How to create a monotheistic religion that isn't a rehashed version of chrisrianism (with a few jewish elements)?
I've seen a few fa/tg/uys saying that (fantasy) religions with a single god are the best but I've yet to see one that isn't some abrahamic rehash or dragon crystal jesus.
Do you have any good ideas or approachs to a single-god religion that are very different from the three big religions?
Just go with the flow.
Kavara the grand serpent sang the world into existence but failed a few verses causing demons to exist. Kavara still sings but slowly so that life may grow.
One day you will die and be re-sung but eventually Kavara will fail your tune and you shall become a demon.
Tengriism?
Sky Father rules over all.
>we told Steve to rip off Tolkien in his setting and he did it, the absolute madman
You could think about having a single deity that is very different to the Abrahamic ones. Doesn't really demand shit, doesn't punish, there's no Hell or need for salvation. Maybe there's reincarnation. Maybe the deity is pantheistic. Maybe the deity isn't even perfect - not omniscient or omnipotent.
Now we flesh it out.
What does Kavara look like?
Majority black scales with every 3rd ring being a rainbow.
Why did he sing?
He was alone and wanted to meet someone new.
What are the demons like?
Demon is a catch-all term for monsters.
There are normal monsters like Bugbears and goblins and then there are some fucked up beings like the Anuo that drain life in a desperate attempt to steal that beings song.
Oh that was a rip of LOTR? Damn. Never read it so I thought I was being original.
The Weaver works her loom without thought. Through each strand the universe forms, the events of life play out as she thoughtlessly creates her tapestry. The full picture can never be known, even the Weaver doesn't know where each thread leads. We can only hope through prayer and deeds to guide her hands to a good ending for us all.
...depends. In your setting, is god real?
This. Remember to try and conquer the world as well.
i recommend skimming the following wikipedia articles about monotheistic religions.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
zoroastrianism predates abrahamism, while sikhism, caodaism and tenrikyo are derived from eastern religion.
manichaeism is not quite monotheistic (though it's close), but it literally reads like a fantasy novel so it's good inspiration anyway.
Rip off Dragon's Dogma
Whether or not Sikhism is 'monotheistic' or just a distinct branch of Hinduism a very controversial subject, user.
putting aside the true nature of god in the setting, the religion itself is just not!christianity.
All the Abrahamic religions start with the premise that God is supremely powerful, and usually have the premise that God is Good with a capital G.
You could alter either or both of those concepts. Maybe you just have one creator-God, but one who is not unlimited and cannot fully control his creation. Maybe you have one that is spiteful, or stupid, or acts randomly. Perhaps he can create anything, but can't uncreate anything, leading to him being very careful with what he makes because it's gotten out of control before and there is no flood this time around to clean up the mess.
Here's a thought for you; your monotheistic God cannot kill anyone directly. Maybe you even go further and he can't supernaturally aid anyone directly in the effort of killing another living being. Work from there as to how it would be different from an Abrahamic god.
Simple enough: Honour the mother goddess from which all springs.
But where they really monotheistic? I thought mongols revered spirits and shit.
Are you forgetting how Christianity - like, hardcore 700s Christianity, heavily revered if not worshiped the Saints?
There is only one God, however there are Saints/Spirits that hear the prayers of the faithful, and whisper those prayers into God's ear.
Woman.
Yeah, but none of them were Tengri.
The whole thing is that Tengri was above everything, including spirits.
They didn't so much revere spirits as much as try not to offend the spirits, as, well, some could harm you, or Tengri could exact a punishment of their behalf
Technically, Hinduism IS monotheistic in itself, all the beings that are worshipped as gods and goddesses are just facets of Brahma that are as much as mere mortals can comprehend.
A little bit. It's been a while but IIRC: The Vaiar (archangels, essentially) sang the world into existence, but Melkor sang off beat to be a dick and ruined everything forever. Eventually they'll sing a new song without Melkor ruining everything for everyone.
You're technically correct, but tell a Hindu that and get ready for a buttblasting.
