[On topic - NO FLAMES!] God & Satan

[Stone Angel]

I have also been working on this (sort of) more less in idea form and a few notes here and there. Anyway just a few thoughts, I know that you said it was the crusades, but remember before the new testament Yaweh represented everything; Healing, death, war, life etc. Just for a spin on things. Anyway I thought that it would be cool to have God worshipped as the Trinity
God the Father: Law, Good, Creation(?), War, Knowledge
God the Son: Healing, Good, Knowledge, and some others
God the Spirit: They would be sort of Miracalists w/ visions and certain things, possibly arcane casters. Just something for you to chew on. Another thing I had thought of was that Satan would grant his spells through demonic possession. Such as Legion. Evil clerics or wizards would start out w/ opression such as they were aided by a demon as an unseen force. Then possessed by a lesser demon, then a greater one. I also liked the idea of the saints giving out spells too.

 

[Viking Bastard]

My take...

Well... I use a pseudo-christian relifgion in my steampunky homebrew. It's not really 'Christianity' since for example, it doesn't have any 'Christ' at such. It has prophets, but no messiah.

There is only Gawd. Just him, no other deities of any kinds. Then there are demons and celestials etc etc yadda yadda yadda.

But that doesn't mean there is just one religion. There's plenty. They all believe in the same Gawd, but disagree what exactly he encompasses.

The Clerics get domains according to which 'Chapel' they put their faith in. The Hammerites, who believe that Gawd represents Law and Order of the universe, get the Law domain, while the Hospitalers, who believe Gawd is nothing but pure kindness and love, get other appropriate domains.

Then some 'Chapels' have even more different views of Gawd. Druids believe he represents nature and Monks believe that if you want to find Gawd you must look inward. To your inner self.

 

[Dogface]

Allow me to toss in some amusing monkey wrenches to the very neat and tidy model so far generated.

I'm an Orthodox Christian (as in shouting "Xristos Anesti!" every Pascha--that's "Easter" for you English-only types) with an interest in the history of my Church and its interactions with the West. What we are taught about the Crusades over here in the West is extremely limited and one-sided, and I'm not talking about the representation of the Muslims, either.

A tiny detail that is conveniently overlooked is that there were already a very large number of Christians native to the Holy Land. They just weren't adherents of Rome or of Roman Christianity. Indeed, throughout the entirety of the Crusade era, there was a Christian Empire in the east, and it did not agree, neither theologically nor ecclesiologically with the Ferengi (that's the word applied by the native Christians to the Crusaders) who came pouring over from the West under the banner of the Pope.

Likewise, it should be noted that there was no shortage of Christians living peacefully in cities held by Muslims--they just weren't Roman Christians. The story of the First Crusade is an excellent illustration of the difference between the attitudes of the two groups.

The Vasileon Rhomaoi (Roman Emperor, what those cursed with a poor education call "Byzantine") wanted some mercenaries to help him fight a war against his cousin, the Turkish Sultan (who was, of course, Muslim). He had a message sent to the Pope of Rome of that day (there traditionally and from the beginning of the Church being two Popes--the Pope of Alexandria being the elder position) requesting military aid.

The Pope of Rome leaped upon this as an excuse to extend his authority and bring some sense and order to Europe, calling upon all Christians to form a vast army to re-take the Holy Land. Needless to say, the Vasileon was not exactly thrilled to have a horde of smelly Ferengi appearing on his doorstep, so he had them swear fealty to him and just set them loose across the Bosporus. Unfortunately, they did better than he thought they would, starting that whole nasty business now known as the Crusades.

The religious differences between the East and the West might or might not influence how one runs a campaign, but I'll leave off on them until later.

 

[Dogface]

Regarding Veneration of the Saints.

I'm not up on the way the West handles veneration of the Saints, but in the East, the Saints have never been seen as "granting powers" to the faithful. Instead, the Saints "wielded" power. Of course, it was not their own power. In D&D terms, the closest equivalent to a Saint would actually be a Cleric!

Before one objects to the idea that Saints shouldn't be walking around all over the place, looking at any complete calendar of Saints (if you're looking at a Western calendar, look at one compiled before Rome threw out 90% or more of their Saints in the 20th century).

Of course, if these clerics don't act like saints, they won't get powers or spells. But there was more than one kind of saint, including not a few very military types.

 

[Storm Raven]

Ok, right. Provoke the Mormons, the Latter Day Saints, and the Quakers by comparing them to a bunch of heretics. I'm sure that they feel the comparison is valid. Actually, you are probably safe, because in my experience, those three groups typically use thier time more constructively and probably aren't killing time on a BBS.

I suppose you realize that many other groups of Christians (including the Catholic Church, various other Protestant denominations and the Greek and Eastern Orthodox churches) actually do consider the Mormons and Quakers to be heretics, don't you?

 

[Cheiromancer]

Whoops! We're getting into dangerous territory here. Let's *not* talk about who calls whom a heretic, or why.

 

[Tiefling]

With a couple exceptions (Quakers, for example), pretty much everyone thinks of everyone else as heretics.

(Roman Emperor, what those cursed with a poor education call "Byzantine")

This was probably meant with a smiley, but how do you mean that people who call the later Eastern Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire are poorly educated?

 

[Maerdwyn]

This was probably meant with a smiley, but how do you mean that people who call the later Eastern Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire are poorly educated?

The term "Byzantine" was only coined in the 1700s, well after the "Byzantine Empire" had been conquered by the Ottomans.

The people of the empire weren't "Byzantines", but rather "Romaioi" - Greek speaking Romans

 

[Rhialto]

I just wanted to say that I can't quite agree with dogface's version of the Pope's motives for calling the Crusades. In truth Urban had many reasons to send troops over there, including his own personal beliefs about the "Holy City"....

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

a horde of smelly Ferengi

Quark?

Anyhow, I'm intending to present all religions as equally valid - in this world, a cleric of Celtic or Norse paganism, for instance, would just as easily get access to spells. Though I'll likely limit them to being shamans (as per Green Ronin) and in addition not a lot will be encountered. Not too many druids in the Levant, after all...

But I'm not too sure how I'll handle that. Maybe make all the other gods intermediate, too.