy program will yield results

The history of the setting is defined by wars between generations of gods, ala Titans v Olympians.

Thing is, this just keeps happening. A lot. To the point where temples and statues put the god's name on a detachable plaque, and the priests' prayers are full of [INSERT NAME HERE] clauses and legal loopholes so they don't even break stride (sometimes mid-prayer) when a change-over happens.

The Pantheon in my theology is a group of seven godly Knights that created everything.

The first and highest, The Judge, is the creator of laws and physics, and is purely Lawful Neutral. His followers are follow a code of conduct as judges, police, and lawmen. The code is the word of the Judge himself, however should one appeal to him about an addition or change and make a fair argument, it could change.

The second is the Smith, who forged the planets and stars and, later on, the basis for life. She's considered a motherly being and applauds good craftsmanship, especially in architecture and armor. Generally Neutral Good, followers are blacksmiths, architects, engineers, etc.

The third is the Groundskeeper. Typical Grim Reaper motif, Knight-God of the dead, true neutral. Maintains a peaceful afterlife for souls, while also being the patron deity of necromancy (Which has nothing to really do with souls in universe). Allows communication through mediums, grants boons to groundskeepers (duh) and morticians.

There's also demons and the other four but I feel like I've already gone longer than I should have.

interestingly this has a real-world basis, in ancient Rome during one period they were going through emperors so quickly they built statues with changeable arms and heads to save time and marble

That's actually hilarious. It's like a real life Terry Pratchett joke.

The gods were originally the creators of the whole universe.
humble. wise. compassionate. until. their creations made new "gods" to replace them. These new "gods" were unstable. mad. Bloodthirsty.
Threatening to destroy each other in their lust for power. Armageddon ravaged all of creation. for what would seem as an eternity.
Entire realms being consumed.
People worship such "gods" for being their "children" and venerate their crimes as just. the true gods could not destroy their children. so they pleaded and gained the Dwarves trust as their "firstborn". the Elves as the Dwarves Sisters. and the halflings as the dwarves brothers. all other species made their own retrospective pantheons. Tl;dr edition all other species are now evil. or faithless(neutral)elves\dwarves\halflings. are strictly good.
chaotic lawful etc now irrelevant.

Chaos Undivided is more than a pantheon a philosophy, it is the Eightfold Path, it is the Truth behind the curtain and the sin of knowledge, the revelation and the secret, it is many things but not a religion as we understand it. Chaos is freedom, ambition, power and glory, it is damnation but also reward, it is the moment when you break your chains, when you dispose of your humanity and when you embrace something so unfathomable that dives you insane but also ecstatic with the knowledge that your destiny is in your OWN hands.

When an enlightened one exults For Chaos! across the din of the battlefield he evokes this truth, he utters in words what his eye have seen and what his soul has felt when he opened his mind to the truth for the first time. When marching under the banner of Primordial Truth the warrior of Chaos does not favor a Exalted Power in particular way, neither he favors them all, but he is the herald of the Truth, the Truth of which destiny lies beyond the skein, the Truth that follows death, the Truth that power and ambition are rewarded, the Truth where you as an individual can become a literal god, an immortal, a being of such utter power only if you will it, only if you dare it.

Chaos Undivided is not a religion; it is a philosophy, a philosophy of the self interest, of tangible power and the shattering dread of the ultimate Truth. This philosophy teaches a human that if he is ambitious enough he would be rewarded, it teaches him that if he kills with the name of the True Gods on his lips he would catch their eye and receive their boon, it teaches him that one day he can become a demigod, a mortal no more, and all this if he only wills it and dares it.
It is also the philosophy of the metaphysical, where reality and dogma shatter, a philosophy that teaches its followers that the laws of physic do not exist, that any laws are artificial, that dogma and ad a closed mind lead your soul to be shattered by the dreaded dream predators. Chaos Undivided is a philosophy that teaches you that you have a soul, teaches you that with your dreams you shape the universe and it teaches you that nothing is impossible, everything can be done if only one dreams it.
That is why a disciple of the Primordial Truth bears proudly the Star of Chaos even if he pledged his allegiance to only a variant of this philosophy, perhaps to Nurgle's teachings, it is because once you pass over the skein of reality and you see the vast landscapes of infinite possibilities nothing can ever be the same and everything becomes possible, all that is required is a simple dream.

