Is there anything wrong with having not!christianity in your fantasy setting...

Of course, it's usually the unimaginative and the fedora tippers who are to blame for that always using the catholic church as the defacto "evil" religion.

Its fine, most settings with polytheistic societies are written as 15 different Christianities instead of an actual polytheistic society anyway so you may as well go all the way.

henotheism is the default for most badly written fantasy settings they just don't call it that by name

It's hard to find a reason not to bite the bullet and just have them be real Cathloics and embrace a historical setting, no matter how loose.

I find this works better. When people know it's the church they tend to not fall into the traps

outlines, if nothing else then because people understand that the church and religion are complicated subjects in real life.

Lazy of me, but it also saves a huge amount of world-building time. The players aren't going to need me to explain what a monistary is or what a cathedral is like, and who the god of agriculture is.

Which is the best heresy to swap into a fantasy setting? Your opinion?

I tend to see Protestantism wearing a catholic hat. Catholocism seems weird and fantastical to your average clapburger, but they tend to base it's theology, behaviors, and organization on the vague nondenominational brand of Jesus most people in middle america like.

The same thing tends to happen even if they're not trying to base it off of christianity. I've had ostensibly pagan clerics of thunder gods be really worried about sin, repentance, etc etc. It's really weird. They can't seem to separate their own beliefs from the in game theology

That's a matter of exposure I feel. If you've never learned about other religous practices other than your own what other frame of reference do you have? That said, there could be an unconcious fear that acting or thinking about other ways of thinking like that may seem deviant to them and bring up such concerns of piety

>Is there anything wrong with having not!christianity in your fantasy setting?
Nothing, except that it might be kinda dull. Not to mention, considering contemporary poor education and understanding of Christianity, you are at a pretty bad risk of re-interpreting it in some kind of offensively bad way (I don't mean offense of religious sensibilities here, I mean offense to common fucking sense). If you want to use Christianity, I think it's better to flat out use Christianity, set your settings in alternative version of Earth, not badly emulate it, because that way it will probably end up a dull caricature of a religious movement we are all already pretty intimately familiar with and that is hardly exciting to us.

I did fail to avoid having at least one strong somewhat-Christianity-like monotheism in my settings, because the contrast of traditional polytheistic religions with a more dogmatic and institutionalized monotheism was just too delicious to resist, but I did at least try to distinguish it enough in terms of core philosophy and implications.

So yeah: it's not inherently WRONG, but I would trust very few GM's and world-builders in general for that matter not to screw it up and make it boring as sin.

Absolutely, Catholicism or even Orthodoxy is probably one of the best frameworks for a fantasy religion out there.

An example of Catholicism done right in a fantasy setting is the Church of the Silver Flame from Eberron.

>They can't seem to separate their own beliefs from the in game theology
That should be hardly surprising. We tend to not realize just how incredibly deep the religious sensibilities of Christianity are rooted in us, and very few people actually really have the faintest clue how non-Christian attitude towards religion actually looks like. Even though we long since declared ourselves secular, the fundamental philosophy and categories of it surround us at every step.

I remember my own shock when I first was faced with the reality of Japanese religious beliefs, and for the first time realized what now seems obvious to me: that religious exclusivity is not actually a natural phenomenon and that historically speaking, it was completely normal for people to maintain multiple different, often contradictory religious beliefs at the same time without seeing any issue with it.

Well, most fantasy settings I saw has at least some kind of ripoff from Christianity (at least for human religions, that basically means top religion in the settings because, you know, humans). Most notorious:
Warhammer fantasy: sigmar being messianic figure with all the aestethics qns system of the signature religion
It gets even more notorious in 50k, that actually has godman and mixes Catholic aesthetics and Orthodox symbols and imperial theory (except that instead of having emperor as appointed by God, you have emperor being god)
Even elder Scrolls have Talos and also greybeards that look suspiciously similar to orthodox monks.
The point is, that Christianity even minimally at least, was always present in fantasy settings.

Proper polytheistic religions tend to be complicated and weird enough that you'd need a huge amount of world building time to explain exactly what your local God of Fantasy Goodness thinks of things and how he expects people to atone for violations of his edicts.

