When Fantasy meets Medieval Europe

Status
Not open for further replies.

Yunru

Banned
Banned
Pagan religions aren't Medieval. We don't really have a historic example of a bunch of pagan nations existing in a Medieval Europe. Your grafting something that more properly belongs in Ancient times into a Medieval setting. the Church was a very powerful organization in Europe in 1100 AD. You know Christianity is an international religion, what existed before that was a bunch of National religions, each nation had its own set of gods. Judaism was a national religion Christianity crossed national borders, and Islam followed its example. Without Christianity and Islam, there could be no Church. The Roman Pantheon would have died with the Empire, unless you want that Empire to still be around, in which case there would be no knights in shining armor, no feudalism, there would be slaves, and arenas and centurions and all that stuff.
That's... a lot of assumptions.
The primary one I can see is that the Roman religion would die with Rome.
Why?

It didn't, after all, hence why Christianity is still an international religion. Being a different religion wouldn't change that.
 
Last edited:

log in or register to remove this ad

pemerton

Legend
This is in the general RPG thread, though some version of D&D seems to be involved.

In any event, I don't see any trouble using a monotheistic assumption for classic AD&D at least: clerics and paladins have such assumptions built right into them!

For what it's worth, I would treat druids as magic-users (some sort of witch variant), not a clerical sub-class, if the assumption is monotheism.

Evil clerics (anti-clerics to use the old-fashioned terminology) are a bit of a puzzle here, but I think being powered up by Satan is as good an approach as any. I think I've seem some Ars Magica supplements take that approach.
 

Lylandra

Adventurer
And then again, would it be wrong to go with "Factually, they don't know where their 'miracles' come from"?

From what I get is that you wish to use all D&D classes and put them into a scenario of Medieval Europe at 1100 AD which is about to be visited by Renaissance-Era elves from the Americas.

So you don't really need a cosmological explanation for the source of divine spells. They just believe that God (or gods or forces of nature) grant them. Some of them think that a form of primeval evil exists and call that "The Devil" or "Satan" and get powers from that source. However, no one knows for sure.

Angels and Demons can exist in your scenario, depending on whether or not you use a planar system. They are forces of good and evil which intervene when they see it fitting.

(and as a sidenote: Be careful with that whole Venus & Mars stuff, interesting as this may be. You're just opening another big can of worms by making our sister planets not only habitable, but inhabited. This, and the existence of actual, powerful romano-greek gods (or... aliens?), changes a LOT from the 1100 AD you'd like to portray.)
 

Aldarc

Legend
For what it's worth, I would treat druids as magic-users (some sort of witch variant), not a clerical sub-class, if the assumption is monotheism.
They could even be "monks" contemplating the unity of the created world or desiring to live in harmony and austerity with the created world.

Evil clerics (anti-clerics to use the old-fashioned terminology) are a bit of a puzzle here, but I think being powered up by Satan is as good an approach as any. I think I've seem some Ars Magica supplements take that approach.
Not really that tough. It depends on how clerics receive their power. If it is simply their own faith as a battery for a universal divine power, then even evil people could call upon God. Or maybe they have become corrupt through power or deeds in their service to the Church or secular powers.
 

pemerton

Legend
They could even be "monks" contemplating the unity of the created world or desiring to live in harmony and austerity with the created world.
I think that's fine for the true neutral alignment, but doesn't really explain the flavour of their spells (again, I'm thinking AD&D here - so plants, insects and other animals, plus some modest elementalism).
 

Aldarc

Legend
I think that's fine for the true neutral alignment, but doesn't really explain the flavour of their spells (again, I'm thinking AD&D here - so plants, insects and other animals, plus some modest elementalism).
The Creator created the World, the biblical texts are ripe with nature singing praise of Elohim. Why wouldn't it work?
 

Thomas Bowman

First Post
And then again, would it be wrong to go with "Factually, they don't know where their 'miracles' come from"?

From what I get is that you wish to use all D&D classes and put them into a scenario of Medieval Europe at 1100 AD which is about to be visited by Renaissance-Era elves from the Americas.

So you don't really need a cosmological explanation for the source of divine spells. They just believe that God (or gods or forces of nature) grant them. Some of them think that a form of primeval evil exists and call that "The Devil" or "Satan" and get powers from that source. However, no one knows for sure.

Angels and Demons can exist in your scenario, depending on whether or not you use a planar system. They are forces of good and evil which intervene when they see it fitting.

(and as a sidenote: Be careful with that whole Venus & Mars stuff, interesting as this may be. You're just opening another big can of worms by making our sister planets not only habitable, but inhabited. This, and the existence of actual, powerful romano-greek gods (or... aliens?), changes a LOT from the 1100 AD you'd like to portray.)
I think the gods Venus and Mars are consumed by maintaining their own planets, they have little time an energy left over for dealing with Earthlings once they stopped believing and worshipping them. During their heyday the Roman gods got associated with the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, but only Venus and Mars are capable of being habitable. Venus is a very old goddess, there are versions of her that existed prior to Roman times, under different names such as Aphrodite and Isthar, and even as far back as the stone age, Mars is a someone younger god but still very old, he goes back to before the Romans as well. An aspect of Venus still exists under the name "Freya" in the Norse pantheon, so she still has a little bit of a following on Earth, Mars goes under the alias of "Thor" as that is effectively the Viking God of War.