The Worlds of Akaran believes in reincarnation. The one who serves the teaching of Chaos well is rewarded after death to a higher state of being. The Resurgence mostly is organized in a class system; from the humble administrator to the warrior-nobility and finally to the immortals. The only exception to the class systems are the Daas-Tama or the members of one of the war bands. Some war bands organize themselves into monastery worshipping a special notion of the Dhaswal. The exalted powers are seen as a force respected and revered. If a Daas-Pol feels himself called upon to serve one of the powers, this is seen a call of destiny. One is suffused with a spirit of Chaos.
The Akaran resurgence doesn’t believe in a singular identity, every self is influenced by other forces. These forces stir up to the Point Pralaya, the duty of all is to clear the path so that the Great Undivided can awake to sentience and absolve existence.
The Great Undivided is the creator of everything but is asleep. Everything is part of Him. Only if enough of Him is aware of His state He may awake in His all-powerful might. This is the Truth that the World Teacher preaches. Urdhanvana is the chosen prophet of this awakening.

The Four Noble Truths
• That life is suffering.
• That suffering has an origin and this is the physical
• That there is a way to end suffering.
• That this way is through the Dhaswal.

The Eightfold Star
• Wisdom: The ability to see through lies and see how the world really is.
o Right View: To clear ones path of misunderstanding.
o Right Intention: To rid yourself of what you know is wrong.
• Ethical conduct: Keeping your life free of evils that will try to lead you off the path.
o Right speech: To say only things that honors the Great Undivided
o Right action: To avoid weakness and doubt
o Right livelihood: To live your life into the path for immortality
• Concentration: The ability to keep your focus and your mind calm.
o Right effort: To continually eliminate the false in one’s self, to amplify the light of Chaos
o Right mindfulness: To keep your mind on the path, to observe the world as it is
o Right concentration: To focus on what really matters, to not get hung up on trivialities.
The Four Wheels of War Eternal
• All things are permanent
• That physical existence is suffering and dissatisfaction.
• That mortal things have no true self
• The Empyrean is liberation.

The 14 Spears of Exaltation
- The Truth that can be told is not the Primordial Truth;
- The Name that can be named is not the eternal name;
- The Great Undivided is origin of Energy
- The Enumen is the origin of the Physical and the Anathema is its avatar;
- To hate them is divine, enlighten the followers of the lie;
- The xeno is false water;
- There was something undifferentiated and yet complete;
- Which existed before the Old;
- It is all sound and all forms, an ever-explosion, it depends of nothing and is ever-changing
- It operates everywhere and is all-powerful;
- It sleeps but may awake if all of its dreams consolidates;
- It’s name is not given yet, it is the Truth;
- All things comes from non-being, all forms comes from formlessness;
- So Chaos is the Primordial Truth;

There are a number of different cosmic languages that describe the multiverse. These languages can be spoken and written by humans, thereby producing magic. These languages are sort of like spell schools, except any effect you can achieve with one language you can also achieve with another, although some languages are better are better at accomplishing one sort of thing than another. A god is an extraplanar being who speaks such a language as a mother tongue.

Wizards on earth operate tend to develop preferences for certain forces and certain styles of using these languages. Many of them construct new languages, which they then share with other wizards, though they themselves do not know the full nuances of the languages they create, as they are not gods. Some use this as one of a number of arguments that a magical language cannot be invented, only discovered.

A language typically have at least one god who speaks it. Even ones constructed by humans may birth a god (or awaken a god, for those who believe languages are discovered.) Users of that language will often worship that god. Holy wars often break out between these religions.

Bionicles great beings.
>40 million foot mobile ark\gods.
>Built an entire civilisation for study of all life.
>Insane magi-tech masks.
One mask even turned cursed its creator a great being with eternal life.

So it's like a Fantasy Scientology?

youtu.be/Pq-6aj9sNvo?t=2m

I wrote this up, but never used it. I'm not sure I like it anymore. Sort of a fusion of Yazidism and Zoroastrianism, plus some fuck it.