And what about other gods? The Goddess of Death and Evil Badness might be evil as fuck, but do you need to offer her a sacrifice of bread and wine once a year or your loved ones might get sick?

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Wouldn't say. Give me an example or two?

Polytheistic atonement often amounts to giving the god some sort of gift. It's better to not think of Polytheistic gods as "gods" and more like "exceptionally powerful people who have magic" when describing their relationship with their followers.

Catharism is a pretty cool basis for a fantasy faith, or any other Gnostic dualist sect you like. Familiar enough that most people won't have to wrack their brain to get what they're about, but with enough unusual that it'll seem fantastical. Maybe throw in some mystical elements from Kaballah or some of the wackier Charismatic sects and you're golden.

>explain exactly what your local God of Fantasy Goodness thinks of things and how he expects people to atone for violations of his edicts.
Dude, why would you need exact explanations? It's not like you need every single religious idol having to be exactly equally super-detailed. Most gods in polytheistic religions tend to be archetypes, and usually shared across a vast number of societies in various incarnations. Maintaining a good polytheistic religious system is actually much easier than setting up a well-detailed monotheistic or one with very few gods, precisely because you DON`T need to keep track of it in great detail or precision.

>henotheism
is the direct result of gods actually existing.

better idea, make your char. the new !Jesus.

That may make sense in a silly fantasy setting, but if you tried to explain real-world or real-world-like-polytheism like that, you'd be amazingly wrong.

It's pretty much stated that most people in every D&D setting ever acknowledge that gods other than their patron exist, they just like their patron better. Chaos champions in WH don't deny that the other 3 ruinous powers are real, they just don't care about them as much.

Problem is gnosticism is esoteric for its own sake. In fantasy (hell, in RPGs) you generally want something pretty clear and "universal" on the outside.

It's doable, I guess, but not easy.

Except Helenistic mythology. It very much seems to be about appeasing the scary skywizards so they leave you be.

>henotheism is the default for most badly written fantasy settings they just don't call it that by name
Actually, henotheism is pretty much the default state of most people living in a polythestic religion PERIOD. You virtually never worship all the gods in the pantheon equally.
Fuck me, even Christians could be argued to be semi-henotheist, with their historical past obsessions with particular saints.

Yeah, but in henoteism you don't simply think there are other gods and you like yours more: they thing said god is the chief over the pantheon.

>DND religion is retarded as fuck

>but if you tried to explain real-world or real-world-like-polytheism like that, you'd be amazingly wrong.
Romans, Greeks, Celts, North Africans, Egyptians, essentially the entire Mediterranean basin

I guess it's a matter of opinion. I personally don't think it's that difficult to explain, and I also don't generally make a point of letting my players be aware of the cosmic truths of reality and all that. Just sort of sum up the basics as generally understood in-universe and let them be.

Where are you getting your definition? The more accepted definition of henotheism is just adherence or worship of one specific god out of a pantheon, or one specific god but not denying that others exists.

>. In fantasy (hell, in RPGs) you generally want something pretty clear and "universal" on the outside.
First of all, speak for yourself. The LAST thing I want in my fictional worlds is religion to be "externally clear". There is nothing more fucking boring than religion that is not complicated and obscure, mysterious.
Second of all, Gnostism is generally incredibly fun for actual cosmologies and cosmogonies, and incorporating your practical religion into greater cosmic matters.

Thirdly, it's just incredibly fun and makes a basis for really fun crazy mystics/preachers/crazy hobo type characters.
Fuck, I have three different gnostic religions in my setting. One of them is actually just an inversion of older, generally highly optimistic religion of the nomads.

>Actually, henotheism is pretty much the default state of most people living in a polythestic religion PERIOD
Saying period at the end doesn't make it true faggot.

Nah, not really. I mean yeah, sacrifice is a pretty damn universal ritual and without greater insight into the religion, it's very easy to assume that gods are just "people with power that you are trying to barter with". Reality is, generally speaking, way more complicated.

Why do you people try to talk about religion when you clearly do not have even the most rudimentary education about it?
For fuck sake you retards, don't try to pretend that what the bored teacher told you in elementary school is actual education on the subject. Even fucking Tylor and Frazer have a better education on religion than you do.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism

See the zoroastrism example.

It's pretty clear that it's the standard, user. Didn't mean it's the "best" way.

