What I tell my players in my setting “bible”:

Religion is important. You may want to wait until your character “has to declare” their faith to decide it (having the chance in play to see what religion they likely belong to, whether they are a devout follower or not). In Ordragil, many people do not serve only one deity. All, however, favour at least one deity or a faith with their prayers. Atheism is either an insanity or outlandishly sophisticated philosophy, not a normal belief. Irreligious characters have no assured treatment at any temple, having failed to subscribe to any of the available “public health insurance programs”.

Clerics all follow a particular faith; none are unaffiliated. Some are extremely pious, constantly seeking to apply their deity’s guidance. Others, particularly priests of philosophy faiths, treat faith more as a discipline to apply consistently but not passionately or a science they are constantly exploring and expanding.

Being dependent upon their gods or faiths, clerics must always be in favour. They must constantly demonstrate fidelity and reverence. This may involve observing rituals, ministering to believers, and similar religious work ~ in particular making favoured sacrifices.

Before the Closing of the Gate of Heaven, a cleric who fell from favour might have been Forsaken and lost all supernatural and spell powers. After the Closing of the Gate of Heaven ( Flower 29, 1327), a cleric continues to receive spells until such time as they are formally excommunicated. This may be accomplished by any Outsider servant of their deity or faith capable of granting wishes (which may do so with a simple touch attack, no saving throw), or by use of the spell Anathema.

A cleric must have a Knowledge Religion rank of at least 4 (at least appearing to be Diligent in faith, according to the Religion section). A character gaining Cleric as a 2nd class must have these ranks at the first level of Cleric.

The daily prayer to prepare spells is not a silent act of will and is thus difficult to carry out undetected when under observation or guard.

Most humans in eastern Ordragil worship faiths, not deities. Others are polytheists and worship several deities. Some are henotheists: they acknowledge many gods exist, but only worship one. The followers of al’Din in Hakhar are the closest to monotheists, as they recognize other divine powers than their favoured choice but view there to be such a difference between them that the other powers are unworthy of anyone’s worship.

Religion is very much an issue of this life to most people. There is common belief in reincarnation and an absence of general belief in imminent judgement. There are, however, good reasons to embrace a particular faith in this life. Upbringing inclines most individuals to follow a faith they are taught to be wise and true. Social pressures are strong as most families and communities favour particular religions and react with varying degrees of aversion, shunning and persecution to others. Religion also provides a system of health care and insurance. Unlike practitioners of arcane magic (whose objectives follow their personal dictates), divine magic practitioners are strongly inclined to aid those who profess shared belief.

Whether a follower of a faith or deity, every character has a level of observance. A divine spell caster is expected to be at least diligent in their observance (judged by public actions).

Minimal – observes major holy days, attends services occasionally, avoids breaching dogma. (e.g., a Light worshipper avoids needless violence and dishonesty). Eligible for services from clergy.

Common – observes major holy days, attends services regularly, avoids breaching dogma and often positively applies dogma (e.g. a follower of Dammar applies historical precedent). May reliably expect services from clergy.

Diligent – as common, always seeking to positively apply dogma (e.g., a Listener is unfailing in observing social hierarchy) , with added acts of piety such as sacrifices, and sets aside time for study (has a Knowledge Religion score of at least 4). Alignment is expected to be within one degree of deity or faith’s (though may in truth be otherwise). The character is eligible for a Helpful reaction that includes casting spells for reduced cost, depending on circumstances.

Faithful – as diligent, with added acts such as pilgrimage or crusade, and intense religious study (has a Knowledge Religion score at least 4 + ½ character level, rounded down). Alignment is expected to be exactly the same as deity or faith’s ideal (though may in truth be otherwise). +2 reaction bonus from Clergy when seeking to obtain a Helpful reaction such as obtaining spells for reduced cost depending on circumstances.

All religions are laid out in their philosophy, holy days, favoured sacrifices etc.

Characters will only display an interest in religion if their players make them show such an interest. So the game has to be set up in a way that makes religion interesting to players. There are various ways this can be done, some of which have been mentioned – mechanical benefits, or making religion a central part of the game world.

One thing which hasn’t been mentioned, but which tends to be important in my own games, is to make religion one of the sites in which the key themes of the campaign play out. If this is done, then players who want to engage with those themes have a reason to engage with religion.