But it's fun to debate Brahmins, especially if they haven't studied the Vedas properly!
t. failed comparative theology 'A' level
Everyone in Abrahamic Club knows that christians are idolaters that must be wiped out, to be honest.
Sun worship
So basically like Zoroastrians have "gods" yet they're also monotheistic (or christians with their saints).
Eh, yeah kind of.
Though I was under the impression Zoroastrians were dualists
Elaborate.
What are the main characteristics of a sun worship religion?
Worshipping the sun.
I've always liked the idea of making the prime God evil, or at the very least a bit of a selfish prick.
Everyone in the world performs a yearly act of sacrifice, small communities just give up some animals or grain. Rich merchants are supposed to give up gold and jewels. Royalty are supposed to commission statues, build and then burn wooden palaces, or have their best 200 men petrified into statues and then smashed; given to the dark God as an army.
This God could also be the king or father of the monsters in the world, which is why monsters often have riches and wealth. Taking wealth from these monsters is really just taking back the sacrificed and plundered riches from the mortal folk back from the evil God. Maybe the players characters could aspire to become strong enough to scale up into heaven and defeat the evil God once and for all to put a stop his his reign of tyranny, or maybe just take it for themselves.
I'm sure some people would call this a fedora tipper style religion, but I think it's pretty unique and kind of fun.
It's only fedora tipping if you're trying to make some kind of statement or point by painting all religions/existing religion expy evil with a single brush
>What does Kavara look like?
>He
You've got a serpent creating monsters. You're pretty close to having an Echidna as your supreme god you may as well just go for it. As a bonus your associating the god with the female and motherhood rather than the male and fatherhood like Yahweh is.
Also black with colour is tacky as fuck.
>christians
*Catholics
No, that's manicheans. In Zoroastrianism the Ahriman is not an equal but more like a Satan (or Morgoth) figure. An enemy, but ultimately under the monotheistic God.
No thank you. I'll take my chances with Sithrak, thank you.
Like all good original things, I shall take something and then just do the opposit and then expand on it.
>Monotheism is based on loving Sky-Father.
>Opposite of that would be spiteful Earth-mother.
>The Earth-Mother is worshiped not out of compassion or love, but out of fear and contempt.
>Seen as the source of all things evil and enemy of all things good, She is constantly at work undoing the greatness of man.
>Heated storms are her fury, and icy blizzards her disdain. Nature is cruel and life is a struggle to outpace it.
>Cowards and fools pray for Her wrath to skip them over, or seek to direct Her wrath at their enemies, but she hates them all just the same.
>Brave and good men defy Her openly, and seek to work against her malevolence.
>At first man built shelter, to hide themselves from Her, but as the ages went by man grew stronger and fought back.
>Farms are a cut against Her body, the taming of animals is a defience against Her design.
>She selfishly hides her riches deep inside Herself, but we tore them away from her grasp.
>Cities are our shrines that stand against her, even though she tried to cripple us with plauge and disease.
>Man rejoiced at the discovery of other worlds. For one day we could finally abandon our abusive Mother to the cold depths of the void.
And literally everyone in christianity except protestants, which are basically the belgium of abrahamism.
Ah, mea culpa.
So a lot like Islam? Or do Zoroastrians also have various saints and gods?
>ITT Protestant thinks he's gonna deus vult the biggest christian denomination who incidentally are known for deus vulting
oh man, our boy Francis is full Pepe in that pic
Spiritualists are most definitely not. According to its principles even miracles do not exist, we are merely unable to understand what kind of natural phenomena they are.
Fuck off religionfags unless you want to contribute with your religious knowledge, this thread is not a religious debate.
(S)hes a god (S)he doesn't have to explain Him/herself to anyone.
And for black+rainbow see above.
I don't get it, isn't that true for all forms of chrisrianism?
Both God and the universe are part of the whole reality, you can't be outside the macrocosm or existence.
...
Yeah, I'm religious myself (celebrating Eid right now), but man, lads, cool that shiz.
>ITT Catholic who takes pride in the organization that activily diluted it's own teachings, invented rituals based on pagan beliefs, actively breaks commandments, worships idols, sends innocents to die for blood money, assassinates political rivals, molests little boys, funds drug traffickers, and worships literal demons is the truest branch of Christianity.