I'd like an example of these gnostic religion of yours, anyway.

Where’d you get your degree faggot? Classics major here.

He's right, but he still talks like a triggered faggot.

The zoroastrian example is referring to Zoroastrianism's take on it, specifically. Not to henotheism as a concept. A lot of the historical takes on it have to do with veneration of the king of the gods or what have you, but in a setting where all members of the pantheon are equal and viable then you don't necessarily have to view them as chief of the gods to worship them in favor of all others and thus be a henotheist

Offtopic, but are you that guy, who argued that gnosticism was cinsidered Christian untill those ebil emperor worshipping bishops condemned it in previous threads?

Who fucking cares, people complain about everything.

Marcionism, or really any of the early dualist sects

Or you could do something interested with religions like Manicheanism and Islam, where every once in awhile a new messianic figure pops up, but push it to such frequency that it becomes comical and you have all of these itinerant prophets all stepping on each others' toes.

Or just base it off of the sell-all-your-shit-and-tell-your-family-to-fuck-off doomsday-prepper that Jesus actually was instead of the Orthodoxy's attempt to make a guy who was all about ditching sacred Law into a central figure of an organized system.

Shit's weird. Possibilities are endless.

My undestanding is that it's the same when the hindus refer to a supreme god, or even the the Bhrama/Vishnu/Shiva thing.

>Is there anything wrong with having not!christianity in your fantasy setting?
Yeah, if you're a contrarian. Generic churches of "The Light" that are basically faux-Catholicism are the absolute best and I'm not even being ironic.

One in Anthropology, other in Philosophy, both with focus on religious experience and practice. Now continuing on cognitive psychology and religious studies (religionistics, as they call it around here). You can guess which specialization. I have absolutely nothing against classics, it's a good education if you have decent teachers, but hardly a good place actually understand religious practices. European culture in the past has not proven itself to be exactly... understanding other religious mindsets. Again: not a bad thing, it's just good to know that our education on this subject moved forward somewhat.
Eliade, Levi-Strauss, Sperber, Orsi and even Jung are pretty good places to start understanding general outlooks of mythological mindset and the concept of divinity and transcendental from more-or-less cognitive perspective.

Yep, that would be me. Specifically, I pointed out that it was considered Christian by some (considerable) number of thinkers we today consider Christian authorities, often considered as such by many Gnostics themselves, and in general, it should never be claimed to be "opposing practice" in an era where definition of Christianity was vague to say at best.
Please tell me that you are not the retard who actually though Gnosticism is all about reincarnation. I don't think I can deal with that stupidity today.

I accidentally made a kind of Christianity in a setting. Basically you have various desert tribes who worship a single god of the sky (was originally going for Tengri) and over time began adding to it. The wind became sacred as it is direct interaction from their god with them so their settlements have alot of windmills and kites. Then i figured since pure water was rare in my setting, let alone the desert part. they would also consider it sacred. What I ended up with was a large aquifer deep beneath the desert and they would use windmills to pump it to the surface to sustain civilization. Had an idea of how a chosen one of their deity led them to its discovery, kind of a mass pilgrimage to a mountain side that was hit by a meteor not long after they arrived and was so cracked that a waterfall and lake formed. A new city was build at the banks of this lake and now serves as the capital to the united tribes.
So I ended up with the sky (The Father)
The Chosen Water (The Son)
and The Wind (The Holy Spirit.)

So what is that good for besides being a dick head on an anonymous cartoon board?

Not that guy, but that is literally what happened. I don't get how he's "arguing" for that position when that's the modern scholarly consensus on Gnosticism.

Its hard to do right given how divided some groups are even in reality.

Okay, than how should we view the gods of a Polytheistic religion besides "powerful skywizard that can help or hinder based on my behavior?"

>Generic churches of "The Light"
That actually sounds much more like zoroastrism than Christianity. Also boring as shit.

Err, no, I was saying, that gnosticism opposed concept of Resurrection of the dead and was far more close to Manichaeism and Buddhism than to chirstianity and were you not autistic enoughtm to sorry entire thread, you'd remember it correctly.
Howevee, don't worry, im not in a debate mood today, it's a midnight here and I should go to sleep ^^ asides from this, judging by your speech post, I have concluded that you are self righteous clinically Ill being, so I won't waste my time on you anyways

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This is my favorite Veeky Forums image I've ever seen and have ever saved.