"According to the traditional teachings of the Orphics, the cosmos is eternal, and began as a formless sea of energy and matter known as the Manifold, engaged in a cycle of creation and destruction. At the center of all of this was a being of immense power known as Zarvan. Zarvan embodied creation and destruction, and by Zarvan’s hands the cycle of rebirth and destruction continued. At the beginning of each cycle, Zarvan would fashion seven beings, known as the Arda , to serve him as the caretakers of his creation. When the cycle came to an end, the Arda would be destroyed along with Zarvan’s creation, and reabsorbed back into the Manifold. The cycle continued uninterrupted for aeons, until an Arda by the name of Malak grew attached to the world he had been entrusted with. Malak gathered the other six Arda in secret, and together they conspired to resist Zarvan. Their creator was enraged by this, but failed to reabsorb the Arda before they destroyed him.
With the destruction of the unified Zarvan emerged two new forces - one corrosive known Drujara, and one creative known as Orenda. Malak and the other Arda began to experiment with the Orenda, and fashioned lesser beings, as Zarvan had fashioned them. But as the Arda experimented with the Orenda, the Drujara began to coalesce into a consciousness - Angra. Angra was a the destructive half of Zarvan’s sundered mind, and detested creation. Immediately after his birth, Angra attacked creation. The Arda battled with Angra, but as Angra was annihilation itself, they could not defeat him. To save existence from Angra’s oblivion, they conspired a trap.

Being incredibly interested in myth and religion myself, I created a monomyth a la Joseph Campbell, albeit interpreted in a literal sense in my setting.

That is to say that nearly every religion (and actually every religion where elves have been involved; elves are very religious in my setting) is a reimagining, reinterpretation, or cultural restructuring of an ancient and primitive religion. This religion focused on a god, or perhaps more appropriately a force, that willed the universe into being, and passively dictates the fundamentals of existence like the passage of time and persistence of life. Heroes and gods from various religions and myths are often anthropomorphisms of general aspects or concepts of this force. Since the creative force of the universe more or less encompasses everything that is, these aspects are numerous.
Further, this creative force serves as a destructive one when it sees fit (though the actual concept of "choosing" a time is difficult to apply to such an entity) and it has placed its creation in a cycle of death and rebirth an inconceivable number of times. Each time the cycle is different, though some themes could persist.

The catch is that the world is currently so old that no one remembers this precursory religion at all, and thus on the surface, all seems like a typical fantasy setting. Those who learn the true nature of the universe often ascend to a Nirvana like state and are referred to as "ancients." Ancients persist through the cycles. And among them are whispers that the world is rope for its rebirth.
Themes from this religion have cropped up across several different characters and parties, and I'm sure no one has a clear picture of it as of now.

cont

In order to lure Angra into the trap, Malak challenged him to a duel. Angra took the bait, and battled Malak while the other Arda sealed the pair outside existence. Malak was eventually destroyed by Angra, but had ensured the continuation from his beloved world.
Unable to leave his prison, Angra seethed with rage. While unable to manifest fully in the world, Angra could still shape the Drujara, and so created the four Daeva, destructive counterparts to the Arda. But as the Arda rebelled against Zurvan, so too did the Daeva rebel against Angra. In the same way that the Arda grew attached to the joys and beauty of life, the Daeva grew attached to the evils and vices. In Angra’s oblivion, none of this would exist - something untenable for the Daeva. Still, they are creatures of the Drujara, and are not capable of creating as the Arda. Instead, they corrupt and manipulate, and gave rise to their own bands of lesser beings.

The supposed BBEG of most of my campaigns is an ambitious and ruthless conqueror, set to take the land and subjugate it, and the general thrust of the games is that sometime soon, there will needs be a "war to end all wars" type thing going on.

Which is when I'll reveal that the mad prince from the deserts far away is the true villain, feeding the chaos and fear bred from the massive war to an Ancient that he worships, in an attempt to make it powerful enough to stop the cycle. To halt the world in a state of perpetual suffering, and become king of the nightmare.

None of my players know anything below a very surface understanding of this.

youtu.be/Pq-6aj9sNvo?t=2m
Humans always win.

cont2

All major religions agree on similar versions of this narrative, but there are a few differences of interpretations. While most religions honor Malak as the Martyr-God, the Zarvanites know him as the Great Fool. They believe that breaking the cycle of death and rebirth was wrong, and point out that Zarvan was both destroyer and creator. Zarvanites also believe that Zarvan’s creative mind is not dead, and one day will awaken and unite with Angra to recreate Zarvan.
The Orphic Church is the most common religion on Almatia. The Orphics worship all the Arda. The name comes from the word orphan - the Orphics consider all life children of Malak, and see themselves as orphans. There are smaller religions dedicated to each individual Arda, often considering their chosen Arda the appropriate successor to Malak. There is a small sect called the Malakites who believe that Malak was not destroyed by Angra, but still exists in some way, and will be reborn.
Like the Arda, the Daeva themselves maintain their own cults, each hoping that with enough worshippers they can usurp Angra. There is even a cult devoted to Angra himself, believing that existence is a prison for the transcendent mind of sentient beings, known as Maza, and refer to Angra as ‘The Liberator’. Cults to the Daeva or Angra are very rare, and harshly persecuted.

