D&D General Homebrew Brainstorm: How Would You Approach a "Descendant Worship" Culture? (+)

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Okay, this is a bit of a strange concept that I've never heard of before, but I recently got the idea of having a big culture in my setting be the opposite of Ancestor Worship. A Descendent/Progeny Worshipping religious/spiritual culture that does the opposite of veneration of the dead: they'd venerate the unborn (or possibly just their children, I haven't decided yet).

In the real world, there are quite a few cultures that have historically venerated their dead ancestors, such as China (as a part of filial piety), Mexico (Dia de Los Muertos), Rome (Lares and Manes), Greece (Hero-Cults), and many others. There are quite a few examples of ancestor-worshipping cultures in D&D and other fantasy worlds, such as the Valenar and Aereni Elves from Eberron, the Dwarven Paragons from Dragon Age, Dunmer and Aldmer from the Elder Scrolls, and a few others. I've also designed at least one ancestor-worshipping culture before, with the spectral Fehntüm race that's main culture worships their undead ancestors and allows them to possess them in order to bring them back to a semblance of "life". However, I just had an idea that I'm pretty sure is mostly novel: what about a culture where people worship their unborn progeny? As far as I know, none of those exist in real life probably because they're a pretty strange concept and there wouldn't be much incentive to do so (your parents and grandparents can tell you to still honor/venerate them after they die, your unborn children can't do that). However, in a fantasy world, anything is possible, and there could definitely be some reason to do so.

So, my current question when it comes to this idea is why would someone worship their unborn children. Here are my current ideas:

1. The Unborn Gods. They believe that their children/other progeny will/can be gods/demigods. For whatever reason, this culture doesn't worship any existing deities and instead believe that "true gods" are yet to be born and will be descended from them. Perhaps this culture practices some kind of magical eugenics to select certain qualities they want their children to have in order to achieve this goal. This culture would also need a reason to believe why their unborn offspring could be gods, maybe because they already have some divine blood (being descended from Empyreans and/or commonly producing Divine Soul Sorcerers). Basically magic Nazis that believe in their children will/can be something like The Becoming God from Eberron.
2. Aid in Fertility. They think venerating/worshipping their unborn children will somehow allow them to give birth (or make the birthing process easier). Maybe this culture for some reason believes that all the souls of people that will ever exist already exist and the souls of the unborn can choose how and when they want to be born, thus only choosing families they want to be born in, possibly ones that already "love"/"worship" them? This might make sense for some race that has difficulty reproducing, like Elves or maybe some artificial race (Autognomes? Warforged?) that believes that venerating/worshipping their unborn will make them more likely to give birth/reproduce.
3. Children Are Innocent. They revere the perceived innocence that comes along with childhood, believing that children are perfect and adults are inherently sinful/imperfect. They could be attempting to use magic to either stop aging at a certain maturity or somehow return their minds to that level of maturity. How this society survives would be a wonder, but it might work for some species that don't need the common necessities.

So . . . what do you think? What other ideas do you have? Do you think any of these would work? Is it a unique and interesting concept or a stupid idea that I should feel ashamed for coming up with (not being serious with this question, obviously)? Has anyone ever done anything like this before, in the real world or fiction?

 

[GuyBoy]

Interesting idea and certainly a first for me in terms of ever hearing anything like this.
My first thought is that it might be tricky to see this applied to all children: there are a lot of children born into any society, they need lots of care as babies, are fairly helpless, and eventually need to start being economically viable to society. All this mitigates against being divine in any way.
What could be interesting would be a very small number of unborn children being considered divine and worshipped both in the womb and as babies/children/adults. Particularly if this wasn’t tied to inheritance or existing power, but from some sort of “sign” that a particular unborn child was to be divine.
This could be a good hook for an adventure too.

Anyway, good luck with the idea.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Interesting idea and certainly a first for me in terms of ever hearing anything like this.

Yeah, that came to mind when I came up with this idea. I tried to Google if there were any examples in pop culture of anything like this, but couldn't find any.

My first thought is that it might be tricky to see this applied to all children: there are a lot of children born into any society, they need lots of care as babies, are fairly helpless, and eventually need to start being economically viable to society. All this mitigates against being divine in any way.

There are also a lot of ancestors, but cultures that venerate the dead are still abundant. I don't think

What could be interesting would be a very small number of unborn children being considered divine and worshipped both in the womb and as babies/children/adults. Particularly if this wasn’t tied to inheritance or existing power, but from some sort of “sign” that a particular unborn child was to be divine.
This could be a good hook for an adventure too.

The main part of this idea is that this I don't want it to be that rare. I want at least one whole culture/religion built around this concept. "Chosen One" babies are already a staple of fantasy. Something more like basically everyone in this society believes their children are/could be the Chosen One, and are doing whatever magical stuff they can to make that happen. What happens if a culture is founded around that concept? What would the consequences be?

