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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9849936" data-attributes="member: 6790260">When I set out to weave my component of the campaign world for Jewel of the Desert (my Dungeon World game), I had two key goals regarding the objects of worship.1: Create something positive and constructive that shows clear inspiration from Islam: monotheist, deeply interwoven with society, many strong traditions not universally enforced, etc., and2: Ensure that faith is, in fact, a matter of faith--NO religion, not the Islam-like one, not the pre-Islamic stuff, not the foreign beliefs, no religion has "proof" that it is true nor that any other is false.I have been told, by my nonreligious (or, more commonly, "it's complicated") players, that I have succeeded quite well at the second thing. I cannot know for sure how well I succeeded at the first because I am not Muslim myself and do not personally know anyone who is, but I have done my utmost to make the Islam-like religion a genuine force of good in the world, a complex and human force but ultimately a good force. I have shown that that religion is not monolithic, but has had multiple splinter-sects and internal doctrinal disputes, just like real religions do, and that there are always cruel and hypocritical zealots who ignore or overlook the rules they don't like in order to hyper-enforce the ones they do like. Etc.Which leaves the actual religions themselves, which are more or less as follows:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Safiqi Priesthood. Doesn't have a more specific name than that, as it's by far the most dominant religion of this region. The Safiqi claim that they speak for the One, their monotheistic deity. They hold the One to be transcendentally simple: infinite in extent but unitary in nature. As a result, the One is functionally impossible for a human mind to comprehend, and thus They are revered primarily through Their Aspects, different names for particular "facets" or focused subsets of what the One fully is. The most prominent of these is the Great Architect, representing the One as creator-sustainer-ruler of the cosmos; many lay people will interchangeably use "the One" and "the Great Architect" as though the two were synonymous, even though technically they aren't. Other known Aspects include: the Unknown Knower (aspect of knowledge, secrecy, stealth, and prophecy), the Stalwart Soldier (guardian of home and hearth, protector against crime and corruption, promoter of discipline and patience), the Soothing Flame (patron of healers, teachers, charity work, and seminary studies), and more--both known and forgotten.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Kahina. This is the "old faith", which (long, long) predates the Safiqi. Animist, the Kahina--druids and shaman--revere, serve, bolster, and manage the spirits of the living world, Al-Duniyya, and the spirit world, Al-Barzakh (which is fundamentally still "the same world", just viewed in a very different way.) The Kahina used to be quite powerful as a group, when any humans that weren't living under the slave-master Genie-Rajahs were in whole or in part dependent on Kahina to ensure they had enough food to eat. Some Kahina long for a return of their power and influence, but most of them understand that the natural cycle means nothing lasts forever.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Raven-Shadows. This is a straight-up assassin-cult, but they actually do have their own theology. Originally, they were the "internal police" of the Safiqi, but they got all tangled up in different theology and broke away. Their believers aren't bad people by and large, they just think the only way to achieve true enlightenment is to witness the moment of unexpected death. Most of them will not achieve this, a fact they accept, but they support those who can. However, to them, they are merely another branch of the Safiqi faith--they believe that the Safiqi waste time examining the infinitely-many facets of the One, rather than looking at the single shadow that the One casts: the Sable Prince. (Note, although the word is masculine in English, in the language of the Tarrakhuna it is gender-neutral.) The party has learned that the Raven-Shadows' faith has been exploited and manipulated by nefarious forces, but those forces have also made sure that the cult never actually dies out, either.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Celestial Bureaucracy. This is a religion from faraway Yuxia, the Jade Home, or rather its equivalent in the elemental otherworld, Fusang (much as the Tarrakhuna is mirrored by Jinnistan). Sort of...somewhere between a government and a religious institution, it's a hierarchy of sapient and active spirits, ascended mortals, Guardians (a technical term for beings that have become part-Celestial), and other functionaries. The Safiqi see them as merely a very heterodox alternative to their own beliefs, because they believe the "August Jade Emperor" at the top of the Bureaucracy is merely a different name for the Great Architect, or a similar facet more specifically focused on rulership personified. Part of the reason the Safiqi recognize them is that the one direct representative they've spoken with is a (part-Celestial) dragon, and thus the closest anyone in living memory has been to speaking with a real Celestial, so they afford him the highest respect--one of those "he's seen God, unless he does something openly heretical, he's cool" situations.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nondescript (read: has not yet come up enough to be worth detailing) totemic or animistic faith from beyond the eastern mountains. If I develop this one further, which might happen, it'll take strong inspiration from Tengriism, the Mongolian-origin shamanic faith that spread out to the Turkic peoples as a result of the Mongolian Empire.</li> </ul>Thus far, no pantheons, and no directly interventionist deities. The One--or a being claiming to be Them--has spoken exactly once during the whole time, to one player privately. Everything else is through intermediaries, because I find that a superior choice for keeping up the whole "nobody really knows, it's a matter of faith". One of the One's Servants (=a Celestial) has told the party that it's simply not possible for the One to "prove" Their omnipotence beyond any doubt; there is no magic which can see far enough back in time or the like to see directly, They are too powerful to be bound by any magic that could coerce them into unquestionably telling the truth, and any magic that could bind their servants could have already been used on them to force them to say what They want them to say--possibly without the Servants even realizing it. She (a couatl named Tlacalicue, "Daylight-her-Skirt") speculated that that's exactly what the One wants. That is, They do not want a universe where Their divinity is provable. Instead, They desire a universe where every sapient being has to make up their own mind. Part of her reasoning is that she knows that the secret purpose of creation....is to create perspectives. To allow minds to grow that think their own thoughts. If the One just wanted obedient drones, They could easily have them; They do not.Or, in brief... "Companions the Creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators the Creator seeks—those who write new values on new tablets. Companions the Creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about [Them] is ripe for the harvest." Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.</blockquote>

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