I'm currently writing about one specific religious conflict, between wizards from a prestigious academy and a certain cult. The cult worships the divinity behind a specific language, called Lispus Primordialis in old common. The wizards speak this language extensively, and it's their favorite. It's believed that reality itself is written in Lispus Primordialis. However, no god actually speaks Lispus Primordialis -- it is the language of the Ancient Ones, older than the gods, far more powerful, and slumbering on a plane as far away from the gods' heaven as the gods' heaven is from the earth.

The wizards consider the cult heretical, because worshipping the Old Ones is like worshipping the Lady of Pain -- they, and their language, are so great and powerful that to build a temple for them is thought to be as offensive to them as the destruction of a god's temple would be offensive to that god. The wizards are appalled by the cult, and some fear that the cult will wake the old ones and invite their wrath upon the world.

Most Gods and Altergods either died fighting eachother, or disappeared so while most people dont worship anything some still decide to either worship a dead god knowing that fact or the gods offspring (fiends/demons/angels and such)
One of my players have been asking me if they can be raised with necromancy, but I still don't have an answer to that question

The cultists want to wake the Ancient Ones and obliterate all other languages and all other gods, replacing everything with Lispus Primordialis. The wizards are actually tempted by this offer: although difficult to speak, Lispus is very powerful and more flexible than any other language, the fluent wizard can write on a single page what other languages would require a book to express. However, they still oppose the cult on the principle that Lispus is too sacred to worship.

The Ancient Ones eventually are awakened! However, they are merely disgruntled by the rude awakening, and are angry at the cultists for wishing to obliterate the other languages and gods, because the Ancient ones did not really write the multiverse in Lispus -- most of it they actually wrote in another language, Perlos, one of the easiest languages to use. Sloppy, inelegant Perlos, too.

My setting is an island world. The creation myth is about a man who lived on land when the rain started falling. He dug trenches to lead the rain away. But it kept falling, flooding the trenches, and the land.

When it stopped, only the mounds of earth left from his digging remained, protruding from the water. So was the world born.

Shovels are, obviously, holy. The evil God is a rain God and people live in houses on high stilts in case the rain doesn't stop the next time it falls.

In Paradise, it never rains. Bad people are taken by the rain God and forced to suffer - their tears soak the land for eternity. Thus, you need to be good - not just to reach paradise, but also to not contribute to another flood and wipe out your children's children.

I like this.

>FLOOD FOR THE FLOOD GOD!

My setting has two largely separate pantheons since it takes place in a pocket dimension that's leaking out into another world. The world that the players come from is purposefully kept vague, both since it doesn't really matter much and I wanted to keep the option open for GMs to port their players over for a session or two then go back to the adventure as usual.
Anyway the only really important bit about the world the pocket dimension is leaking into is that their pantheon included a god of obsession and depravity that wasn't well liked by the other gods due to his stammering, tendency to rage over small details, and poor hygiene. He was generally tolerated only because he spent the vast majority of his time locked away in a pocket dimension of his own design where he could make a perfect world where all of the other gods understood and respected his genius. This arrangement worked well enough until the god of trickery and merriment had the bright idea that if he'd just get out and party sometimes he'd lighten up and the heavens would be a more fun place to be so he snuck into the pocket dimension and stole the vowels from its master's name. Unsurprisingly he flew into a blind rage and came screeching out of his dimension throwing accusations of jealousy and hatred at the other gods as bizarre catastrophes spread in his wake. This disturbance was the last straw after eons of putting up with his eccentricities and it was decided that he would be shattered, the broken pieces swept into his beloved dimension and sealed. Centuries of relative peace follow as the mad god is forgotten and his few temples are abandoned until [bad shit happens].

I get it

OK.
One of my players wanted to play a lawful neutral paladin. So I made a Vatican-esc city powered by the undead and Communism.

Citizens of the city are required to serve one hundred years of undead servitude, this makes food and labor extremely cheap so the living in charge of these jobs are paid a government subsidiary.

The church makes its money off of taxes and from its clerics, paladins, and undead doing work throughout the kingdom. Laws are enforced by the paladins just roaming the city so crime is very low.

Population is kept in check magically, with forced infertility after a couple has X amount of children. Those who break the rules are banished from the city or killed.

