Monotheistic Religion - How to?

[WhatGravitas]

For my 4E points-of-light-inspired campaign, I'm leaning away from a pantheon, made up of a multitude of different faiths, but I'm going with a single, all-encompassing deity.

The deity will be ambiguous, interpretable, but definitely there, meaning stuff like commune will give an answer, that clearly shows divine interaction, but it doesn't need to be clear - so the ground for schisms is laid, which is setting-wise an opportunity for stuff.

Furthermore, to give the resemblance of "pantheon", there will be several saints, taking the role of the current D&D deities, meaning orders of different saints will be very different in outlook and only share the same groundwork.

I'm also going to leave nature-worship there (Wyre and a certain druid inspired me there), and probably introduce smaller cults, some dedicated to angelic beings (under the command of the deity), some to nether beings.

Well, that's the rough concept, but I ask the ENWorld-hivemind for advice - have you experiences with stuff like that, tips, advice, ideas, criticism, or any other input?

Cheers, LT.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Explore the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Multiple monastic orders, internecine politics, yet still a single world body in the end. Lots of good stuff to mine there.

 

[Rechan]

The deity will be ambiguous, interpretable, but definitely there, meaning stuff like commune will give an answer, that clearly shows divine interaction, but it doesn't need to be clear - so the ground for schisms is laid, which is setting-wise an opportunity for stuff.

Things like this, yes, the deity should not be clear.

For instance, "Is X a sin?" "No." "Is Y a sin?" "No." "HOW? X and Y are totally in contradiction of one another! They're the opposite!" "It makes sense to me with my great divine mind. You figure it out for yourself, kid."

Some suggestions:

Instead of 1 deity, perhaps make it something like a Trinity - one deity but fractured into a trio of humanized faces. The Father, the Mother, the Child - the Protective/Destructive, the Creator and Sustainer, and the Personal Touch in your life. Alternatively, the other members of the "Pantheon" could be the God's wife, his children. The "Saints" are his avatars. (You can now have Sects which argue which portion of the God's portfolio is the most prominent/important, which Avatar is his TRUE representation, which child is his FAVORITE).

His domains are ambiguous enough that you can have evil and good priests. Sort've like how if you have a Fire deity, you can have those that emphasize the destructive powers, and others that emphasize the renewal, rebirth and sustaining qualities of fire.

 

[Celebrim]

Monotheism is significantly more complex than polytheism. It's not something I would personally try to attempt in a campaign setting. But...

You will have a significantly easier time with a monotheistic diety if you don't decide on the dieties alignment. You can decide on the alignment of the dieties church, or maybe churches, and you can decide what those churches think that is the alignment of thier deity and what they think is thier own alignment. But you should leave your campaign as vague as possible on what the diety itself actually thinks.

In a world with a single diety, just about everyone no matter thier opinion or thier alignment thinks of themselves as good. Almost no one will think of themselves as working for evil. Instead, everyone will believe that they have a handle on what is good and what isn't.

One way to spin that is that if a lawful evil person casts detect evil in the presence of a chaotic good person, he'll detect the chaotic good person as 'evil', and vica versa. Your perceptions will always be colored by your frame of reference. You should play coy with who is the good guys and who is the bad guys. Ideally, you should play both sides well enough that even you aren't always certain who is in the right. Let the player's decide.

The basis of a schism is there even if the diety is clear, because a world with a singular source has an ambigious complexity that polytheism avoids. Conflicts won't be over whether or not you should be cruel or whether you should be kind. Conflicts will be over which is the higher virtue mercy or justice, and over things like whether you express more courage by engaging in violence or refraining from it. The violent won't think of themselves as cruel, but as just. The passive won't think of themselves as cowardly or oppurtunists, but as being peaceful, tolerant, and self-controlled. There are plenty of things we consider virtues that can come into conflict on thier own, and plenty of things that we think of as virtues which in inmoderate amounts or when excercised without wisdom don't look alot like virtues.

Most people won't argue over the ends. But everyone will argue over the means.

 

[Friadoc]

In a world with a single diety, just about everyone no matter their opinion or their alignment thinks of themselves as good. Almost no one will think of themselves as working for evil. Instead, everyone will believe that they have a handle on what is good and what isn't.

One way to spin that is that if a lawful evil person casts detect evil in the presence of a chaotic good person, he'll detect the chaotic good person as 'evil', and vica versa. Your perceptions will always be colored by your frame of reference. You should play coy with who is the good guys and who is the bad guys. Ideally, you should play both sides well enough that even you aren't always certain who is in the right. Let the player's decide.