It's basically like catholicism but more hardcore. They have beings that are basically angels, "sparks" of Ahura Mazda who represent different facets of him AND powerful entities that you're allowed to worship (like Mithra) and would basically be considered lesser gods.
Any god worth worshiping has a strong understanding of aesthetics.
Omniscience is weird but by definition he could. If you're familiar with mathematics I think of it like a nested infinity.
Jokes on you, I go to a baptist congregation.
Seriously though my dood, we should stop shitting up the thread with a denominational pissing match.
Kavara is technically a child so (s)he probably wouldn't get that.
>we should stop shitting up the thread with a denominational pissing match.
Ok last one.
>(((Baptists)))
I'm thinking of something like a mix of Zeus, Odin, and Kratos, where the strongest dude ever (barring maybe something like an apocalypse beast or the will of magic itself or some other overpowered bullshit) travels the world as a nobody bum in disguise, partaking of everything normal people do but also soloing encounters from rats in a basement to epic-level lich armies for reasons. The clergy is at its core a glorified fan club/conspiracy theory ring that piece together that a lot of the world legends where one dude curbstomps all the shit describe him in very similar ways, and come to the accidentally correct conclusion that there's some immortal guy that's doing badass shit all over the world.
I am fairly certain that other christian denominations believe that the laws of nature can be broken by miracles instead of assuming that such miracles are merely the same laws at work which only seem to be broken due to our incomplete understanding of the laws.
Maybe way back when but in contemporary.
I think white might be better. White light gives birth to all other light after all.
True and white+rainbow scales makes sense.
Well
I feel a little better about that.
So do I user.
Animism master race where clerics and paladins have favorite individual small gods and local spirits that duel through their mortal proxies like pokemon.
These spirits are all formed from the various pieces of the primordial Sky, Earth, and Ocean spirits who tore themselves apart in a lover's spat.
Perhaps the sun is literally heaven, a shining golden light in the sky where the sun-king dwells with his sun-sluts and ancestors who were worthy?
Also washes refugee feet.
And no real cultures had creation myth musicals, right?
@OP the Great Eagle laid an egg, which fell down and from the shattered shell the earth was formed, and from the Eagle's tears was born the seas, and the heavens from the feathers the Eagle ripped off itself in its melancholy. At first, the eagle was really sad it's only egg had broken, but soon it noticed that the seas started to fill with fish, the earth filled with plants and animals and birds made the sky their home, so the Eagle was no longer lonely and sad.
>I thought I was being original.
Don't worry, there's nothing new under the sun.
True that.
>How to create non-abrahamic monotheistic religions?
Step one: Praise the Omnissiah!
en.wikipedia.org
How about just shit like angels? What are they if not spirits?
Also, christianity has its whole trinity thing to show some of the potential variety.
You don't worship or revere Angels, they are the servants of God and His messengers, soldiers and choir. Last time an Angel got puffed up on the belief they had a right to worshiped you got Lucifer and a good chunk of the celestial choir cast out of Heaven and thrown howling down to Hell.
Saints are what you want.
>celebrating Eid right now
This is a Christian imageboard, dog.
>le ebin crusader meme
Discontinue your efforts, I implore you.
here's some ideas:
Make the deity non-anthropomorphic, like a tree or a rock or something
Make the deity 'lesser' than mortals, as if it was trying (and potentially succeeded) in making something greater than itself
Make the deity nonlawful, or otherwise with little demands or judgments on its followers
Have the deity come into existence AFTER its followers, as their creation
Have the deity be in decline, or ascension, or otherwise imperfect and dynamic
You guys worship the same God, and he isn't even real. Fuck off.
>Man rejoiced at the discovery of other worlds. For one day we could finally abandon our abusive Mother to the cold depths of the void.
...only to find the other worlds' gods are equally - if not more - dickish
And they build a space station, but the AI overseer they instal accumulates increasingly unsettling quirks, because deep down they expect nothing less.
This shit's pretty good, y'all.
Zoroastrianism is not Monotheistic, but Dualistic.