The city is basically invulnerable as it is located in the middle of the desert and has a near infinite amount of troops that never eat or sleep plus all those clerics and paladins.

Everything works out pretty good in the end.

The Goddess of Nature has an assassin cult. She is benevolent but her domain includes the cycle of life, death and rebirth. The Grand Wheel Brotherhood kills people which it considers to be better off dead than alive so they might have a second chance. This goes from murderers all the way down to being homeless, depending on the individual assassin.

The goddess barbarian counterpart is a gigantic Brachiosaurus in which I mixed Shiva and Godzilla: destroys everything in its path, but from its dung, storm herd and blood entire new, biomes are born. It is the justification for why many hobogoblin tribes are nomads.

The God of War has the form of three hundred pikemen.

The God of Death never wanted to be a god.

The Sun-God has the form of a colossal statue atop the mausoleum of his mortal incarnation.

The Sea-Moon-Magic Goddess has the form of a leviathan-sized mermaid. Her body is as colorful and rich of life as a coral reef. Sailors have two thousand tales about her.

The Smith God sanctuary looks like a anvil, but is actually a nail incrusted upon the earth, subduing earthquakes that demolish hard labor. He made the (usual) dwarfs from ants.

The Mad God and the Pariah God don't exist to mortals of the empire, and that's just the way they like it. Only 'blessed' hobos and foreigners know them, and who'll believe those guys?

>The God of Death never wanted to be a god.
Man, every time the death god goes beyond being ANTI-LIFE KILL KILL KILL it always ends up being best god. #deth4lyfe

But malal doesn't exist.

The universe was created by an all powerful god who made it a volatile, chaotic mess filled with countless one-of-a-kind monsters known as primordials, the oldest of which is Tremoda who lives deep beneath the earth. Over time things settle and new forms of life develop. The two most important being giants and dragons.

Somewhere along the line a creature formed that began to kill and eat the primordials, gaining their powers and bringing order to the world. His name was Vanod and he created humans. Human clerics honour Vanod by questing to eat the meat of one of every animal.

Elsewhere, Morul, a member of a servant race created by giants called the dwarves, discovers magic an creates civilisation. Eventually he achieves apotheosis and he and Vanod go on adventures killing primordials in the sky (every year there are one or two fewer stars at night).

The rest is pretty straightforward. Most religions have Tremoda, Vanod and Morul in their pantheons. Goblinoids worship Tremoda because he created them. Elves don't bother with gods and instead worship abstract forces of nature, like forests and rivers. Kobolds and lizardmen worship the dragons as they were born by the blood spilled when the dragons fought each other long ago.

There are also cults to primordials that live deep underground or in the ocean. These are known as "Forgotten Beasts" as Vanod missed them when he was chowing down on primordial chaos.

The largest religion though is the worship of the One True God who created everything. He is worshipped through war, ritual combat and bloodletting because his followers know that if the world isn't interesting then Armok will unmake it and start again.

That's not even magical realm

That's just Egypt

Infinite punishment for finite transgressions is infinitely unjust.

He's planning to leave the job. He can't simply walk away, but he's trying.

Anyone whose death gods don't draw inspiration from Terry Pratchett should not have the right to GM.

Don't worry, I don't GM. I just lore up the setting.

And while Pratchett is inspiring, he hasn't been so for this god.

>Lawful
>Good
>Missionary Positions

>But bad people have to pay off their karmic debts. With money.

That's depressing enough to be actually true.

...

People are the sum of their occupations. Good and evil are just about how well you perform your job. You are assigned a job by the Church of Industry at puberty and you are expected to perform that job for the rest of your life.

Make an awesome sword? You're righteous. The sword broke after a month of use? Evil. The house you built fell down? That's a cardinal sin. It's not just that you did a shitty job it's that your shitty product destroyed all of the good products that were in the house.

The creator god has left the world in the hands of a middle manager god and he does not care what you do once you're off the clock so long as you perform your assigned task adequately.

The world was created by five goddesses called the Seraph. The Seeder, the Purifier, the Molder, the Digger, and the Settler. Each one played a part in creating the world, and each one left a crystal behind that helps their chosen race prosper and exist.

And by prosper and exist, I mean they literally are the reason for level ups existing in the world.

Each Crystal is powered directly by their powers, kind of like a Godly funnel, and you can cut off shards and chunks from the Original Crystals to create chunks and shards that still work on their own. (Can't break them off from the copy though, then they're useless.) Each town has a chunk, some adventurers get shards.

