DrunkonDuty
he/him
So I was reading the thread about Gruumsh in 1st Ed. (if I knew how to put a link in I'd do it.)
Wayne Ligon's post
"With all the little bits scattered here and there among dozens of other books, I don't really think you can take someone to task for backstory stuff that was written (actually, acreeted is a better word) over a period of 20 years"
got me thinking. DnD really has accreted a mythology. Well the whole game is an accretion thanks to the communal nature of it but I'll try to just talk about the campaign mythologies of fictional gods.
So: accretion. This is how religions DO form. Currently reading a book about the formation of the early Christian church and all the many possible interpretations of the various holy texts. (Many of these interpretations were later defined as heresies, their contributors heretics.) Prophets were quoted (Christ, Paul, Peter) to defend each view. Conflicting documents that had never been meant to create a whole cloth were used to defend/attack all points of view. The issues then became complicated by new ideas and situations (eg: the official recognition of the Christian church by the Roman Empire.)
It just strikes me that the growth of fictional religions in roleplaying games mirrors this process. Read the thread I mentioned above to get an idea. The prophets are Kuntz, Moore, Greenwood. The holy texts dragon magazines. But the process is much the same: a community is trying to thrash out a coherent system from a mish mash of sources that were never intended to be all of one piece. Fortunately the arguments here on Enworld are nowhere near as vicious as the arguments between the bishops of the early Christian church.
Now there's no doubt that some people have recognised this in the past (the disputed Elven and Orcish versions of why Gruumsh has one eye for instance) but the arguments continue.
I just find it fascinating is all. I think a mythographer who wanted a modern case study of the phenomena could do a lot worse than trace this history and read some of the arguments that take place here and other forums.
not really expecting a response, just felt the need to say it.
cheers,
Glen
Wayne Ligon's post
"With all the little bits scattered here and there among dozens of other books, I don't really think you can take someone to task for backstory stuff that was written (actually, acreeted is a better word) over a period of 20 years"
got me thinking. DnD really has accreted a mythology. Well the whole game is an accretion thanks to the communal nature of it but I'll try to just talk about the campaign mythologies of fictional gods.
So: accretion. This is how religions DO form. Currently reading a book about the formation of the early Christian church and all the many possible interpretations of the various holy texts. (Many of these interpretations were later defined as heresies, their contributors heretics.) Prophets were quoted (Christ, Paul, Peter) to defend each view. Conflicting documents that had never been meant to create a whole cloth were used to defend/attack all points of view. The issues then became complicated by new ideas and situations (eg: the official recognition of the Christian church by the Roman Empire.)
It just strikes me that the growth of fictional religions in roleplaying games mirrors this process. Read the thread I mentioned above to get an idea. The prophets are Kuntz, Moore, Greenwood. The holy texts dragon magazines. But the process is much the same: a community is trying to thrash out a coherent system from a mish mash of sources that were never intended to be all of one piece. Fortunately the arguments here on Enworld are nowhere near as vicious as the arguments between the bishops of the early Christian church.
Now there's no doubt that some people have recognised this in the past (the disputed Elven and Orcish versions of why Gruumsh has one eye for instance) but the arguments continue.
I just find it fascinating is all. I think a mythographer who wanted a modern case study of the phenomena could do a lot worse than trace this history and read some of the arguments that take place here and other forums.
not really expecting a response, just felt the need to say it.
cheers,
Glen