In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

[Maxperson]

Apollo, Poseidon, and the other top tier Olympians explicitly did not create the world, they just currently rule it from Mount Olympus. Grandma/Great-Grandma Gaia predates them.

All the titans, really.

 

[Voadam]

If sacrificing to a protective god of your city unerringly caused a wall of fire to surround it when enemies attack, I'd say the net effect would be that people would participate in the rituals with even more enthusiasm.

But sacrificing to the gods in D&D does not unerringly cause a wall of fire to surround your city when enemies attack. The closest would be high level clerics having consistent powerful magic.

How the gods interact with people in D&D varies greatly, often there is a don't act directly on the mortal plane agreement. Other times it is like the Greek Myths who might show up in the flesh, but the gods are erratic and you pray to try to keep on their good sides and avoid there bad sides but there is no guarantee.

Most D&D the gods are not doing constant personal miracles to gain your worship.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

But sacrificing to the gods in D&D does not unerringly cause a wall of fire to surround your city when enemies attack. The closest would be high level clerics having consistent powerful magic.

Sacrificing to the god is exactly what casting a clerical spell (well, except that I didn't check and wall of fire isn't on the cleric list) is in my mind. You're performing a ritual involving prayers (verbal component), offerings (the material component) and probably doing the prescribed ritual action (the somatic component), and the god answers your correct execution of the ritual by doing the ritually expected effect. You just need to be a cleric experimented enough to perform the ritual correctly, especially over the course of 6 seconds, because if you try this at level 1, you'll fail, not necessarily because the god wasn't happy but because you botched some part of the ritual. Or because you're lifestyle outside the camera isn't appropriate for the god to consider your request (the wife of the flamen dialis was prohibited to walk stairs or go outside without a specific hairdo, maybe that's the difference between a 13th level cleric and a 1st level cleric as well).

Most D&D the gods are not doing constant personal miracles to gain your worship.

Most would grant spells, wouldn't they? How do you see those spell if not a constant stream of personal miracles? [I'd say semi-constant, but divine cantrips count as constant].

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

All the titans, really.

Yeah, "if they acquired the world second-hand, their house, their rules" would have been more appropriate, my bad

 

[Anonym]

The short answer is yes but there are some caveats.

Most people can't travel to other planes. Is it really true that clerics lose their powers for failing their god? Maybe clerics just have a different approach to summoning their magic and they ascribe it to their god but in fact it's just another magic system. Do the gods care or do they just give their clerics whatever they want? So many questions that depending on the answer will drive the campaign world.

If the people see a cleric that seems to be operating against his god's dictates, what are they to think if he is still casting spells? You can definitely create a world where gods exist and people still have doubts. Though I'd argue the debate is between those who just think the "gods" are super powerful beings from other dimensions and those who think they are divine. In one campaign world I ran the elves disputed the divinity of the gods.

In the middle ages of this earth, almost every last person believed in the supernatural. We don't really move off that view until the renaissance. So our own middle ages is very similar to a fantasy world when it comes to belief in the supernatural.

However, humans on Earth will believe in empty words and firmly believe, then call it faith, and they will attack anyone who questions their "faith", even if they can never come up with any reproducible and convincing (besides themselves) miracles as evidence.

but what about in a fantasy world filled with magic and supernatural beings? Would Faerun's peasants believe in the empty words of a stranger missionary, even if he couldn't even use a level 0 spell, and always used more empty worlds to dodge the questions when people asked him to perform even just a tiny miracles?

People used to worship it as a god. Then we realized it wasn't. That said, if you walked outside tomorrow and the sun took human form before your eyes and descended to speak with you without blinding you when you looked at, healed a loved one of her incurable disease, had an aura of divinity about it, and started granting you miracles that you could call upon daily, you'd probably change your mind about the sun not being a god.

well,on the Earth, there have never been any confirmed miracles (except for those already believers), but it does not prevent people from believing in him because there is no magic on Earth.

and in a fantasy world, would people believe the empty words of missionaries without seeing any real (even tiny) miracles?

 

[Emerikol]

However, humans on Earth will believe in empty words and firmly believe, then call it faith, and they will attack anyone who questions their "faith", even if they can never come up with any reproducible and convincing (besides themselves) miracles as evidence.

You are getting dangerously close to the forbidden zone on these boards.

but what about in a fantasy world filled with magic and supernatural beings? Would Faerun's peasants believe in the empty words of a stranger missionary, even if he couldn't even use a level 0 spell, and always used more empty worlds to dodge the questions when people asked him to perform even just a tiny miracles?

