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[kontako]

Yes, another suggestion for gods.

The way in which worldgen creates deities which effectively have power from one corner of the map to another, yet had worship limited to the confines of a single civilisation or village seemed disturbing. In a world which the inhabitants take their lives and their gods seriously, a disturbed feeling is warranted. Although changing this system would have effectively no change on current game play (Such as current Fortress and Adventure modes) it would have impact on world generation and the extent of a players power, when chosen to play as a deity (Whenever and if that would be implemented).

Yes, I understand game play elements involving deities are said to expand within future updates including things like proper worship, however I didn't believe that the current set up was properly evaluated to begin these expansions. So no, I'm not stating that "Deities should get updated" rather "How I imagine the updated deities should behave".

Onto the actual suggestion: Effectively they behave as the nymphs and dryads of forests and lakes. As the world generates certain land features should be possessed by the spirit of their own existence, and these spirits should be effectively limited by their features. i.e. A mountain would be possessed by a 'spirit of mountains' and their power would spread to the extent of said mountain range - and possibly into some of the surrounding country side. Mortal inhabitants of such mountain range would perceive such acts of the mountain spirit and worship it as a deity. The deity may create creatures and titans to virtually expand its influence via their proxy.
Certain extents of this would be that deities hope for and require worshippers to extend their reach beyond their possessed biome and into the sanctuaries and temples of worshippers. Furthermore, it would filter out certain obsolete deities within certain civilisations. e.g. The landlocked mountain worshippers, having never seen an ocean, would not have need or desire to worship a deity associated with oceans - automatically creating a hierarchy of deities within pantheons.

This is not to say this is the only deity of mountains, far north another possible mountain range bearing another civilisation would have their own worshippers and limitations. If and when the player may be able to control one of these deities, they would be provided with another form of individual game play rather than a Fortress or Adventure mode clone.

Hopefully I've been able to communicate my point effectively and within reason. Please critique and include your own suggestions.
Furthermore, I'd like your opinions on how abstract concepts such as deities of death, weather and truth should/could be handled.

[Urist McVoyager]

What if you tied the abstract to the concrete? I don't think we get very many deities with only one sphere. It wouldn't take much to set up the Procedure so that every deity has at least one concrete sphere, and at least one abstract sphere. Instead of a deity of Mountains, you'd get a deity of Mountains and child birth, or of Plains and death. This could help with the Pantheons, as multiple deities with the same concrete sphere could have different abstract spheres, and they could rule together as a team.

[Azerty]

Having gods devoted to a small place is a good idea; I posted some ideas about it, along with introducing several classes of worshippable beings.

We could see gods protecting fortresses, towns, forrests and maybe even temples.

[LMeire]

I like it, more themes means more conflict which means more FUN. It'd be even better if the expanding cult of one god would tick off other gods of the same sphere, inciting arguments, feuds, and even insurrections on the mortal level in a manner similar to how RL pantheons were said behave when their patron city-states went to war. You don't need two sun gods, afterall- one of them would probably have to go as they both push for recognition and dominance in the civ.

[kontako]

What if you tied the abstract to the concrete? I don't think we get very many deities with only one sphere. It wouldn't take much to set up the Procedure so that every deity has at least one concrete sphere, and at least one abstract sphere. Instead of a deity of Mountains, you'd get a deity of Mountains and child birth, or of Plains and death. This could help with the Pantheons, as multiple deities with the same concrete sphere could have different abstract spheres, and they could rule together as a team.

That's an interesting proposal, I like it. Some interesting interactions may be possible due to this also. e.g. Deity of death and gems --> asks for sacrifices to provide wealth --> opposing civilisation against the murder of innocent sentient beings --> War resolves, both sides believing they're support the right thing (Instead of the cliché 'Good v.s. Evil') I wonder whether it would be more reasonable for a deity to hold spheres of similar influence or adhere to chaos. Mountains and Fortresses <--> Water and Fortresses (and more unrelated concepts). I think I prefer the similarity system, producing things such as 'Water and Weather' and 'Mountains and Fortresses'.

