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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6023845" data-attributes="member: 4937">19th Century reinterpretations of Zoroastrian scripture by a European named Martin Haug, who has actually had pretty profound influence on modern Zoroastrianism, although exactly whether his heavily Christianized Zoroastrianism represents the historic one is greatly in doubt.  Haug's Westernized Zoroastrianism heavily influences the thinking of not only actual Zoroastrian religious figures, but also critically the same group of early 20th century scholars that advanced the notion of Zoroastrian being the "philosophical foundation of Judaism".Although Zoroastrians had a 'chief diety' who was non-Created and eternal, he was served by a whole host of attendent dieties called yazads. That's also a bit of a contriversial statement, but being a Protestant, I'll let it slide because of the 'in the D&D sense of the word' gives diety a profoundly indefinite meaning (how to define a deity is up to you).  Besides, the comparison of Saints to Yazata is probably justified, though the Saints are elevated mortals, the Yazata are not, and the Catholics would rather fiercely claim a difference between worship and veneration.  However, given that both Catholicism and Zoroastrianism are extant religious traditions, we might ought to back off from this discussion despite its potential relevance to the campaign world in question.</blockquote>