A character who chooses to play a Paladin is probably sending a signal that they are interested in heroism and glory; one who plays a Monk wants martial arts, and perhaps also a bit of “the wisdom of the mysterious East”. If you offer the players these things wrapped in game-world religion, they will probably bite.

In my current (Rolemaster) game, of seven PCs one is a Paladin, one a demi-human Druid, one a demi-human Ranger who trained in a monastery at an earlier time, and one a Diviner/Enchanter who belongs to an esoteric branch of the Paladin’s religion.

How to make religion important with this group? Instead of regular demi-humans, the Druid is a tree-spirit and the Ranger a fox-spirit – so straight away they have a connection to the spirit beings which are at the bottom (the most worldly end, if you like) of the divine hierarchy. When these players explore their characters’ backgrounds, they are engaging with the religion of the gameworld.

The Diviner’s key abilities are (in D&D terms) Commune and Contact Other Planes. It is easy, when these abilities are used, to bring divine personalities and politics into play.

The player of the Paladin, naturally, wants to do a lot of smiting. Instead of giving him essentially secular scenarios, like defending villagers from Orcs, the game involves religiously-infused scenarios, like defending villagers from Undead and other sorts of evil spirits.

Many scenarios can (with minimal work) be given a religious aspect that therefore changes their theme without changing their mechanical play in any major way. When I ran the Freeport trilogy for my group (converted to RM), I made it that the island on which the lighthouse was being built was in fact the remnant body of a dead warrior god belonging to the Paladin’s pantheon (thank you for the inspiration, Monte!). The god had died driving off the Unspeakable One last time he manifested in the world, and the cult was now hoping to draw on his essence to power a new gate. When the PCs disrupted the cultists’ ceremony, the dead god temporarily came to life, lifting himself from the water and driving off the evil power.

With these mechanically insignificant changes to the scenario, it suddenly becomes not just a story about stopping a mad cult, but takes on a religious meaning for the Paladin and Diviner. Themes of heroism and loyalty (important to the Paladin’s player) and of ancient and hidden secrets (important to the Diviner’s player) are played out within an in-game religous context.

One result of this is that the Paladin’s main goal has now become the permanent resurrection of the dead god. Religion is therefore likely to stay at the core of the campaign for some time, because this is where the action is – both for the characters, and the thematic action for the players.

On the rare occasion I play a cleric or a paladin, I have to have a very strong idea of the character and their faith. I really enjoy exploring the role of a person of faith, as I am not one.

When a player wishes to play a cleric in my campaign, I give them as much support as they wish. If they want to develop the faith, I will help, if they just want to player a character with abilities, that is fine too.

It worked out pretty well. He served the Ogreish god of rage, and was inventive in how he dedicated himself to his gods. As the campaign went on, the player introduced sub-gods/saints– a god of slow revenge, a god of battle, a god of breaking bones, etc. He did a good job of working his characterization in, and making his character’s religion seem central to the character.

Unfortunately, we didn’t really get to explore what that meant about a society that considered these worshipers normal…

-Rob D.

a) Hesitation on bringing such a touchy and controversial subject for many people.

b) Lack of in depth knowledge on how a religion is really run. Lets face it, few gamers are archbishops, lamas, or otherwise extremely versed in how a religion actually *works*

c) From a roleplaying standpoint, most people (caveat: in my experience) don’t want to go through the effort of knowing or making up doctrine & myths for their deity.

The best attempt at this that I have seen has been the original gods books that TSR did for the Forgotten Realms – Faiths & Avatars, Powers & Pantheons, and DemiHuman Deities.

It can get outta control very quickly.

Most polytheistic fantasy pantheons come at it from the exact wrong angle, saying, “Well, we want a god of war, a god of knowledge, a god of this element or that…” This isn’t surprising given that I think a lot of fantasy-game derived polytheistic religions are modelled after what someone might learn in, say, a seventh grade English course on Greek mythology where you’ve got Apollo listed as “Sun God” and Zeus as “Thunder/Sky God” and so on. Polytheistic religions in the real world aren’t made by people sitting down and decide on “Domains” and “Portfolios” and then making up gods to fill those roles. While it’s inevitable that any religion you create for a setting is going to be artificial in some ways, it makes a lot more sense to me to go about writing the history/mythology of your setting and deriving a pantheon and characteristics of your deities from there.