Whenever someone reaches their full potential at that stage (Full XP), they can touch a Crystal and the Seraphim will unlock their limits (Level up). It's why people can do seemingly godly acts at higher levels, and explains why they learn new skills on the fly. The Seraphim are literally giving the knowledge to them.

Twist is, this only exists because the Seraphim need people to eventually be strong enough to fight off the demonic forces and God Hunters that plague them. If someone ever gets to level 20 in the campaign, they'll get the option to become a Cherum (Angel) in service of the Seraphim now, wait until they naturally die then become a weaker Cherum, or refuse Godly powers altogether and cast them to their fate.

Think of it more like prisoners leaving the prison to work on a road or something, they're still being controlled and aren't really "free" but they're doing some work to help repay their societal debt.
It's not like they're completely getting a break from punishment either, being an undead slave generally isn't that pleasant.

my setting begins when the first being, the lonely god dies. its from their body that the worldflower grew, and their organs which still held power became he primordial pantheon. the being who is credited for creating goblins is a disembodied brain, holding a pair of giant eyeballs like a lantern. he is not the god of intelect, merely the god who represents physical literal grey matter. most of the gods are like this.

Humans were created as a slave race, and accidentally tapped into their innate magic/psychic power to imbue the sun with divinity. Other races have their own interpretations of the god(s), but have yet to be shown in-universe.

The Church Of Kelgast. I based it off norse mythology. I haven't fleshed it out too much, but you can see most of it on the Veeky Forums space opera thread.

Hey chill, the Greeks did it thousands of years ago, pretty sure you can get away with it now.

It works a bit like this:

vocaroo.com/i/s1Ascwma3EKn

If the universe is perpetual, then all transgressions are infinite.

That is untrue.

Unless you have a time machine, you've permanently ruined the future. You can't unfuck it.

That's not how it works. Offences aren't committed against "the future". They're committed by finite means against finite people with finite lifespans.

How is that depressing? Instead of being punished for arbitrary divine rules, you have to pay back all the bad deeds you did against the victim of your actions.

>The universe is written from shitty code

Perfect.

There were four deities, corresponding to the four planes of existence -- Nemesis (The shadow plane, entropy, emptiness, endings), Azoth (The plane of Limbo, power, form, seeming, change), Fate (The astral plane, structure, persistence, geometry) and The Unnamed (The prime plane; life, joy, whatever).
For whatever reason, the apocalypse happened elsewhere, and The Unnamed turned into all of the elves; the drow remember this, and the others don't (or at least, don't believe). They came here.

The "gods" the humans worship were the horsemen of the apocalypse (off message a little; War [Odin], Famine [Pac man], Madness [Cthulhu] and Treachery [user]).
The angels set up their own religion thing, trying to allude to the deity-in-a-billion-bits thing circumlocutiously, because their primary worshippers are humans, and they are NOT the deity's chosen people.
The devils, meanwhile, are just friggin building a kingdom.

...

I'm coming dangerously close to actually using sithrak, probably renamed to avoid suspicion, in my next game.

But what would a sithrak church service look like?

Is Jared still at it?

>So it's like a Scientology?
FTFY

There's this one nation where they have a living god who's basically a giant old man who's lived for centuries (no actual powers, but he's ancient). Problem is he's gone fucking crazy, and he's been locked in the high temple by the high priests for the last several decades. So some amoral blind scientists removed the living gods brain and put a fanatical priests brain in. Now god has returned to spread his dominion across the world, right after he has another hundred children
Other culture: Diseases are caused by FUCKING DEMONS known as bacteria, thus all priests are doctors, and children get taught nursery rhymes about making splints and bandaging wounds.

It is a sacred death ritual to eat the flesh of your loved ones after cooking it in a stew. Doing so imbues your soul with a portion of your loved ones soul, and all the souls they have consumed, as well as the ones those souls consumed, etc. you get it. The most holy people are are descended from an ancient king who first unified the people, and he is essentially considered a god, with all other gods in the setting being superstitious bullshit by people who are so amoral they don't even eat their dead friends. The blind scientists previously mentioned are believed to not have souls, and eating their flesh is considered committing mystical murder on the souls that you've attached to your own soul

CLOUDS FOR THE CLOUD THRONE

islam?

there wouldn't be any. If Sithrak doesn't care what you say, what point is there to hold services?

Once upon a time, the earth was barren and dry. Mother Sun and Father Moon came to it and made of it their home. First were born their three daughters - Wind, Wood, and Wave.