Having gods devoted to a small place is a good idea; I posted some ideas about it, along with introducing several classes of worshippable beings.

We could see gods protecting fortresses, towns, forrests and maybe even temples.

Sorry, I didn't realise similar ideas had been mentioned in another post. I couldn't effectively search through the sheer number of threads which involved the words 'God' or 'Deity'. Interestingly, that's a good point. Cities and towns which would adopt a patron deity would tend to rely upon their deity for protection. A deity of a rainforest might send titans and beasts to a local colony of dwarves to prevent them from deforestation - and effectively removing areas of the deities influence.

I like it, more themes means more conflict which means more FUN. It'd be even better if the expanding cult of one god would tick off other gods of the same sphere, inciting arguments, feuds, and even insurrections on the mortal level in a manner similar to how RL pantheons were said behave when their patron city-states went to war. You don't need two sun gods, afterall- one of them would probably have to go as they both push for recognition and dominance in the civ.

I think it may also cause certain fortresses to rebel against their metropolis - similar to the groups of catholic heresy rebelling against the Pope.
However, something you've said has concerned me. Heavenly bodies such as the moon and the sun - if they were ruled by deities - would be points of ultimate cosmic power. Everyone see's the sun, and everyone has cause to worship it, leading the sun deity to gain ultimate power and influence. In reality, the importance of sun deities such as Ra to the Egyptians differs greatly to the importance of Helios to the Greeks & Romans.
How would deities of ultimate power be managed? Things such as 'Sky', 'Stars', 'Sun', 'Moon' and so forth.
One possibility maybe the worship of this deity under separate names and identities, such as how the Romans adopted the Greek pantheon under differing names.

[GoblinCookie]

I think it may also cause certain fortresses to rebel against their metropolis - similar to the groups of catholic heresy rebelling against the Pope.
However, something you've said has concerned me. Heavenly bodies such as the moon and the sun - if they were ruled by deities - would be points of ultimate cosmic power. Everyone see's the sun, and everyone has cause to worship it, leading the sun deity to gain ultimate power and influence. In reality, the importance of sun deities such as Ra to the Egyptians differs greatly to the importance of Helios to the Greeks & Romans.
How would deities of ultimate power be managed? Things such as 'Sky', 'Stars', 'Sun', 'Moon' and so forth.
One possibility maybe the worship of this deity under separate names and identities, such as how the Romans adopted the Greek pantheon under differing names.

Interesting that heresies that already in the game for humans.  From time to time a new religion is formed that worships the exact same religion as the old one resulting from (or causing) the immediate destruction of the old temple by the government and the building of a new temple controlled by the new 'heresy'. 

The basic idea you are using is how the elves religion works.  They do have a spirit that is completely confined to a particular region and represents that region.

But the basic religious system is completely historically accurate for the pre-Christian world.  Each nation in the pre-Christian world had it's own traditional gods (including the jews, but they only had one and are generally a special case) and what god's you worshipped was a statement of nationalism as much as an assertion of a universalisable belief in the nature of reality.

As far as the theology is concerned, gods were often identified with eachother.  So we have the Roman Venus and the Greek Aphrodite for instance.  There is no fundermental problem with the present system, it is quite likely that 'theologically' speaking all gods that have the same basic spheres are actually the same gods in different culture.

Gods probably should not act independantly, instead we should focus upon the role of various clerical groups devoted to different gods.  The best way to do this is to actually represent the development of Monotheism from within the existing system.  We start off as we do at the moment with a group of gods that represent particular spheres.  Certain spheres are empty (not-used) which means implicity that the civilization is unhappy with the concepts represented by them. 

If two gods exist in two nearby civilizations that share the same spheres then they can become identified.  The more identifications that there are the less chance there is of conflict.  Conversely however, if there is a god in one culture that has a sphere that is not found in the other culture, if relations are bad then it may be adopted as a 'devil' in relationship to one of their own gods.  The more devils a civilization has that are gods in the other civilization, the greater the chances of conflict. 