Because Venus and Mars have large populations of humans that worship these two deities, they are still active. People on Earth who still worship Venus and Mars, usually keep that fact a secret, lest they be burned as witches, this is true in central and southern Europe and in the Middle East, in Scandinavia, this is tolerated a bit more as that region is still in transition from paganism to Christianity. Lots of bloodlust and warfare still keep the god of war going, even if they are fighting over Christian causes. In some respects, one can say, they God of War managed to subvert the Christian Crusade against Islam, by getting the Crusaders more interested in looting and pillaging than in conversions! Mars loves battle for its own sake, he doesn't care about the underlying reason for the conflict! Venus is much the same but with love, she finds Priest's Monk's vows and chastity a bit of a challenge for her, and she loves to test their faith! Sometimes clerics of Venus and Mars will masquerade as Catholic Priests to advance their true devotions, these pagan deities will grant their spells, thus allowing them to blend in with their true believers.

Usually its bloodlust which allows Mars to corrupt militant Catholic Priests, Mars will often answer their prayers instead of God, if they are really determined to carry out their battles against the Muslim Infidels, and you know Venus can cause a priest to meet a beautiful woman, and maybe she can get something started between them in secret. Priests that give into their temptations with a woman, may find their prayers sometimes being answered by Venus and they might fall into her orbit, while at the same time maintaining their positions within the Catholic Church for as long as they can get away with it. Venus often helps them to maintain their secret affairs for as long as possible, she loves illicit affairs, having had a few of those herself.

As for the other two planets Mars and Venus, a teleport spell can get you there. If one is a high enough level of wizard and can see the planet Venus or Mars in the sky, he can cast a teleport spell and go there. Teleporting to Venus is a little more risky than teleporting to Mars. The elves have optical telescopes for seeing these planets, but Venus is covered with a perpetual layer of clouds and 80% of its surface is covered with water, so a wizard is at risk of teleporting to an ocean surface if he goes there. Mars on the other hand is 80% dry land, it is a warlike place however, so anyone who teleports there had better go well armed!

Please tell me how this would change things? Some people who have teleport spells can go to those planets because they can see them in the sky. Elven astronomers can determine their distances, and so by that means they can teleport to them. People on those two planets can also teleport to Earth. Martians may have a bit of a problem dealing with Earth's gravity if they are not used to it, but their are spells that can overcome this problem.

Venusians have to get above their planet's cloud layer so they can see Earth in their night sky before they can teleport there, teleporting back to Venus is a bit of a problem for them because they can't see where they are going, but if they have been to a place on Venus before and can remember it, they can go to that place.
 
Last edited:

Thomas Bowman

First Post
And then again, would it be wrong to go with "Factually, they don't know where their 'miracles' come from"?

From what I get is that you wish to use all D&D classes and put them into a scenario of Medieval Europe at 1100 AD which is about to be visited by Renaissance-Era elves from the Americas.

So you don't really need a cosmological explanation for the source of divine spells. They just believe that God (or gods or forces of nature) grant them. Some of them think that a form of primeval evil exists and call that "The Devil" or "Satan" and get powers from that source. However, no one knows for sure.

Angels and Demons can exist in your scenario, depending on whether or not you use a planar system. They are forces of good and evil which intervene when they see it fitting.

(and as a sidenote: Be careful with that whole Venus & Mars stuff, interesting as this may be. You're just opening another big can of worms by making our sister planets not only habitable, but inhabited. This, and the existence of actual, powerful romano-greek gods (or... aliens?), changes a LOT from the 1100 AD you'd like to portray.)

The planar system is mostly the same as in Standard D&D, Satan has dominion over all of the lower planes, the Lords of those planes are working for him. God has dominion over the upper planes.
 

pemerton

Legend
The Creator created the World, the biblical texts are ripe with nature singing praise of Elohim. Why wouldn't it work?
I guess so. Entangle and Barkskin and the like just seem a bit wonky to me. If they don't for you (or, I guess, the OP) then go for it!
 

Thomas Bowman

First Post
@Thomas Bowman: I should warn you that an active Satanic presence is just as sensitive of a topic as a person representing themselves as God. It's generally not considered a healthy topic to show interest in, and that fear of Satan borders on giving glory to him and results in severe error (such as the real world 'witch panic'), to say nothing of the problem of appearing dualist if you set him up as 'the evil god'. But, I'm presuming also that it's likely that you've given some thought to this problem as well.
There is a god and their is God. God with a capital 'G' is all powerful, a god with a lower case 'g' is not, I tend to make a distinction between the two. Satan can be thought of as an "evil god" in the pagan sense, but he is not God in the Biblical sense. Other pagan deities, such as Mars and Venus, are gods with a lower case 'g', they are powerful compared to us, within the context of the game universe, but they are not all powerful. Now just to remind you, this is in the game universe I'm creating, I don't want to get into an argument with a priest about theology. Technically Satan is a devil not a god, but he has powers just like any of a number of pagan gods who are not God, it is a difference without a distinction.
 

Status
Not open for further replies.
Remove ads

Top