It depends on if the magic Clerics use really comes from the deity or not. A DM could run it either way.

well,on the Earth, there have never been any confirmed miracles (except for those already believers), but it does not prevent people from believing in him because there is no magic on Earth.

and in a fantasy world, would people believe the empty words of missionaries without seeing any real (even tiny) miracles?

By definition, a miracle breaks the laws of science. Thus, as soon as all the eyewitnesses are dead there is no way to confirm a miracle. You might argue in D&D that magic IS science.

 

[Maxperson]

and in a fantasy world, would people believe the empty words of missionaries without seeing any real (even tiny) miracles?

Why does that matter? My point is that the gods in a fantasy game can and do prove that they are gods.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

and in a fantasy world, would people believe the empty words of missionaries without seeing any real (even tiny) miracles?

My first answer would be: why would the missionary refuse to do it in the first place? If his goal is to convince people of worshipping his god and they accept if he cast Cure Wounds and save a child, why would he miss the opportunity to do that?

My second thought woulud be, you're asking whether people would worship a god that would deliberately withhold divine magic? Well, in the FR there is an example of this: Ao the overgod ignores mortal worshippers. But not answering the call of mortals does'nt mean people wouldn't objectively observe that he exists and can promote and demote gods at will and change to rules of godhood. Gravity doesn't reply to you, yet you don't disbelieve gravity, do you?

And to provide a third line of thinking, if the people you're speaking of learnt about the new god, they may as well put his name in an existing temple to honor him alongside spell-granting gods, just in case he might decide to send calamities after doing his spell-granting strike. It doesn't cost anything to believe he might exist and there is only upside to propitiating him -- like the altar to the unknown gods in Athens or the invocations "to the appropriate god" without mentionning who it may be? It's not like worshipping this new god as part of your pantheon required you to change anything or stop worshipping your already-established group of gods. It's a security: if Amaunator goes away, you'll be happy to be worshipping Lathander through some kind of interpretatio graeca? (interpretatio faerunica)

 

[Voadam]

If sacrificing to a protective god of your city unerringly caused a wall of fire to surround it when enemies attack, I'd say the net effect would be that people would participate in the rituals with even more enthusiasm.

Sacrificing to the god is exactly what casting a clerical spell (well, except that I didn't check and wall of fire isn't on the cleric list) is in my mind. You're performing a ritual involving prayers (verbal component), offerings (the material component) and probably doing the prescribed ritual action (the somatic component), and the god answers your correct execution of the ritual by doing the ritually expected effect. You just need to be a cleric experimented enough to perform the ritual correctly, especially over the course of 6 seconds, because if you try this at level 1, you'll fail, not necessarily because the god wasn't happy but because you botched some part of the ritual. Or because you're lifestyle outside the camera isn't appropriate for the god to consider your request (the wife of the flamen dialis was prohibited to walk stairs or go outside without a specific hairdo, maybe that's the difference between a 13th level cleric and a 1st level cleric as well).

So when you said that "the net effect would be that people would participate in the rituals with even more enthusiasm." the people you were talking about is limited to only high level clerics and not other people?

I can see D&D cleric spells as priestly rituals, but not really sacrifices, most require only holding a non-expendable holy symbol, not offerings. There are a minor subset that require actually sacrificing stuff and it is never things like animal sacrifice.

Most would grant spells, wouldn't they? How do you see those spell if not a constant stream of personal miracles? [I'd say semi-constant, but divine cantrips count as constant].

As magic, spells indistinguishable from non miraculous spells.

The existence of non clerical magic and non-deity magical beings I think would be a pretty big impact on how people thought about the importance of clerical magic and gods in a D&D world and how religion would be affected because of the two.

 

[Morrus]

However, humans on Earth will believe in empty words and firmly believe, then call it faith, and they will attack anyone who questions their "faith", even if they can never come up with any reproducible and convincing (besides themselves) miracles as evidence.

but what about in a fantasy world filled with magic and supernatural beings? Would Faerun's peasants believe in the empty words of a stranger missionary, even if he couldn't even use a level 0 spell, and always used more empty worlds to dodge the questions when people asked him to perform even just a tiny miracles?



well,on the Earth, there have never been any confirmed miracles (except for those already believers), but it does not prevent people from believing in him because there is no magic on Earth.

and in a fantasy world, would people believe the empty words of missionaries without seeing any real (even tiny) miracles?

Drop the real-world religion talk, please.