If relations are good then the foreign god may be adopted as a member of the pantheon instead of being demonised.  The actual mechanic for how Monotheism would arise would be as follows.  Instead of the present meaningless system of schisms, instead the dominant religion numerically develops a supremacist strand which considers their own god to be the chief god in the pantheon, rather than an equal.  If the heresy succeeds (which at the moment it always does) then those religions that are not massively outnumbered themselves undergo a schism between those who accept the new god's supremacy and those who don't. 

Should the supremacists be victorious then that god is adopted by the civilization as supreme deity.  This magnifies the power of both it's identifications and it's demonisations.  Once the concept of a supreme deity is established, we can get a Monotheist strand that functions in a similar manner, except that it must actually destroy all existing deities.  If it wins then all gods are bundled together into a single god that bears the identity of the original god but all the spheres, identifications and demonisations of all the gods. 

[kontako]

The pre-Christian system of traditions is what inspired me to suggest this, however development beyond this stage is also concerning.
For religions to develop in game (such as eventually becoming monotheistic) the deities would need to be effectively non-existent, (A somewhat grim statement for real life). Clearly no deity would support the abandonment of their worship or their merging with an opposing deity (Or they might, who am I to decide). It wouldn't be impossible for a monotheistic religion to form though, if overtime an individual deity becomes too favoured, while others recede in importance to the position of 'titan' or 'angel' (or something similar) the remaining deity would effectively be individual in its field. However I shun the concept that it is essential for a civilisation to become monotheistic in development, by default.

That is an interesting proposal of the 'devils' concept, however I don't understand this immediate classification as a demonic figure. In existing monotheistic religion the icon of the 'devil' neither has any associated power except the pre-existing nature of reality (Such as diseases, sin and death which all occur naturally) believing otherwise would be embracing misconception. Deities in ancient religions such as Seth to the Egyptian pantheon or Loki to the Norse-Germanic pantheon were respected as full-fledged deities and worshipped to maintain their feared spheres (in this case, the desert and murder) away from civilised society. Demons such as those in spires, and the goblins, are however not powerful celestial beings and are rarely worshipped, however only out of fear. On occasion, demons are blamed for the spread of disease and in cases such as the Zoroastrian belief, used to explain the movement of the winds. (Which is pretty much contradictory to what I just said.) I imagine the concept of demons are going to be difficult to handle. (In reference to the cases I stated above) - Should demons be petty, but feared - Controllers of malice and other petty spheres - Or the classic 'anti-deity'.

Although I agree with your opinion that deities which exclusively work in the favour of on civilisation, eventually become viewed as a evil in the eyes of others. But are they going to get tossed in with all the other demons and goblins?

Why shouldn't gods act independently? Even though worship would be of key interest to any deity, they shouldn't have to rely so heavily upon their servants. I mean, they are gods. If that was a reference to the behaviour of a deity in a pantheon, I'm sure they wouldn't need to rely upon another deity for a sphere they specialise in - unless it was something they did require assistance for.

Also! I didn't know this 'heresy' system was in place (to some extent) - Thanks for the information.

[GoblinCookie]

The pre-Christian system of traditions is what inspired me to suggest this, however development beyond this stage is also concerning.
For religions to develop in game (such as eventually becoming monotheistic) the deities would need to be effectively non-existent, (A somewhat grim statement for real life). Clearly no deity would support the abandonment of their worship or their merging with an opposing deity (Or they might, who am I to decide). It wouldn't be impossible for a monotheistic religion to form though, if overtime an individual deity becomes too favoured, while others recede in importance to the position of 'titan' or 'angel' (or something similar) the remaining deity would effectively be individual in its field. However I shun the concept that it is essential for a civilisation to become monotheistic in development, by default.

The winners write the theology.  If the gods in question actually existed seperately then they would never have allowed themselves to be merged in that way (they would have ensured the monotheistic faction's defeat).  The fact that the monotheists won is taken as proof of the correctness of monotheism and how those gods were actually all one god all along. 

