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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Agback" data-source="post: 252098" data-attributes="member: 5328">Sure, but that's commerce rather than devotion."Lustror demands a full tithe for his church, and observances that take up five hours per week, and won't let us eat beans, marry redheads, or take a bride-price for our daughters. But he's the only god who offers the plant domain. I think he's the best choice, considering that we are farmers." That's hardly the fanaticism that makes willing martyrs.I can see that people probably would perform rituals, say prayers, make sacrifices, and obey commandments in return for the goodies that stereotypal D&D gods give out. And I concede that it is possible to come up with world reasons why the gods should want to be worshipped, etc. enough that they give out these goodies in return for those services.What I'm trying to point out is that it isn't obvious that this is the best world design for an RPG. Let's consider alternatives: perhaps some of them will be at least as much fun and good to add some variety.Let's suppose that there were a god who was fully capable of empowering clerics, but who had no taste for flattery. What might he require instead of fulsome worship? What ceremonies might his followers come up with to satisfy their human craving for ritual?Let's suppose that there were a god who gave a great deal on miracles, but didn't care about his worshippers' moral behaviour. Where might his worshippers turn for a moral code?In my campaign (which I won't name because I submitted a one-pager to the WotC setting search) there are three kinds of things that take part of the role of cliché gods.1) There are daimons, which are the indwelling spirits of various numinous things such as islands, the Ocean, the Sun, the Moon, planets, mountains, trees, forests, rivers, lakes, valleys etc. These are capable of trading miraculous power to mortals for anything they can get. But most of them very obviously have vices, and none has in any rational sense had an archetypal adventure. They are powerful and nearly indestructible intelligent supernatural beings with personalities, memories, intentions, and emotions. But they make poor mythic figures and poor moral preceptors. Besides which, most aren't interested in other peoples' morality.2) There are oneiroi, which are mythic archetypes in the collective unconscious. People who resemble them dream about being them, come more and more to resemble them, become apparent avatars or incarnations of them, and often gain miraculous abilities and other supernatural powers. In some sort of psychological sense the oneiroi have had archetypal adventures (although admittedly not at any historical time). But they have no memories or intentions, won't trade miraculous powers for obsequious conduct, don't care about people's behaviour, etc. etc.3) There are mortal mystics and philosophers, who do care about moral conduct and social ritual, but who have no powers to dispense. They have to persuade people to moral conduct.So in my campaign people deal with daimons for miracles, tell myths and legends about oneiroi, and turn to wise men for moral and spiritual guidance.Now, I won't say that this is a better arrangement than vanilla fantasy religion. I'm just pointing out that it might be a mistake to overlook possibilities like this because you mistake a default assumption from a fantasy universal.Regards,Agback</blockquote>

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