An interesting point, however I think you're confusing detect evil with a lie detector, which is incorrect.

All of the detect spells work against a creature's aura, not their personal thoughts of themselves. When you look at detect spells, regardless of cosmology, you have to treat the Law/Chaos and Good/Evil aspects to be equal to an object, or poison, or magic.

That is, they are a quantifiable aspect of the fiber of the universe and, thus, are detectable and measurable.

Regardless of if the subject is a sociopath, who knows the difference between right or right, or a psychopath who has no validation of such concepts, evil is still evil and good is still good, with law and chaos as well.

Positive and Negative Energy, givers and takers of life, are what powers whether you detect as good, or as evil.

While it might not work in a real world equivalent, although Yin and Yang simplistic work well enough, in a fantasy RPG it is a detectable factor that someone will notice unless you take a precaution - I.E. obscuring your alignment.

Monte Cook's Ptolus, as well as his Diamond Throne, have interesting, yet different ways of handling this and if you've access to either of them, I'd say take a peak.

Arcana Evolved/Unearthed have simple removed alignment all together, thus those spells are gone and it is up to the characters, as well as NPCs, to be judge simply by their actions.

If you remove alignment, then you would need to add something that allows for folks to witness, even after the fact, what someone has done. In AE/AU you have the Akashic, which you can also obscure, but at least it can be witnessed.

Now in Ptolus you still have alignments, yet many such spells that detect things, or invade minds, are considered a violation of someone's rights and generally aren't legal in city limits, or admissible in court. Plus, Ptolus has a nice monotheistic religion to use as a model, too.

Anyhow, I hope this helps out.

 

[Arkhandus]

Look at 3E Deities & Demigods, in the last chapter. There are 3 sample variant faiths, first among them being Taiia, a sun goddess for a monotheistic faith. Taiia has different sects devoted to her, in her different aspects as creator, destroyer, and suchlike. Also a prestige class for Justiciars of Taiia, who serve one of her destroyer-aspect sects.

 

[Ringan]

I can't read, sorry.

I think most monotheistic faiths have internal conflicts, I might play up conflicts between:

A faction that is fundamentalist, not wanting to tolerate any other faiths
A faction that is orthodox, not wanting other faiths' ideas, but still tolerant.
A faction that wants to bring in ideas from other faiths to shape their own belief system.

Also I think conflict between faith and reason and one's regard for both makes a plot interesting. This is demonstrated in Umberto Ecco's novel The Name of the Rose, if you have the patience to get through it.

 

[Korgoth]

Instead of 1 deity, perhaps make it something like a Trinity - one deity but fractured into a trio of humanized faces. The Father, the Mother, the Child - the Protective/Destructive, the Creator and Sustainer, and the Personal Touch in your life. Alternatively, the other members of the "Pantheon" could be the God's wife, his children. The "Saints" are his avatars. (You can now have Sects which argue which portion of the God's portfolio is the most prominent/important, which Avatar is his TRUE representation, which child is his FAVORITE).

Just wanted to point out that this isn't how a Trinity works.

@ OP:

If you want to do a monotheistic religion, do one. Going with the different saints is a good approach; different approaches and sphere/domain/whatchamacallit selections can be assigned to different religious orders, etc. Some stand around talking to animals and teaching people moral lessons, others go on crusade, etc.

You can make the religion a specific alignment (like LG) and say it tolerates related alignments (NG, CG and LN in order from most to least tolerated). You can also just say that it accepts worshippers of any alignment, but naturally evil ones aren't in particularly good standing (not that most people would know your alignment anyway).

 

[Friadoc]

I can't read, sorry.

Now that's the worst, I see an apology type edit without knowing what was removed.

Oh the inhumanity of it all, I'm worse than a cat when it comes to curiosity.

*chuckles*

 

[Lidgar]

IMC, the dominant religion is monotheistic (Thane), with a twist. Clerics worship one of three "aspects" of Thane: The Eye of Thane, The Hand of Thane, or the Heart of Thane. Clerics of the Eye act as counselors, interrogators, and spies. Clerics of the Hand act as defenders of the community and the faith - paladins and warrior-clerics. Clerics of the Heart act as healers and pastors over the community.

Outside of this faith is an older faith, the faith of the the 12 Ancients, which is basically druidic/celtic in nature. There are of course fringe cults as well.