Sadly, it only reminds me just how lost the modern world has become, no wonder the vast majority of people in America and Europe feel like the future is hopeless.

>That actually sounds much more like zoroastrism than Christianity
I'm confused and intrigued in equal measure.

>Also boring as shit
COME SAY THAT TO MY FACE AND NOT ONLINE SEE WHAT HAPPENS I'LL FUCKING SHANK U M8.

>To sorry
To sperg
ok, it's late now

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>If it wasn't for Vatican II, Catholics would be like less shitty Jews who have their own closely knit community and this really cool dead language they're all forced to learn but only use for religious reasons

Err ,no that would be Manichaeism. And yes, diablo is the brightest example of this. since they switched to dualism from vague demonology in first and second parts, it became heavily Manichean

makes for awesome priests if you ask me. just look at them. would play the shit out of one

>Vatican II

I usually insert a generic monotheistic religion to serve as a counterpart to the widely prevelant polytheism of the setting. Monotheists are usually considered weirdos who worship a comparatively detached and quite possibly non-existent God, considering the usual god squad are pretty mum on the subject. Otherwise God is a known Over-Creator but has (mostly) left creation to be managed by the usual pantheons. To most people it makes more sense to worship the usual gaggle of gods because of obvious fast results, but the monotheists insist their prayers are answered in more subtle ways.

The best way to do this is establish the Monotheistic religion as generally in power and popular among the nobility, but still trying to convert the Polytheistic outer provinces.

Bonus points if there's more than one heresy associated with the religion.

It's less like learning mythology/dogma and more like learning about family members.

Grandma likes rum and cigars as gifts. Her favorite colors are pink and purple. Don't hurt a child in front of her because that makes her mad. If you want a pony, she's the one to ask. Remember that time she stabbed a guy who back talked her? I heard the other day she told my brother he was going to come into some money soon. Sometimes she can be a bitch, but she's still grandma.

Deities in a lot of polytheistic faiths are not grand cosmic principles you have to wrap your mind around. They're living entities that have their own lives and desires and motivations and relationships.

The relationship between the mortal and the immortal is closer to that of someone petitioning their elders/ruler/heroes than someone petitioning the almighty. In most instances they literally are your past elders/rulers/heroes, only they never died.

DISCLAIMER: I'm kind of a retard.
>Quick rundown
During the 60s there was a huge wage of secularization across Europe. The Vatican met to discuss how to deal with it and agreed that there are two options: they can either double down on doctrine and create a small but loyal following, or they can drag the church into THE CURRENT YEAR and play fast and loose with doctrine and start beatifying saints with dubious moral behavior and start shoving pedophilia under the rug rather than trying to solve it because admitting the church has problems is bad PR and this strategy is all about playing mr. popular.

The second strategy is contemporary mainstream Catholic doctrine. The guys who prefer the first are now called the Society of St. Pius and deemed heretical.

Wow, that explanation puts this particular scene from The Young Pope in a completely new light.

youtube.com/watch?v=591n8GKvyaY

>"I want to call people faggots and ordinary people keep calling me out on it: The Post"

>So what is that good for besides being a dick head on an anonymous cartoon board?
Like most classical education, it's good for nothing and everything at the same time. Understanding human society properly is arguably the single most important thing in the world - but it's benefits are rarely immediately visible.
For me, it's an academic passion, and a way to make a decent living, and pass on knowledge that will be useful to my students, even if not directly for making more money.

As representations of transcendental principles and experiences. A sort of an encoded map of how the world "really" works, an order or "logic" of the world that transcends mundane every day experience. They are not people, they are not psychological, even though they might be described in antropomorphic terminology. Sacrifice is not a trade, it's participation on the transcendental order. It would be pretty fucking stupid to assume that sacrifice is a trade or a bribe considering how unreliable the factual result of it is: rather, it's a reenactment of how people assume the world "really is".
It's pretty difficult to understand mythological mindset: that is why it's expressed in such a strange language (read actual myths in unabriged, non-rewriten versions), but it's all based more-or-less on the same assumption: the reality we experience is at best incredibly incomplete, and at worst actually completely wrong, and there is another reality, transcendent reality, which is much more real, and much more relevant.
Gods and most religious practices are nothing else than an attempt to describe and "map out" that transcendent reality onto the reality mundane. And the transcendent isn't as fucking cheap as mere human psychology.

