Monotheism in D&D

[Andor]

I don't mean "Can I run a D&D campaign with one god?", that's been done to death and the answer is obviously yes.

I am interested in discussing the ways in which our predjudices in coming from a monotheistic society have shaped the D&D game in ways that are contrary to D&Ds own nature.

For example, Good people go to the upper planes after death and are rewarded. Bad people go to the lower planes and are punished. Demons are evil incarnate. Angels are good Incarnate. Good and Evil as cosmological principles is pretty much a stand in for God and the Devil.

The entire Arcane/Divine magic split is pretty much a monothestic concept. In Monotheism there are two types of magic, White magic is the miracles granted by divine intervention and the powers given to Saints. All good magic flows from God. Black Magic is magic worked by demons in trade for services and the soul of the Black Mage. The 3rd sort, Grey magic, is when the tools of a Black magician are used by others for their own ends without making an pact and is need not be evil but it's a fine line to walk. An example of this is the Mage Prospero in the tempest whose powers come from his dominion over the spirit Ariel, who had been trapped by the Witch Sycorax. So his powers, while neutral, and used (arguably) for good, still originated in Black Magic. Outside of Monotheism the Arcane/Divine split makes a good deal less sense.

What else springs from our monotheistic principles and what do you think of this?

 

[Psion]

I don't mean "Can I run a D&D campaign with one god?", that's been done to death and the answer is obviously yes.

I am interested in discussing the ways in which our predjudices in coming from a monotheistic society have shaped the D&D game in ways that are contrary to D&Ds own nature.

For example, Good people go to the upper planes after death and are rewarded. Bad people go to the lower planes and are punished. Demons are evil incarnate. Angels are good Incarnate. Good and Evil as cosmological principles is pretty much a stand in for God and the Devil.

Though that's probably why it's in the game, many of the concepts you discuss above are not unique to monotheism. In fact, scholars could probably point to where they think monotheistic faiths got some of these concepts.

The entire Arcane/Divine magic split is pretty much a monothestic concept.

That's somewhat historically naive. To quote our own fusangite, who is a historian who has done quite a bit of study in faith and culture:

"Cultures of the Mediterranean world appear to have made the distinction between theurgic and natural magic a long time ago and stuck with it for quite a while. Magic tended to be understood as falling into two classes: (a) magic that you did with the assistance of gods or spirits and (b) magic you did by manipulating the forces of the universe through an occult understanding of its natural laws. A third class of magic existed intermittently bridging these two systems: occult true-name magic, whereby one could use natural magic to control the entities who grant theurgic magic."

(link)

 

[Andor]

Though that's probably why it's in the game, many of the concepts you discuss above are not unique to monotheism. In fact, scholars could probably point to where they think monotheistic faiths got some of these concepts.

That's somewhat historically naive. To quote our own fusangite, who is a historian who has done quite a bit of study in faith and culture:

"Cultures of the Mediterranean world appear to have made the distinction between theurgic and natural magic a long time ago and stuck with it for quite a while. Magic tended to be understood as falling into two classes: (a) magic that you did with the assistance of gods or spirits and (b) magic you did by manipulating the forces of the universe through an occult understanding of its natural laws. A third class of magic existed intermittently bridging these two systems: occult true-name magic, whereby one could use natural magic to control the entities who grant theurgic magic."

(link)

Mmmm. I should define my terms better. What Fusangite describes as type B magic I would describe as physics, although in practice it's more likely to be chemistry. If what you are doing is manipulating the properties of natural elements, using a lodestone to pick up a piece of iron say, or striking a match, then there is nothing supernatural about it. The fact that the audience (and even the practioner) may believe it to be magic due to their imperfect understanding of what is happeneing doesn't matter. If I can make a machine do the same thing, it's not magic. It's nature, nor the supernatural. Probably I'm displaying my own predjudices here.

Even if you are correct I still feel that the Arcane/Divine split in D&D owes more to the distinction between White and Black magic then it does to Greek mystical traditions. Look at what they do: Arcane Magic blows stuff up and conjures demons you have to bargin with. Divine magic heals and summons celestial beasties that obey you out of respect. I'll conceed that these lines blur a bit in 3e, but they still exist and have since OD&D. It crops up in other places too. For example the Hexblade cannot be good, even though it is an Arcane class. The familiar list is generally a bunch of unsavory creatures (Toads, Ravens, Chihuahuas.)

 

[Umbran]

There may be two separate issues here:

1)What is based in monotheism, in and of it's structure?

2)What is based in a particular flavor of monotheism that happens to exist in our world?

Because we must recall that there are several different monotheistic religions out there, and they don't all share certain concepts. For example: the Heaven/Hell dichotomy is not shared by all monotheistic religions, but there are similar concepts in some polytheistic religions.

Basically, you don't need monotheism to have balances of duality in your system. Certain real-world religions tend to focus on it, but they don't have an exclusive on it.

Note that detailed discussion of (2), especially if it includes value judgements about doctrines, is not likely to go good places.