I think you got the idea of inevitability of monotheism from your lack of understanding as to how the existing schism/heresy mechanism works.  While the old religion loses their temple, they do continue to exist.  It is entirely possible for the monotheists or supremacists to lose the fight and the whole thing can only happen if a single religion is dominant numerically or politically.  It is also quite possible for an 'more polytheistic' religion to overthrow a 'more monotheistic' one.

This is because the old sects with their old beliefs continue to exist until they die out naturally or are wiped out by persecution from the dominant religion.

That is an interesting proposal of the 'devils' concept, however I don't understand this immediate classification as a demonic figure. In existing monotheistic religion the icon of the 'devil' neither has any associated power except the pre-existing nature of reality (Such as diseases, sin and death which all occur naturally) believing otherwise would be embracing misconception. Deities in ancient religions such as Seth to the Egyptian pantheon or Loki to the Norse-Germanic pantheon were respected as full-fledged deities and worshipped to maintain their feared spheres (in this case, the desert and murder) away from civilised society. Demons such as those in spires, and the goblins, are however not powerful celestial beings and are rarely worshipped, however only out of fear. On occasion, demons are blamed for the spread of disease and in cases such as the Zoroastrian belief, used to explain the movement of the winds. (Which is pretty much contradictory to what I just said.) I imagine the concept of demons are going to be difficult to handle. (In reference to the cases I stated above) - Should demons be petty, but feared - Controllers of malice and other petty spheres - Or the classic 'anti-deity'.

Although I agree with your opinion that deities which exclusively work in the favour of on civilisation, eventually become viewed as a evil in the eyes of others. But are they going to get tossed in with all the other demons and goblins?

The further along the road to Monotheism you get, the more powerful the devil concept becomes.  The devils of a monotheistic god count for far more than the 'devils' of the original polytheistic system since they are now an absolute evil rather than a relational one.  Because the development of monotheist religion is historically linked to the evolution of the devil concept. 

What we start off with is a set of 'sacred principles' and 'profane' concepts, the latter are any existing spheres not represented by any god. If a profane concept god is believed in by an opposing civilization it can evolve into a 'unholy' concept and the resulting god gets demonised in relationship to a particular god.  The more important the god is then the more the demonisation has an effect. 

The thing is that devils are also subject to identification.  So if a civilization demonises a god belonging to one civilization it may also conclude that another god belonging to a second civilization that has the exact same spheres is the same evil god, hurting relationships.

Why shouldn't gods act independently? Even though worship would be of key interest to any deity, they shouldn't have to rely so heavily upon their servants. I mean, they are gods. If that was a reference to the behaviour of a deity in a pantheon, I'm sure they wouldn't need to rely upon another deity for a sphere they specialise in - unless it was something they did require assistance for.

Also! I didn't know this 'heresy' system was in place (to some extent) - Thanks for the information.

They may well act independantly.  As I said, the winner's write the theology; the key thing here is would it be established that they were acting without someone teaching that this is the case? 

A freak event or series of events may well happen, but without someone believing in a particular god and interpreting what happens as the work of a god, it just looks like either magic or coincidence. 

[smjjames]

Having gods devoted to a small place is a good idea; I posted some ideas about it, along with introducing several classes of worshippable beings.

We could see gods protecting fortresses, towns, forrests and maybe even temples.

Yeah, patron god/ess(s/es) of towns and fortresses would be neat, like how Athena is the patron goddess of Athens.

[GoblinCookie]

Having gods devoted to a small place is a good idea; I posted some ideas about it, along with introducing several classes of worshippable beings.

We could see gods protecting fortresses, towns, forrests and maybe even temples.

Yeah, patron god/ess(s/es) of towns and fortresses would be neat, like how Athena is the patron goddess of Athens.

That is something that already exists in human towns.

