World-building: What Have I Done?

Forgot religion. Hm.

Got two players who like philosophy, vague religious interpretive stuff. Got one player who avoids topic entirely. GM who got me in this mess usually has standard/stock religions.

Sometimes good to be different: how about this?...

No gods. Community provides power, however, which can be tapped in particular form (clerical magic) by those who have "community acceptance".. however, repressed aspects of community spirit (dark, vile things) can ALSO be tapped by those who unloose themselves to it.

In addition to "default" community spells (cleric basic list), most clerics tap particular aspects of community spirit in form of philosophies (domains).

Accomplishes two goals:
- Cool religious background, good + evil, avoids universal truths
- Does not require me to write up or steal dozen or so gods :)
 

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Maybe there can be some sort of "instiutional athiesm." The community punishes individuals that explore religion outside of the filial piety generally promoted.
 

Sounds wonderful!

One the metagaming side... will your players know they are playing in medieval France? In any case, you should probably *not* give them access to the map you just posted, because such high-quality maps were definitely not available in that time frame. 1453 was still more than a century before the start of the "golden age" of cartography. Any contemporary maps would have been relatively local, abstracted and distorted. If you can find some real 15th century maps to hand out to your players, all the better!

For comparison, here are some 15th century maps:
central and northern Europe, 1493
Florence, 1493
British Isles, 1482
 



Conaill, major thank yous. Exactly the kind of map I was looking for. Players do not know this is France - plan is to painstakingly sketch out Narbonne (and only Narbonne!), with sea monsters off the coast, and "the giant quasi-empire" surrounding them on all land sides. Notes of kingdoms further away in oral form only.

Omokage, I think Narbonne = pretty tolerant. Their surrounding neighbor, however... Hm. Maybe Narbonne diplomats all have to be members of semi-uptight philosophical order? Heh :).
 



Woot! Chatted with group, they like idea of starting in Narbonne magiocracy, like "non-god" religion, and like rumors I spread about other kingdoms.

One player is thinking, dwarven cleric with "Moradin chanter" description. Others still undecided - munchkins like us always take forever to build characters.

I'm excited :)
 

Keep us posted!

BTW, you plannng to do anything with the history of the Cathar heresy in the region? The massacre of Beziers in 1209 is the origin of the quote "Kill them all – for God will know his own." The Cathar heresy is also the reason for the birth of the Inquisition in 1233, and the last Cathar Perfect was burned only in 1321 at Villerouge-Termenès, about 28 miles SW of Narbonne...

Some good game fodder and connections between witchcraft and catharism (lots of unrelated stuff in here, but search for the mention of "cathar" for some interesting anecdotes and descriptions):
Witchcraft I
 

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