The sisters spread out across the earth. Wave settled in the deep places, bringing water and begetting the children of the sea. To her sister Wind, she gave some handfuls of water, and Wind ran and danced through the open sky. Where her hands slipped, water fell, and the first rains fell upon the land. Where the rain fell, Wood placed the seeds of her own children. And so they carried on for a time, and the earth became lively and beautiful.

Then the Sun and the Moon came down to see their daughters with wondrous news. They had produced a son, and his name was Fire. For a time, the sisters tolerated Fire, but they never liked him. He tried to tend the trees with his sister Wood, but at his slightest touch they turned to ash. He tried to tend the waters with his sister Wave, but the slightest step into them caused him unbearable pain. He tried to frolic in the sky with his sister Wind, but where he went, the air turned black and heavy and foul.

The sisters rejected their new brother, even as he grew tall and strong. To them, he was an ugly thing that could not create, as they could. Why should he have inherited their mother's warmth? Why should they call him brother at all?

And so, one night, while their mother was asleep and their father's face turned away, the sisters sprung a trap for their brother, and hurled him deep beneath the earth. Down and down he tumbled, until at last he found himself shackled at the very center. There, the sisters thought, he could never trouble them again.

But they were wrong. Their betrayal planted the seeds of hatred in his heart, and drove him to despair. His tears began to melt the earth around him, and they boiled over, reaching the surface. Wood watched helpless as her vast forests burned, replaced with Fire's hardened black tears. (cont)

christianity, saints are cleric domains

Tiamat is Mother of Chaos and the Gods. She just wants to sleep, but the gods are noisy children that killed her and ripped her in half to make the Underworld and the Heavens.

That's the tale written on the stone scriptures of the Lizardmen. It's clearly a description of the fall of the Reptillian Empire to the mammalian life.

(cont)

Wave saw steam rise from her precious waters as the tears erupted from beneath them. Wind watched his cries of pain fill the air with black smoke. Now he was defiling their works more than ever! Something needed to be done.

The sisters went to their mother and father, only to find the two crying. The Sun and Moon could not find their only son, and they begged the sisters to tell them where he had gone.

Wave, clever with words, weaved a vicious lie - that Fire had tried to take Wind as his bride, only to hide himself away after his failure. But as she had nearly convinced them, Fire's tears burst forth from the ground, his cries louder than ever. The Sun grew furious, as she realized he could not be beneath the earth by choice.

She demanded the sisters tell her who had taken her son from her. When none could answer, she strode away in aimless fury, vowing she would find whoever had done it and destroy them.

The Moon, however, had realized the truth on his own. The cold look of disgust in his eyes said it all, and the sisters recoiled from him. Wind was the first to flee, with Wood just behind her, but Wood slowed to tell her children to seek only the light of the Sun, and hide their most precious things from the Moon's gaze. Wave was too slow to escape, and needed discard her cloak to flee his wrath. But a single thread, so thin she could not notice, had stuck to her hair - and whenever the Moon pulls on the cloak, it pulls her with it ever so slightly.

Time passed, and a strange thing sprang up from the dust of the earth. It wandered until the sisters found it. They found it odd that it could come about on its own, and so they gave it gifts to welcome it into the world. Wind gave it breath and voice, hoping that it would use these to praise her. Wave gave it blood and sweat, that its body might stay cool in the heat and warm in the cold. Wood, at last, gave it flesh and blood, so it might stand like her precious trees.

(cont)

In that vein infinite reward for finite good action is also infintely unjust.

(cont)

But there was one thing the sisters had not counted on. As they sent the thing on its way to frolic in the world, its curiosity led it to a raging fire. The sisters had forgotten to give it fear of their brother's work, and rather than flee, it simply stared at the bright light.

Within the flame, a face appeared, and a voice spoke. It said to the thing, "my sisters have given you the gifts you have, because without these you were ugly. They would not have another ugly thing in their world. But I can give you a gift greater than any of theirs. I can give you power. Power to warm you more than blood, to let you stand taller than bone, to let you bring greater praises than voice alone. All I ask is that whatever honor you pay to them, you pay also to me."

The creature stared on, in awe of this being, who then spoke again.

"There is one more gift I can offer you. My sisters' children all have names, which they are called by and by which they know themselves. I shall give you a name of your own, so that you may know yourself as well. You shall be called Man, and you alone among the creatures will be my friend."

