Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haldrik" data-source="post: 8053225" data-attributes="member: 6694221">With regard to Dark Sun:The Templar religion that "worships" the sorcerer-king is a hierarchical servitude. A kind of polytheism. There is a king that citizens must serve within a culture of slavery.By contrast, the religion of the Dark Sun druids is animistic. The extended family of a clan informs their experience. Animists perceive the features of nature as members of the wider community. Humans negotiate with a wellspring, mountain waterfall, river valley, plant, or animal in the same way that one clan might negotiate with an other clan. Sometimes a feature of nature might even be a member of a human family.  Each feature has its own personality, its own mind.Each of the four elements has its own behaviors and personality. (In my reallife sacred traditions: water=compassion, fire=justice, air=balance, earth=pragmatism.) Each element is its own state of mind.Altho the Templars are religious, they ultimately derive their power from the elements by exploiting them by Arcane means. In some sense, the exploitation of the properties inherent to each element is a kind of enslavement of the element.By contrast, the elemental clerics are animistic, inviting each element to become a member of the sacred community. There is a loving relationship with the element. It is more egalitarian. These members cooperate to further each others goals.The element remains devoid of personification. The element is a mind, yet is an inhuman one. It is a force, sometimes a philosophical principle.While mainly animistic, the elemental clerics may also exhibit traditions of a kind of psionic monotheism. They perceive the four elements as manifestations from the force of the infinite mind beyond.Accordingly, the religion of the druids is more this-worldly and attuned with nature while they commune with a landscape feature, while the religion of the clerics is more abstract, transcendental, and mystical, while they form a symbiotic relationship with a particular element.Within Dark Sun, I am perceiving the Psionic power source as "normal", and there being no separation between the Psionic and Divine power sources. While the Psionic focuses on the power of ones own mind, the Divine focuses on the collective power of a sacred community of psionic minds.I almost want to say: Dark Sun Psionic tends to be Chaotic, being individualist but potentially cooperative. Dark Sun Divine tends to be Lawful, being collectivist but potentially egalitarian.</blockquote>

Verification