[kontako]

The pre-Christian system of traditions is what inspired me to suggest this, however development beyond this stage is also concerning.
For religions to develop in game (such as eventually becoming monotheistic) the deities would need to be effectively non-existent, (A somewhat grim statement for real life). Clearly no deity would support the abandonment of their worship or their merging with an opposing deity (Or they might, who am I to decide). It wouldn't be impossible for a monotheistic religion to form though, if overtime an individual deity becomes too favoured, while others recede in importance to the position of 'titan' or 'angel' (or something similar) the remaining deity would effectively be individual in its field. However I shun the concept that it is essential for a civilisation to become monotheistic in development, by default.

The winners write the theology.  If the gods in question actually existed seperately then they would never have allowed themselves to be merged in that way (they would have ensured the monotheistic faction's defeat).  The fact that the monotheists won is taken as proof of the correctness of monotheism and how those gods were actually all one god all along. 

I think you got the idea of inevitability of monotheism from your lack of understanding as to how the existing schism/heresy mechanism works.  While the old religion loses their temple, they do continue to exist.  It is entirely possible for the monotheists or supremacists to lose the fight and the whole thing can only happen if a single religion is dominant numerically or politically.  It is also quite possible for an 'more polytheistic' religion to overthrow a 'more monotheistic' one.

This is because the old sects with their old beliefs continue to exist until they die out naturally or are wiped out by persecution from the dominant religion.

Although this may be true, it's irrelevant. We know for a fact that that there are many deities created upon generation of a world in DF, and therefore by nature polytheistic. We know that these deities exist in game due to their interactions (Such as curses, etc.). Whether or not an individual selects a single deity to reverend is not the creation of a monotheistic faith. The worship of the single deity is not the religion the individual follows, they still believe the pantheon exists. Whether or not a human town builds a temple to a specific deity also does not define their movement to a monotheistic faith, they still understand the pantheon exists. Such as the adoption of Bel-Marduk as patron of Babylon did not mean that all other deities were removed from the pantheon. What I disliked about the inevitable monotheism system is that all these other deities which we know to exist in game would be removed from the equation, no questions asked.

The further along the road to Monotheism you get, the more powerful the devil concept becomes.

I'm sorry but this is just not true, there is no 'requirement' for this although it has occurred in the Zoroastrian belief. I won't go into the specifics because it's not at core with the suggestion.
Furthermore I'd like to re-open the questions of my previous post. Should demons be petty fear mongers, or should they control concepts such as disease etc? Should demonised deities be reduced to the level of these demons, or just considered deities?

[GoblinCookie]

Although this may be true, it's irrelevant. We know for a fact that that there are many deities created upon generation of a world in DF, and therefore by nature polytheistic. We know that these deities exist in game due to their interactions (Such as curses, etc.). Whether or not an individual selects a single deity to reverend is not the creation of a monotheistic faith. The worship of the single deity is not the religion the individual follows, they still believe the pantheon exists. Whether or not a human town builds a temple to a specific deity also does not define their movement to a monotheistic faith, they still understand the pantheon exists. Such as the adoption of Bel-Marduk as patron of Babylon did not mean that all other deities were removed from the pantheon. What I disliked about the inevitable monotheism system is that all these other deities which we know to exist in game would be removed from the equation, no questions asked.

Why does the in-game religion necceserily have do to with anything that is factual or true?  The world gen legends only refer to what is known at the time, indeed you can create a world in which next to nothing is actually known and then learn about events in adventure mode from people. 

Do you think all these people have a 100% accurate recollection of what actually happened in the past?  So what makes us believe that any gods actually cursed anyone to become a vampire for 'profaning' said temple?  Is that what really happened or is that just how people made sense of what happened to person X by piecing together scraps of information. 

It is a process, step one of the process is to have a chief god.  The final step is montheism.  People who follow the previous chief god system may fight against those who are monotheists, even if it is their god that is evolving into the monotheist god. 

