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Message: <blockquote data-quote="willpax" data-source="post: 899810" data-attributes="member: 1602">In the Medieval world, a common definition of atheist was "someone whose actions reveal that he or she does not think there is a God." That is, the matter of the existence of God was not in question for most people, but some people acted as if Divine Judgment was not something they needed to be concerned about. I think that kind of atheist is very possible in a D&D world: "there may be Gods, but why should I care? I won't bother them, and they won't bother me."Incidentally, in the Mediterranean basin in classical times, tolerance levels varied. Many polytheists believed that most gods were local, and it was accepted practice to appease the local gods, even if you personally were deveoted to another god. That model doesn't work so well with D&D, where there are multiple Gods who are more or less universal (in most campaigns). By the way, one reason the early Christians got into trouble was their refusal to pay the proper respects the the local gods (which would have had about the same significance as the pledge of allegiance has for most American school children, if my sources are correct). The Jews, by strength of their ancient faith, could be forgiven for not participating (as well as doing strange things like not working on one day out of seven), but the Christians were newfangled, and their refusal to appease the gods placed the safety of the entire community in danger (according to contemporary Roman thinking). So, as a longabout answer to the original question, the attitude that other worshippers would take would depend on their understanding of the role of the god. If this god is responsible for getting the crops in and keeping the town from perishing in a catastrophe, and someone not participating would risk the wrath of the god, then people will be much less accommodating than they would be otherwise. For those campaigns that have racial gods--I imagine that Garl Glittergold might be hard pressed to care less what non-gromes think, and that attitude might be shared by the followers.</blockquote>

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