The newly-named Man nodded, glad to have his own name now. As the face faded from the fire, he found a single stick, alight with the flame. He picked up the end which did not burn, and held it out in front of him for a day and a night, and in the night he saw just as well as in the day, and he saw that this was good.

When he took the fruit of the trees, he found another fire, left for him by his new friend. He placed the fruit upon the fire and it made a wonderful smell, and had a wonderful taste when he ate it, and he saw that it was good.

One of Wood's children saw him carrying the flame, and knowing it was the work of its mother's hated enemy, sought to devour Man and stamp out the flame. As it grew close, Man turned toward it and waved the flame about. The creature could bear it no longer and fled, and Man saw that it was good.

(cont)

There's a pantheon of pretty standard gods who don't really interact with the world much, but the population understands they exist with very little doubt.

But recently people have started worshipping the king (Big Bad) instead, because he has enough mages, artifacts and power to control the weather, cure illnesses and raise the dead.

"What have you done for me lately" sort of deal.

Yes, but if you decide to start pulling people out of heaven to work in your coal mine and it catches on, a few decades later your ass is going to find itself being pulled out of heaven to work in some other asshole's asbestos mine.

That would be the reasoning, anyway.

(cont)

Man and Fire became fast friends, and for the first time Fire felt loved. When Man met the children of Wood, he sought to share the gift with them, and some followed, curious to see what he had to show them.

When he was done, he went back to go and tell the Wind with his voice of the wondrous thing he had gained - but Wood stood in his way, and all those of her children who had not gone to see the fire were with her. She bade them henceforth to give Man no peace in his wanderings, and to kill him or flee if he gave chase.

Wave ignored the flame, for it could not touch her or her children.

Wind also ignored Man's fascination with the flame, for she alone believed he would one day abandon her brother's work.

But when Fire saw Wood turn her children against his only friend, to try and take him away, his heart quaked with rage once again. His fury poured forth from the earth, and Man learned to fear his power for the first time. But he had given the new creature so much good, and so he did not reject the flame out of fear.

Instead, he sought to learn its secrets and control it, and so he became the tool of Fire's vengeance. Fire taught Man how to steal the fruits of Wood's trees and grasses for his own, and guard them from hungry beasts. He taught Man how to reach into the water and take the children of Wave for eating, and how to soak away the water from their flesh so he could cook them. He taught Man how to make paints for his face, and weapons for his hands. He taught Man how to fight the children of the Wood when they came for his blood. He even taught Man, when he felt he was ready, to take the stones and make closed places for himself, and pull the glowing ore from them and clad himself in the metal.

And so it was that Man learned his arts, and was rejected by the beasts, save those who had once gone with him to see the fire.

The only good one so far.

...

To meet up with other worshipers once a week and catch up. Also bake sales.

pretty kewl

Fuck me, I need to up my game.

These are great, and I am stealing several

Undead aren't in control of themselves, the necromancers who raised them are. So it doesn't matter how much of a monster they were in life, they won't have an opportunity to be monstrous again unless the necromancer slips up.

LET THE UNIVERSE DWRRRROWWWN IN IT!

It's not Egypt until your mom makes you feed your uncle his jizz harvested from your prepubescent ass on lettuce, but it's close

The High Overgod that crafted the Universe did ao on accident. He's a massive Baboon that wanders across the endless black canvas of the cosmos mindlessly jacking himself off alternating with his good and bad hand. Each time he ejaculates a new world or galaxy or plane is formed. Each time he blows a load of cosmic spunk across another expance of the universe's face it's a little bigger and a little more powerful and new things develop in to a little bit quicker.

There is a group of races and beings from all across the cosmos who are dedicated to trying to find away to either kill the Spaceboon or just prevent him from jerking his timy monkey dick, as there is a very real fear that while half of his nuts with his good hand produce wonderful beautiful things, the other half with his bad hand produce villains and nightmares and demonic hellscapes. The Council dedicated to stopping him has multiple branches. Killing Him, putting Him to sleep, plugging His dick, and then a final sect that is considered madmen who seek to simply cut off one of His arms in the hope that it's the bad arm. The only problem is no one knows which arm is the right one, or if the Cutting Cult even cares, or that maybe they're from worlds resulting from the bad arm and the secretly want to sever the good arm and plunge the universe into eternal nightmare chaos of bad jizz blasts forever.

>When you die you go to heaven. That's it. Even bad people.
> But bad people have to pay off their karmic debts. With money.
Ah, Catholicism.