Religion and politics...OR.. Politics and religion?

[alsih2o]

In your world, the one you are currently playing in/DMing, do politics rule (kings/czars/emperors) and religion influences things or does religion rule and politicians influence things?

How is that working for you?

Be nice, no modern hints or analogies, Henry hates the taste of Pepto...

My world is a Theocracy which is influenced and manipulated occasionally by merchants and town leaders. It makes lots of sense to me to have religions at the forefront- what with proof of real acts by gods and all.

How about you?

 

[Crothian]

Mine differs from place to place actually. On the continent that my current campaign starts most of the countries are political in nature, with a few exceptions. But there are other places that are very much Theocracy with some having the ruler hand picked by their goddess, and others even being ruled directly by their god.

 

[Voadam]

Politically the campaign is set on a decaying theocratic empire where the emperor/high priest has just started to try to increase the legions and regain control of the regions that had become almost defacto independent city states. Shortly there will be witch hunts throughout the controlled empire as well for arcane casters who don't "register" and serve the theocratic empire.

Note that for the city states in response two have capitulated and had governors replaced while another (lead by the city's high priest of the same god) have declared their religious (and therefore political) autonomy.

The god of the empire has remained silent on all this and all clerics are still getting spells.

So I'd say it is politics influenced by religion rather than the other way around, it is pure political power plays despite the religious justifications.

There is also an issue of resurging old god worship and there are active druidical power items influencing the gods, but it is secondary and background to the power politics of nations, even though it is a theocratic nation.

 

[Arnwyn]

Mine differs from place to place actually.

Yeah, ditto.

IMC there are, however, more places where politics rule than theocracies.

 

[Stormborn]

Our current game world started in a humancentric merchantile oligarchy, with a heavily influential and monolithic church providing the only real binding force other than money. However, since the game began one of the city states has broken away, over issue of religion, and the PCs are seeing that in this world religion is politics, and both are all about the gold pieces.

 

[Gez]

Politics would have the upper hands... However, the real power is in the hands of merchants. They have the money, so they control the mercenary militias... Given the numerous skirmish with monsters and marauders, and given the state of war between the evil elven empire, the sentient orcish city of Kaztengarken, and the decadent snake-worshipping human aristocracy of the Chandrale... Plus an invasion by Aragaï (mutant spidery goblins) crawling up from the depth of the Nether... And rumors of illithid plots... And lots of other threats, from fiends, hags, kaorti...

Well, suffice to say that those who have the means to hire powerful and resourceful mercenaries (like adventurers) are the most likely to have the proper means to further their goals.

On the five most powerful blocks, one (the Dwarven Confederacy) is heavily mercantile; two, waging a war, depend heavily on the money that they can borrow from bankers and merchants in order to fund the war effort; a fourth is a plutocracy (more precisely, a census-based democracy); and the last is a psionic city with enthralled orcish hords bent on total domination of the whole world. Only the latter is not controlled by merchants.

Otherwise, temporal and spiritual leaders are about equal in power.

 

[Wombat]

My current world is in the midst of both religious and political turmoil, something on the level of 16th century France. As such, they are both influencing each other, sometimes rather randomly. Part of this is due to the "colonial situation" (read: coming to the not-Caribbean from not-Europe) in which I have placed my game and part is due to my crazy players.

In the Old Lands religion and politics used to work hand-in-hand, although with a slight nod to religion; here in the New Lands things have gotten ... frisky.

There are seven major religious factions, three major political factions, as well as "Old World" influences that pull things in multiple directions. Add to this deals being made with various native cultures (bringing over their religious and political views) and you have quite the Osterizer vision of society

It's very strange, a bit tense, and open to all sorts of exploitation on the part of the players...

 

[Hand of Evil]

I seem to keep politics more to the local level and those some times being extreme and the larger govermnent body and churchs just being neautral, performing balancing acts.

 

[adwyn]

IMC the religion focuses on a church led rebellion against the gods. On a local (up to duchy) level religion influences politics. Personalities and personal desires, the foundation of politics, are the driving factors as religious issues seem far away and remote.

On the national scale politics influence religion as there are generally (hopefully) greater concerns than any individual. Keeping the gods of old at bay becomes a central theme and personal politics are expected to be minimised.

There are exceptions, such as witch hunts on the local level.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

The current king has set himself up as a near absolute monarch, having defeated an alliance of powerful nobles to take the throne. The nobles and middle class each have a house of parliament, but don't have a great deal of influence over royal edicts and laws. The king won the civil war with heavy support from the merchant class (from which he originally hails, having married, plotted and conquered his way into a crown), but has since alienated them by enforcing trade sanctions against hostile nations, of which there are many.

The church, meanwhile, suffered a series of major setbacks and had its authority heavily questioned after an attempt to manipulate the civil war was exposed. The current high priest restored the church's internal order and has begun rebuilding its power.

Church and state cooperate on the surface, but neither holds a great deal of control outside of the holy island and the royal capital. Rebel bandits, disgruntled nobles, foreign powers, scheming merchants and underworld bosses exert more influence in their respective regions than the "parliament-appointed" royal governors and the bishops.

And the PCs are part of the well-intentioned but ruthless royal secret police, an organization hated and feared by basically every darned group, secular and religious, on the entire continent.

They're just a little bit paranoid.