Of course, from what I know, a truly naturalistic polytheism is going to end up with far too many deities for most players to keep track of — The Hindus, Romans and Greeks all have essentially infinite “deities” (spirits, geniuses, daemons, etc). A Greek-style system where you can have a deity with an epithet indicating a specific quality or characteristic, like Athena-Nike, can help players by reducing the number of actual deity names to remember. I’m in the process of restructuring the pantheon in my campaign because I feel like having 13 major deities (or 39 deities in the organized church, not including local nature spirits and civic cults and similar entities that might be considered minor deities) is too much for players to keep track of.

All of this contributes to the kind of reactions people have to poverty–including religious, but it isn’t the dominant motivation for the religion. What you are really talking about here is politics, not religion. During the worst of the medieval period, monastery walls and means often formed a bastion of civilization in otherwise lawless land. In some cases, the abbot was defacto lord. When you have that situation, you get the kind of reaction mentioned in your quote.

In this situation, you have the normal spread of religious belief. But you also have people that follow the forms because it is good politics. Contrast that with the flowering of culture in the late medieval period, typified by the building of the cathedrals. Is this a grand flowering of religious sentiment absent the wracking poverty mentioned before. Well, yeah for some it is. But for others, it’s going with the politics of *that* age. (That is, if the funds are there, the stonemason guild gets lots of work, which makes the stonemasons happy, which relates to civic pride. Ergo, the bishop is still important politically.

The Fransican order was a reaction to the infiltration of politics into the church. The church accepted the order, because it was understood that there should be such an outlet, while also recognizing that it was impossible for the church to be separated from the world.

That is another rich area for religion in a roleplaying game. If a religion is all mystical, it will be so divorced from the world has to have few believers. OTOH, to the extent that it engages the world, it becomes *involved*. When it becomes involved, economics and politics and basic human nature work as you might expect.

Cantor’s take on the black death is very interesting, by the way. He makes a pretty convincing case that by around 1300, the church had largely succeeded in producing enough educated people (especially in law) that it could afford to withdraw somewhat from the world. In effect, the intent was to turn over political matters more to the civil authorities–a gradual process that had been pursued since the canon lawyers were sent to assist Charlemagne. Universities still were primarily for educating theologies, scribes, and lawyers, but they were starting to branch out and become more independent. The plague effectively did a mini-return to the dark ages.

Remember Mr. Occam (or Ockkam) of the famous razor? He is living in 11th century England, and corresponding all over Europe about some fairly advanced mathematics. He predicted most of Newtonian mechanics, but said a new mathematics would need to be developed to prove them, which he lacked. Poverty is still rampant by our standards today, and any place can produce a genius. But it requires a certain *average* affluence for a William of Occam to engage in his various studies.

Rick said:

“I was merely pointing out that those conditions DO make one a more fervent believer, as history displays during the rise of humanism during the renaisance, and that our ancestors had a LOT more of those motivations than we do.”

Bad conditions motivate people to kowtow to the temporal authorities. Good conditions allow them not to. Through it all, people are about as religious in one time as they are in another. To the degree that the temporal authorities are a church (or churches), some people will kowtow accordingly. This doesn’t make them fervent, though it might appear to at a quick glance. In more prosperous times, they are free to worship Halle Bopp, or whatever floats their boat.

I usually don’t have time for a lot of reading so I’ll pass on your kind offer. No need for you to trouble yourself over something that I likely won’t have time for.

BUT…. as serindipity would have it, I was reading my copy of KODT 118 this evening, and I saw an article entitled “Exploring Medieval Themes”. All quoted material (save one separately noted passage) was sourced to “The Civilization of the Middle Ages,” by Norman F. Cantor (Harper Collins 1993). What luck that I should stumble across an article on this very subject written from the very source you reccomend.

Mister Cantor is quoted with the following in the article:
“At least until the twelfth century, the lives of medieval peasants different little from the beasts of the field. They toiled, they bred, and they died.”
“Finding the most learned monk of the eighth century in the frontier society of northern England is roughly comparable to locating the greatest scholar of mid-nineteeth century America in the backwoods of Missouri.”
(of course I’m assuming that most fantasy rpgs are largely based on exactly the frontier society of England)-Parenthesis mine, not mister Cantors
Regarding a typical craftsman: “He knew that if he did not fulfill the possibilities of the vocation he had chose, he would be condemned to miserable poverty…”

This is the stereotype of the medieval world that I’m familiar with and from which my earlier position springs. Set in a different version of the past where things aren’t so dismal, things would be radically different.