 

[Yaarel]

If the descendants are sacred, then having children and raising children becomes a sacred duty. Adults that lack children help others raise kids, as teachers, mentors, even financial support.

 

[GuyBoy]

OK, just some random thoughts:
How long has this concept existed?; were the current adults themselves divine as babies or is it a new thing?

If everyone reveres the unborn children, who cares for the pregnant women? Is it everybody or a ritualised priesthood of some type?

Are all babies considered divine once born? If so, for how long and what happens about their economic role in society? This economic role tended to kick in much earlier in pre-industrial societies.

I imagine the obvious consequences would be the treatment of pregnancy. It would likely become very ritualised, possibly in terms of kindness and care, but also possibly less pleasantly.
Choices of partners may also be controlled by a priesthood?

It’s certainly an interesting idea. Good luck.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I associate ancestor worship with fundamentally conservative, deeply traditionalist societies that believe in doing everything "the way it's always been done" and look on "innovation" as a dirty word. Therefore I would make a descendant worshiping culture hardcore technologists with no reverence whatsoever for (and a bit of contempt for) their own history, who believe the only good generations of people are yet to come. They could be literally religious in their worship of the future and its denizens, or just have a figuratively religious zeal. As long as they have contempt for the heretics who suggest old ways might have some occasional value it's really the same vibe.

 

[tetrasodium]

It wouldn't work well unless biologically they guarded their young like octopus & some fish till they starved to the point of being too weak to recover. Some insects might work too. Either way it crashes into starfish alien territory

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

How long has this concept existed?; were the current adults themselves divine as babies or is it a new thing?

Not a new thing. Old enough to be a multi-generational culture. Probably at least 200 years if it's for a human lifespan, depending on the age span of the race this culture is attached to.

If everyone reveres the unborn children, who cares for the pregnant women? Is it everybody or a ritualised priesthood of some type?

Hmm. I was thinking the culture might be more segmented into individual families. Like, every couple is kind of competing to see who can produce a God Heir first. So the individual families would be self-sustaining. However, I'm starting to think that this might be able to be split into a few different cultures.

Are all babies considered divine once born? If so, for how long and what happens about their economic role in society? This economic role tended to kick in much earlier in pre-industrial societies.

Probably not. If it's following option 1, then they're trying to produce a God Heir, so if they can't tell that you're divine upon birth, you're just treated like a normal child. If it's option 2, they probably treat their kids better than human society, just to make it so they're more likely to have more children in the future. If it's option 3, then all children would definitely be considered "divine" or at least "perfect" once born until they get to a certain maturity level (sexual maturity, maybe?).

I imagine the obvious consequences would be the treatment of pregnancy. It would likely become very ritualised, possibly in terms of kindness and care, but also possibly less pleasantly.
Choices of partners may also be controlled by a priesthood?

Yeah, that's all possible. I was partially inspired by Tevinter from the Dragon Age series (if you know anything about it) when thinking of Option 1, so the choice of partners being an arranged marriage situation would definitely make sense. And pregnancy would definitely be ritualized in some way.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I associate ancestor worship with fundamentally conservative, deeply traditionalist societies that believe in doing everything "the way it's always been done" and look on "innovation" as a dirty word. Therefore I would make a descendant worshiping culture hardcore technologists with no reverence whatsoever for (and a bit of contempt for) their own history, who believe the only good generations of people are yet to come. They could be literally religious in their worship of the future and its denizens, or just have a figuratively religious zeal. As long as they have contempt for the heretics who suggest old ways might have some occasional value it's really the same vibe.

Hmm. I was thinking that they could also be fundamentally conservative with Option 1, but this also could work. Interesting. I'll have to mull it over.

It wouldn't work well unless biologically they guarded their young like octopus & some fish till they starved to the point of being too weak to recover. Some insects might work too. Either way it crashes into starfish alien territory

Why wouldn't it work with "normal" humanoid races? We have some religions/cultures that believe similar things in the real world, this is just an extreme version enhanced by fantasy.

 

[Baba]

Fun idea!

Here’s a posibility: Maybe there are spirits everywhere, in streams and trees and so on, and all humans were once spirits who chose to be born as humans.

Everyone wants great descendants who will do good for their family, so they seek out spirits with qualities they admire, and try to entice them to become their children by ritualistically treating them as if they allready were their children - set out food for them, and so on.

Then, when they are born, the children cease to be divine and forget a lot about their earlier existence, but are still treasured as the future, and maybe keep some special abilities based on what they were before.

Before they decide to be born, the spirits can help the families who court them in different ways.

Maybe a great spirit will attach itself to a family line and send signs that it intends to be born in that line some time in the future, but only when the time is right - maybe when a set of parents perform some great feat or service. («Oh? So you went beyond the dark forest, drove away the bone horse, and picked a fire berry? Ok, I will be your child.»)