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Homebrew Brainstorm: How Would You Approach a "Descendant Worship" Culture? (+)
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<blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8748671" data-attributes="member: 7023887"><p>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 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration_of_the_dead" target="_blank">veneration of the dead</a>: they'd venerate the unborn (or possibly just their children, I haven't decided yet). </p><p></p><p>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 <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/list-the-3-coolest-parts-of-your-homebrew-world.682513/#post-8392652" target="_blank">Fehntüm</a> 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. </p><p></p><p>So, my current question when it comes to this idea is why would someone worship their unborn children. Here are my current ideas:</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><strong>The Unborn Gods. </strong>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<a href="https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/The_Becoming_God" target="_blank"> The Becoming God</a> from Eberron. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><strong>Aid in Fertility.</strong> 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. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><strong>Children Are Innocent. </strong>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. </li> </ol><p>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?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Levistus's_Leviathan, post: 8748671, member: 7023887"] 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 [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration_of_the_dead']veneration of the dead[/URL]: 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 [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/list-the-3-coolest-parts-of-your-homebrew-world.682513/#post-8392652']Fehntüm[/URL] 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: [LIST=1] [*][B]The Unborn Gods. [/B]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[URL='https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/The_Becoming_God'] The Becoming God[/URL] from Eberron. [*][B]Aid in Fertility.[/B] 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. [*][B]Children Are Innocent. [/B]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. [/LIST] 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? [/QUOTE]
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