 

[Psion]

What Fusangite describes as type B magic I would describe as physics, although in practice it's more likely to be chemistry. If what you are doing is manipulating the properties of natural elements, using a lodestone to pick up a piece of iron say, or striking a match, then there is nothing supernatural about it. The fact that the audience (and even the practioner) may believe it to be magic due to their imperfect understanding of what is happeneing doesn't matter. If I can make a machine do the same thing, it's not magic. It's nature, nor the supernatural.

Within the game universe, the practice of arcane magic may as well be a physical science.

Even if you are correct I still feel that the Arcane/Divine split in D&D owes more to the distinction between White and Black magic then it does to Greek mystical traditions.

I'm not doubting that some of the more recent European traditions feed into D&D, perhaps the primary role. But as the traditions he was speaking of go back a ways, I am doubting they are independent.

I'm just disputing that it's a uniquely monotheistic concept.

 

[RFisher]

I think the biggest out-of-place cultural assumption many of us have is that all religions are evangelistic. I'm no expert, but based on what little I know, evangelism is rare among religions.

Also, I think we sometimes tend to treat polytheism in the game more as a collection of co-existing monotheisms than as polytheism.

Although, it is a fantasy game, a fantasy game, so there's nothing wrong with playing it however comes naturally.

I always felt the (A)D&D cleric was more suited to medieval Christianity--or a fantasy analog--though.

 

[Will]

I'll second the unusual henotheism of D&D. (Cool word for the day; henotheism is the worship of one god without denying the existance of other gods)

This is distinct from historical polytheism, in which people worship multiple gods and priests aren't necessarily limited to one.

D&D also shares a loose and strange element of pantheism, in which the forces of the universe are expressed as a variety of gods. Most multi-god religions have slight elements that can be seen as pantheistic, but D&D carries it a littler further. However, it's inconsistant. In a non-pantheistic religion, the god of the sea is tied to the sea mainly as a sense of dominion, like a king's territory. In a pantheistic religion, the god of the sea IS the sea. D&D vacillates between the two interpretations.


People typically worshipped gods that brought order and law to the world, then they worshipped gods of mercy and goodness, and then they had a variety of forces of evil and chaos that they feared, or were prior gods pushed out by the new gods, or which were bought off.

The last form is more common among religions where gods were seen as icons of principles. If the goddess of corruption is a principle, there's no point in ignoring her; she exists no matter what you do. So you bribe her. And then crazy cults go around assassinating people in her name.

Oh, and that's another weird D&Dism... the idea that churches of evil are openly accepted by society in any way.

 

[Andor]

Yeah, there is a lot of strangeness in D&D religeon. For example a common theme is that the gods need worshippers, but no explaination is then given for the vast numbers of extremly powerful evil gods. If lack of worship weakens them then why would any being worship these entities? On the other hand if your explanation for the power of the dark gods is that any inkling of dark though feeds them, a flash of anger at the guy who cuts in front of you at the line in the market say, then why aren't the heavens rules by titanically powerful sex gods?

Also the 'times up' rule is hard to explain. There are plenty of ways to stop ageing in D&D but only one to get past your expiration date. Who sets this date anyway and why are they such a hardass?

 

[Psion]

I'll second the unusual henotheism of D&D. (Cool word for the day; henotheism is the worship of one god without denying the existance of other gods)

This is distinct from historical polytheism, in which people worship multiple gods and priests aren't necessarily limited to one.

I assume that this is pretty much the norm for common folk.

Having preist(esses) devoted to one deity within such a culture is not historically at odds with this.

D&D also shares a loose and strange element of pantheism, in which the forces of the universe are expressed as a variety of gods. Most multi-god religions have slight elements that can be seen as pantheistic, but D&D carries it a littler further. However, it's inconsistant. In a non-pantheistic religion, the god of the sea is tied to the sea mainly as a sense of dominion, like a king's territory. In a pantheistic religion, the god of the sea IS the sea. D&D vacillates between the two interpretations.

I see this as more of a fan thing than a D&D canon thing. I see lots of fans play it this way (or act as if this is the one true way to play it), but only in a very few cases are deities presented in this way.

The last form is more common among religions where gods were seen as icons of principles. If the goddess of corruption is a principle, there's no point in ignoring her; she exists no matter what you do. So you bribe her. And then crazy cults go around assassinating people in her name.

This is another dichotomy with history that I've considered integrating. I base one region of my old campaign world on Finnish myth... placating powerful ice and disease spirits is part of the culture (but not something I've worked into the class structure other than ceremonies performed by shamans.)

 

[Vedic Wizard]

The entire Arcane/Divine magic split is pretty much a monotheistic concept.

I'd say that arcane magic is a perversion (or misinterpretation) of the ideas of Hermetic philosophy, Kabbalisitc beliefs etc. where people believed that all creation was part of an imminent but not sentient god. Similar to the ideas of Taoism or Buddhism. The magical rites performed in these beliefs were later cast as "the work of the devil" when the Christian church went on the march.

The idea of precisely worded and memorised spells probably stems from ancient Vedic priests, who believed that their hymns had magical powers - and the power resided in their absolutely precise utterance. In order to ensure that the all important pronunciation of words was not lost within the evolution of the language they produced both a book of hymns (the Rg Veda - still the most sacred Hindu text) and the most complete grammar to be produced until the nineteenth century (the Astadhyayi).

Oh... and that’s where I got my username from too...