>You guys worship the same God
are you really this stupid or are you just baiting?
Hinduism is not a polytheism, it's a pantheism/monism and has been for longer than most other religions have existed. Try something like that.
Otherwise you could go a dual poly/mono route like Tolkien did with his mythology. God created the gods, etc.
Aren't you guys and the jews all all up on the God of Abraham or have I been mislead somewhere along the line?
Au contraire
accordingtothescriptures.org/prophecy/353prophecies
The fact that Christianity acknowledges Jesus as God already discards "everyone worships same God" """"statement"""". If you dont worship Jesus and Holy Trinity in general, you don't worship same God as Christians.
You can anything about the Jews but they are the ones making the most sense.
They do. Some are just so triggered by Islam that they make up reasons for why they dont.
Do Muslims worship Jesus as God? Do they acknowledge concept of Trinity?
No and No
Then they do NOT worship same God as Christians do
>Jews making the most sense
lolwut
Protestant Christianity overall is the most stripped-down and least contradictory version.
>Protestant
funny way to spell Orthodox Christianity
>the jew god is not opposed by some kind of evil demigod despite being omnipotent
>no wacky explanation about how Jesus changed the law without actually changing it.
>not "monotheistic" god made up of three parts.
Judaism is the most self-consistent of the three.
Could you stop with the religious debates?
>the jew god is not opposed by some kind of evil demigod despite being omnipotent
Satan is not a Demigod. Infact, Humans are supreme creation so he cant force us to do anything unless we let him to influence us (voluntarily or by deception). He can only deceive, hence the name Diabolos.
>no wacky explanation about how Jesus changed the law without actually changing it.
He didnt changed laws and prophecies, he fulfilled it.
>not "monotheistic" god made up of three parts.
>Implying Almighty God that transcends everything can be understandable
If you can understand "God", then he is not God anymore
but yeah, maamats tov, shlomo
I went to catholic school.
most of our priests were Jesuits.
they taught us that Christianity was 'glorified sun worship'
Jesuits are the only Christians worth a shit, Franciscans a close second
the rest can fucking rot
>He didnt changed laws and prophecies, he fulfilled it.
It's only what you believes, and he still acted against some things of the Old Testament.
Starting from the principe it's right because he is god is a self-circular argument.
Why are so many religious people fedora-tier?
Many of them are former fedoras, I would know.
If there is only one god, why evil exists?
Abrahamic answer is free will mixed to "god has mysterious ways" but in a non-abrahamic one?
God hates Man.
Humankind is at war with God.
Humans are simply more Divine than God, More empathetic, more caring, more loving, more creative, more proactive, more sheltering, more protective. Everything God is, we do better and more of it. For every failing we have, we make up for it a thousand-fold.
God doesn't act.
Man does. Action speaks louder than The Word.
Therefore Man is superior to God.
>Abrahamic answer is free will mixed to "god has mysterious ways"
Actually, its just solely free will.
And Evil here is regarded to be just an absence of Good, not opposite of it.
Hate is lacks of love
Wrath is lacks of patience and so on and so forth.
So Christians don't worship the god of the Jews, even though half the Bible is the Torah?
Ok then, China.
Anyway, OP, as I said, you can go with the Cosmic Snake, or the Sky-Father if you want something Monotheistic in your DnD setting without conforming to something Abrahamic
Well, you could keep free will, but also say that all good and all evil spring from the One God.
Christians worship a fanfiction OC that's based on the jewish god
What happens when a demon dies? Do they get re-sung, hopefully correctly this time? Could they potentially be "tuned up" without dying? Do they, in fact, _have to_ be tuned up while alive to prevent being reincarnated as a demon?
Does all this only apply to the material things or does everything, even concepts, have their song? Does every concept potentially have a "harmonious" version?
Do demons prefer their "discorded" status, or would they rather be cured (whether that's possible or not)? What's their level of malevolence - just crazy, mischievous, nasty, homicidal, genocidal, omnicidal? Are they persons or howling madness?
Opposite side of the coin. Same sort of attitude. They are enlightened by their Faith and it makes them euphoric.