Dont forget the current pope (May he burn in hell) literally forced the Grandmaster of the Knights hospitiler to stand down after he started calling him out on his shit.
he was replaced by an outsider yesman but may seek the title again and if he gets it i expect funtimes.

>thinking Vatican II was bad

lmfao

>The relationship between the mortal and the immortal is closer to that of someone petitioning their elders/ruler/heroes than someone petitioning the almighty. In most instances they literally are your past elders/rulers/heroes, only they never died.

That's literally how my Latin teacher back in High School described the relationship between the Pantheon and the Mortal world; it's a business arrangement, you ask for something and they get something in return.

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Says a lot about "ordinary" society, doesn't it? We've not only accepted evil as normal, we celebrate it.

>it was completely normal for people to maintain multiple different, often contradictory religious beliefs at the same time without seeing any issue with it.
Sounds like Orwellian doublethink.

>literally believing in this garbage

holy fucking shit I thought this thread was an elaborate joke at first

I'm out, enjoy living in the middle ages

More like the Human ability to compartmentalize beliefs and ways of thinking.

A more primal example of this ability is our habit of killing things and then going home to be loving parents or family members.

It's a little confusing when their pseudo-YHWH is embedded in a clearly pagan pantheon.

Except that is really actually very wrong. It's an understandable mistake for a contemporary person to make - after all it's something generally very strange to us, and we need to explain it away by identifying it with something that is very familiar to us, but... no.

More like East Asia just cares very little for hard doctrine and solid beliefs. They've got no problem mixing up Christmas, Jesus and Buddhist purification. Ask at a temple whether the big statue is Jesus or a Buddha, and you'll get an argument between two dudes who can't agree.

Be honest with me, user.

When's the last time you've actually seen someone called out for committing a deadly sin without a huge outcry by the public?

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sin is not real, just like god isn't real and morality isn't real

>Sounds like Orwellian doublethink.
Yet: it's actually the default and very few societies actually abandoned that kind of mindset. Hell, even most Christians did it, we just did not want to officially talk about it.

We actually are accustomed to - in many ways - really shallow way of thinking about the world. It's in many ways useful to think in exclusive categories and on relatively few levels of fidelity, but it is also in a way a rather shallow and unsophisticated reflection of the reality that surrounds us. Makes us good at science, but terrible at many other things, including social interactions and generally social organization and awareness.

>God is everything
>he does nothing for you or anyone else
>have fun
It's not exactly the most riveting shit for fantasy games.

To be fair, you need a pretty big IQ to understand this.

>cares very little for hard doctrine and solid beliefs
Oh they care very much for hard doctrines and solid beliefs. It's just that they can hold multitude of them simultaneously and switch between them based on a specific area of interest they are currently dealing with.

>Using living in the middle ages as an insult
>on Veeky Forums
At least put some effort into it you heretical faggot.

this is the third post with that kind of 'no that's totally wrong but I'm not going to tell you what's actually going on' attitude, either tell us what you think ancient polytheistic religions were like or shut the fuck up

>Religionists
Are you from some kind of easteuro shithole?

>believing that God doesn't intervene
Straight heretical, in a literal sense

The riveting shit comes from all the other variations of the religion arguing about who is more right. God is not the focus in these fantasy settings, it's the people who worship the god.

What a foolish and dangerous line of thought you must have. Leave civilization it is not for you.

You keep saying that, but you have no proof. Meanwhile there are many contemporary sources that basically paint the classical religious experience as a very transactional one.

He's very fedora but he's not technically wrong. Yahweh has his roots as a Canaanite war god, and the transition from "he is one of many gods" to "he is the best of many gods" to "he is the only god" maps fairly well with the disassociation of the Israelites from their "pagan" neighbors. As the ancient jews distance themselves from their kinfolk, their patron god of war starts picking up the titles and duties of the other gods, whose worship fell out of favor among the Israelites due to their strong associations with other tribes and states. It's actually pretty fascinating from a theological and historical standpoint,