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?

[Anonym]

It's not just "power" and "book knowledge", it is a deeper and more fuller understanding of the Cosmos, Creation, Life, Death and Everything. A 1st level wizard and a 20th level wizard both still point a finger and cast a spell, levels does not bring understanding, wisdom or anything else.

So what is the difference between Socerer kings of Athas and those true gods?

They possess immense power, far surpassing the vast majority of mortals.
They are immortal.
They are able to bestow various divine spells to their servants.
They can decide the treatment of their subjects after death————of course, they actually cannot, but they make their subjects believe they can through carefully crafted and constantly patched lies.

So they are no different from real gods, they just relatively weak.

 

[bloodtide]

So what is the difference between Socerer kings of Athas and those true gods?

They possess immense power, far surpassing the vast majority of mortals.
They are immortal.
They are able to bestow various divine spells to their servants.
They can decide the treatment of their subjects after death————of course, they actually cannot, but they make their subjects believe they can through carefully crafted and constantly patched lies.

So they are no different from real gods, they just relatively weak.

A god is transcendent, immanent and a cosmic sovereign. A god is the The Ultimate Concern is that which demands complete surrender of the person who faithfully accepts the Ultimate.

If your stuck in the game rules:
*Always save: Gods don't fail a save on a roll of "1"
*Portfolio:Every deity has at least limited knowledge and control over some aspect of mortal existence. Deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios.
*Multiplicity: A deity can create Avatars, Manifestations and Aspects of itself..

​

 

[Anonym]

A god is transcendent, immanent and a cosmic sovereign. A god is the The Ultimate Concern is that which demands complete surrender of the person who faithfully accepts the Ultimate.

If your stuck in the game rules:
*Always save: Gods don't fail a save on a roll of "1"
*Portfolio:Every deity has at least limited knowledge and control over some aspect of mortal existence. Deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios.
*Multiplicity: A deity can create Avatars, Manifestations and Aspects of itself..

​

but to the mortal of Athas,those Socerer-kings are:
*nearly alway save————not invincible, of course. but those so-called true gods are also not invincible,they can also die and be killed, even by mortals (and sometime in the extremely ridiculous ways).
*Having absolute power over the subjects within one's own territory and working as their god……until their fall.
*multiplicity:Socerer-kings can create their own avatar though spell such as project image.not that miraculous as avatar, but for ordinary commers, there's no difference.

 

[aramis erak]

But Clerics are more on the nose problematic. They're not "Friar Tuck", they're the Inquisition. A Friar Tuck wouldn't seek violence even if he had magical powers. If he did do violence, it would not be in the name of a divine, but in spite of it. As a Friar Tuck figure - being one of the rare "clerics" of folklore but NOT fantasy, is a spiritual aid to his community rather than one out there smiting the unbelievers.

Again. Tuck isn't from fantasy. Fantasy writers usually avoid that hot potato.

Tuck was as violent as the rest of the Merry Men in the legends. More so in more modern retellings. Blessing the men to go and do political violence in the lip service of giving to the poor.

If there was a real friar Tuck, the good friar, by taking up with declared outlaws like Sir Robin of Locksley (the most likely historical namesake), broke his vows, abandoned his community of Clergy, was violating the Benedictine and/or Franciscan Rule (Dominicans follow the Benedictine, just for reference, so the Black, White and Brown friars of legendary use are all covered.) - no friar is to be alone away from the house; always a fellow friar with him. Also, that he gives blessings implies ordination to the deaconate... if not priesthood.
The only possibility for an exception would be if he were master of a chapter of the third order of St Francis, and a number of the Merry Men were Third Order Franciscans. (The Third order are clergy living a simplified version of the rule of St. Francis. Third Order Benedictines and Dominicans live two different flavors of relaxed Benedictine rule.)

 

[Anonym]

Let's assume the following scinario:

In a fantasy world like Faerun, two gods engage in war and command their mortal worshipper to fight each other.

In the end, this war ended with the death of one god and the victory of another, and the worshippers of the loser either converted to other gods or accepted reality, pledged allegiance to the conqueror who killed their god and accepted him as their new god. Only a very handful of most fanatical worshippers would continue to fight, and usually their fate would be very tragic.

So, what is the essential difference between the war between these two gods and the war between two mundane kings on Earth?

 

[GobHag]

Well for one, it's most likely that the Cleric and Paladins of the defeated god no longer have divine powers. Like, it's not just that they're not allowed to cast Heal under pain of death but that they can't cast Heal at all. It'd be like if the King dies and I lose the ability to write the style of poetry he patron'd for.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think D&D as a whole would have been better without clerics and divine magic.

Almost certainly.

It would be a huge difference though and would feed through to videogames too. Without miraculous healing and so on being a power that belongs to a combat-capable guy in heavy armour and with a shield, and further something you can use in combat, I think we'd see very different classes. I suspect tanks would be tankier, and CC-type stuff would have been even more important in RPG videogames, especially MMORPG.

It's actually kind of wild we got them at all - the original Cleric PC class was a response to a Vampire PC class, which very sadly (imo), didn't survive the way the Cleric did (though they did have a Vampire PC class in 4E! And yes I did mean class! It was pretty cool if slightly underpowered IIRC). It's also interesting they based the Cleric on a mash-up of Van Helsing and mythologized takes on Bishop Odo, together with a bunch of Bible-story-esque powers. It didn't have to be that way.

 

[bloodtide]

but to the mortal of Athas,those Socerer-kings are:
*nearly alway save————not invincible, of course. but those so-called true gods are also not invincible,they can also die and be killed, even by mortals (and sometime in the extremely ridiculous ways).
*Having absolute power over the subjects within one's own territory and working as their god……until their fall.
*multiplicity:Socerer-kings can create their own avatar though spell such as project image.not that miraculous as avatar, but for ordinary commers, there's no difference.

If your point is the Athas folk can fake it....okay.

So, what is the essential difference between the war between these two gods and the war between two mundane kings on Earth?

Well, if two kings fight over something like a plot of land, that does not effect or kill a god.

And even when Kingdom A conquers Kingdom B and outlaws the worship of God B, it does not effect god B much as they are worshiped everywhere else in the world.

 

[Voadam]

A god is transcendent, immanent and a cosmic sovereign. A god is the The Ultimate Concern is that which demands complete surrender of the person who faithfully accepts the Ultimate.

I don't think that definition of a god quite works.

You can have major gods like the Olympians in Greek Mythology, but then you also have things in Greek Mythology like Nymphs who are minor nature gods and can be a personification of a specific land feature or even a specific tree. There is a huge range in what is considered a god and how transcendent or sovereign they are.

 

[bloodtide]

I don't think that definition of a god quite works.

You can have major gods like the Olympians in Greek Mythology, but then you also have things in Greek Mythology like Nymphs who are minor nature gods and can be a personification of a specific land feature or even a specific tree. There is a huge range in what is considered a god and how transcendent or sovereign they are.

This does get into semantics.

It depends if the Nymphs are "true gods" or merely "god-like beings" or even something else. Of course some primative people call everything "a god".

Just the idea that a Nymph is tied to nature and the Prime World, would say to many they are not "gods",