I'm sorry but this is just not true, there is no 'requirement' for this although it has occurred in the Zoroastrian belief. I won't go into the specifics because it's not at core with the suggestion.
Furthermore I'd like to re-open the questions of my previous post. Should demons be petty fear mongers, or should they control concepts such as disease etc? Should demonised deities be reduced to the level of these demons, or just considered deities?

There is no requirement that you have a devil concept to become monotheist.  If you have picked up no demonised entities along the way, then you can certainly become monotheistic without any devils at all.  All I was saying was that as the greater the importance of the god, the more significant it is that a certain other entity is demonised. 

In answer to you question, the demonised entities represent no particular spheres such as disease or whatnot.  They can represent potentially anything that is not in one of the spheres of the civilization's god(s).  So we can have a demonised god of fishes and rainbows, provided no gods of fishes and rainbows exists in the demonising civilizations pantheon. 

Actual demons can also be demonised but that requires that they be deified first.  Demons can be deified, but gods cannot become demons in the game sense.

[Dirst]

The idea that religions always tend to evolve from animism to polytheism to monotheism is not well-supported empirically.  And even if it was, there's no reason to expect a game with technological stasis over thousands of years of history is going to have rapidly evolving metaphysics.

The "philosophical monotheists" in the ancient world basically looked at the pantheons of the day and said they seemed to be a silly way to run a Universe.  If anything beyond human understanding was in charge, it was probably one Thing and humans were worshiping various facets of it.  Of course, if this Thing is beyond is human understanding then it doesn't logically hold that mere human logic would apply, now does it?

As it stands, DF generates a bunch of "gods" that have Sphere associations and some very limited interactions with the world.  The development plans for the game definitely envision something more complicated, up to and including procedurally generated metaphysics.  In one game, the Dream World is a real place from which invaders might emerge, in another game each celestial body is associated with a deity, and in a third an adventurer can literally storm the Afterlife planes to bring back departed companions.

Suggestions about things to throw into the mix are fine, but be aware that Toady is not planning to stamp one specific Way of Things onto the game.

[LMeire]

...
The winners write the theology.  If the gods in question actually existed seperately then they would never have allowed themselves to be merged in that way (they would have ensured the monotheistic faction's defeat).  The fact that the monotheists won is taken as proof of the correctness of monotheism and how those gods were actually all one god all along.
...

...
It is a process, step one of the process is to have a chief god.  The final step is montheism.  People who follow the previous chief god system may fight against those who are monotheists, even if it is their god that is evolving into the monotheist god.
...

So... Are you just ignoring the fact that millennia-old pantheons like Hinduism are still widely practiced or is that seriously news to you? I'm not trying to start an real world faith debate or anything, but your arguments for monotheistic DF appear to be based on a real world historical perspective, and unfortunately that perspective does not apply to much of the real world.

Anyway, from a game perspective, I still dislike the idea because if all the gods in every generation turned out to be the same singular god every time, it would get boring. There's chaos now, ideological conflict and turmoil, emergent plotlines! What good would it do to take that and make the same story over and over again?

--

Also, when it comes to universal spheres like the Sun, I think the deities should get a limited amount of extremely potent power. Like, they wouldn't act very often, because they'd need to conserve their strength for the huge finisher-type miracles/curses- like torching a continent or inventing new species.

Hell, DF worlds often seem completely flat, (has anyone ever tried to venture off the edge of a map?) so they probably don't have anything resembling a logical cosmology. For all we know they could a separate sun for every sun-god, there might be places where it's simply never night-time because their sun-god likes it there and never leaves!

[Urist McVoyager]

While I think Monotheism should be an option, I don't think it should be absolute. In fact, I don't necessarily think different gods with the same spheres need to always fight. In real life, religion is rarely, if ever, the primary cause of wars. The primary causes are physical, with religion being the driving force for getting armies together. Holy Warriors fight for a place in Heaven for the sake of folks who have a secular cause that they've hidden.

If the gods acted on the world, but weren't as adamant about controlling their followers, they might actually leave other Gods of the same spheres alone unless their follows had a good material cause to go kill other Gods' followers.