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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DragonsInDungeons" data-source="post: 7791869" data-attributes="member: 7015561">Dragonlance (which I quite like, maybe even love) is glaringly, clearly, self-evidently based directly upon Mormonism. I have riffed on it several times (I even rewrote the lyrics to a song from "The Book of Mormon" to fit Dragonlance) and will probably riff on it some more in the future. But Ellistan is very obviously Joseph Smith, and Goldmoon is very clearly (a sexy lady version of) Brigham Young, and Paladine is VERY LITERALLY <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrystalDragonJesus" target="_blank">Crystal Dragon Jesus</a>.The obviousness of the allegory for me only added charm to the setting: my ex and I played around a lot in Krynn, but we never took it entirely seriously, because of the whole Mormon angle. My campaigns tend to be heavy, my War of the Lance campaign as much as any other, so it was good to be able to take a break every so often to horse laugh at the obvious parallels to Mormonism. Also, I like Mormons.Almost every Mormon I've ever met or had dealings with has been extraordinarily polite and decent. I will admit that the number one Mormon I'm thinking here of is the guy who fired me from Shadowrun. If I'm describing the person who fired me from my dream job as "extraordinarily polite and decent", I think you know he's a good guy. Tracy and Laura Hickman were also super nice, but I only interacted them very briefly and in the context of being a fanboy. To quote the musical I mentioned above, "LET'S BE REALLY FLAPJACKING POLITE TO EVERYONE" is the LDS PR strategy and they are astonishingly good at it and to a degree it's working very well.That said unfortunately I do have to mention that the religion of Mormonism is a hoax invented by Joseph Smith so he could have a cult of sheeple to callously exploit, and a really, painfully obvious hoax at that. "The Book of Mormon" (the musical about the hoax, not the founding document of the hoax) explains that in much more amusing terms than I ever could so watch it/listen to it if you're curious about why I would say that, unless you're already in the know.(I was lucky enough to see it on Broadway with the original cast. When we were exiting through the lobby, there were Mormons there, handing out leaflets. "You've seen the play! Now read the book!"...something like that. They were completely unfazed that we had all just laughed at the complete evisceration of their religion for two hours straight. They were all smiles and were genuinely nice. I honestly don't know how they do it.)I have actually never once heard of Tolkien's work being influenced by Roman Catholicism before. Based on my (limited) understanding of the Tolkien cosmology/metaphysics, it seemed more influenced by Paganism than anything else.The Chronicles of Narnia are essentially Christian propaganda aimed at children. But they're also great stories that are really important to a lot of people and their childhood memories. So I can easily forgive them their evangelical intentions because frankly, speaking as an agnostic, there are far worse memes to spread than Christianity.Oh, and since someone mentioned the hilaribad Draygunlance (THEY ACTUALLY MISPRONOUNCE THE WORD DRAGON IN THE TRAILER GUYS I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING LOOK THAT STUFF UP) Movie, George Strayton isn't just a laughably incompetent writer and game designer with the mierdas touch. He's also a very bad person. I first became aware of his existence at a con, where my ex and I gave him a ride back to his hotel, listening to his Hollywood stories. When I was just a newb in the industry, he convinced me to write basically the entire monster manual for his game The Secret Fire...for just $150...in just two days...on the firm promise of steady work that would eventually pay "better than WotC", "starting at seven cents per word".I was young enough and naive enough and hungry enough to fall for it. He successfully exploited his monster manual out of me. When I started asking about the additional work that would pay very well that he'd promised, he suddenly disappeared. At least I got a credit in his terribad game's rulebook.Watch the language, please.</blockquote>

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