Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Agnosticism especially doesn't make sense when the gods actually do stuff.

Due to the variety of gods, there could be a variant where rather than not knowing whether gods exist, it would instead be not knowing which pantheon to worship.  There actually a word for that?

[Neonivek]

Elfs worship the force of the particular biome they live in. So followers of the jungle-force could condem the followers of the savanna-force as heathens.

I honestly don't see that.

To me, Elves going through Holy Wars (when basically they worship nature itself) should represent something just flat out breaking down.

A Corrupted Force, a curse, or something... It shouldn't be a natural course for Elves... Not so much that because they are "Pure" (because lets face it... They are not) but because I think it fits them better.

[Flarp]

Elfs worship the force of the particular biome they live in. So followers of the jungle-force could condem the followers of the savanna-force as heathens.

I honestly don't see that.

To me, Elves going through Holy Wars (when basically they worship nature itself) should represent something just flat out breaking down.

A Corrupted Force, a curse, or something... It shouldn't be a natural course for Elves... Not so much that because they are "Pure" (because lets face it... They are not) but because I think it fits them better.

I was imagining something along the lines of Egan_BW's idea - elves worship Forces associated with different biomes and they oppose one another. Then again, historically speaking, religion is often a casus belli masking other, more temporal issues, so maybe different elven civs are just faking a Holy War to resolve their crippling mango and cheap cloth financial crisis.

Humans are the only entity that gets its ethics randomized currently (I think), but I'd love to see elves, goblins, and dwarves have some variation as well, to the point where you could have two different elven civs with very different ideas of nature and harmony (it's not hard to imagine an elven culture that isn't down with martial cannibalism).

Ultimately, this comes down to making entities less static, and more fluid, in the sense that entities can split and recombine much as real world sovereign entities do. Perhaps there could be an Elven Schism, or an Elven Reformation, etc.

Whether Forces (or Gods proper) can be corrupted, or otherwise change state, will ultimately depend on how the Myth Arc plays out. We don't really have a solid basis for the nature of gods, aside from the fact that they can only act in the beginning of time (raising underworld spires) or through mortal-built temples. That, to me, suggests that their existence is at least partially dependent on how they are worshipped, which in turn suggests that mortal events (like a war between elven nations) could cause theological changes.

EDIT: historically speaking, being culturally inclined toward "harmony" isn't a panacea against civil war - several Chinese philosophies stressed that concept, but Chinese history is a patchwork of state fission and reunification.

[Neonivek]

Well ALL cultures are "Inclined" towards harmony, mostly because any that aren't would just fail.

[GoblinCookie]

Agnosticism especially doesn't make sense when the gods actually do stuff.

Is everybody so sure that it is actually the gods doing it?

Well ALL cultures are "Inclined" towards harmony, mostly because any that aren't would just fail.

Not in Dwarf Fortress; some cultures think harmony is boring.   

[Etc_Guy]

Would love to see more variety in religion, would also be interesting to have the occasional atheist or antitheist

Well, there are kobolds for the atheist, none of them worship gods or have any involvement with them. This is why a necromancer kobold is so rare since they can't even speak to a god of death or ask to become a student.

[GoblinCookie]

Well, there are kobolds for the atheist, none of them worship gods or have any involvement with them. This is why a necromancer kobold is so rare since they can't even speak to a god of death or ask to become a student.

Goblins as well.  As well as any creature with 0% belief in all deities.

[Bumber]

Well, there are kobolds for the atheist, none of them worship gods or have any involvement with them. This is why a necromancer kobold is so rare since they can't even speak to a god of death or ask to become a student.

Goblins as well.  As well as any creature with 0% belief in all deities.

That's devotion, not belief. You can know they exist and just not care.

[GoblinCookie]

That's devotion, not belief. You can know they exist and just not care.

That would be say 10% maybe. 0% means that you cannot not believe in your god less than you presently do.

[Neonivek]

Would love to see more variety in religion, would also be interesting to have the occasional atheist or antitheist

Well, there are kobolds for the atheist, none of them worship gods or have any involvement with them.

They aren't necessarily atheist. We don't know anything from their perspective and they could just as easily be a pregod spiritualists. Such as ancient man whose religion is often refered to as Animism.

[Bumber]

That's devotion, not belief. You can know they exist and just not care.

That would be say 10% maybe. 0% means that you cannot not believe in your god less than you presently do.

No, it's, as I said, devotion. It's referred to as devotion/follower on the thoughts screen. 0% means you don't worship them (and have never before, if the percent doesn't decrease with time.)

If holy wars were to be implemented, you would not "10% believe" in the enemy god. You would not "10% believe" in a titan that just wrecked your home.

[GoblinCookie]

No, it's, as I said, devotion. It's referred to as devotion/follower on the thoughts screen. 0% means you don't worship them (and have never before, if the percent doesn't decrease with time.)

If holy wars were to be implemented, you would not "10% believe" in the enemy god. You would not "10% believe" in a titan that just wrecked your home.

True, however what is 0% devotion mean if not refusing to accept the existance/divinity of the deity at all.  Beings with low belief stats do not pray to their god so they are functionally nonbelievers anyhow, so what does 0% belief mean as opposed to 10%?  Neither group prays to the god in question, so what is the difference?

[LMeire]

Devotion is emphatically not a synonym for belief, it's a measure of how willing you are to serve someone. You could devote yourself to a particularly charismatic nobleman, but that doesn't mean anyone not similarly devoted will think that their policies and governance are just natural phenomena.

[Bumber]

True, however what is 0% devotion mean if not refusing to accept the existance/divinity of the deity at all.  Beings with low belief stats do not pray to their god so they are functionally nonbelievers anyhow, so what does 0% belief mean as opposed to 10%?  Neither group prays to the god in question, so what is the difference?

It means completely unwilling to serve or receive help from. The difference is motivation. One won't worship because they don't believe they're a god. The other won't worship because they hate the god, or just don't see any good reason to.

10% requires a bare amount of willful service towards a god. You can't have 100% devotion if you just really, really, believe in that god's existence, but have done absolutely nothing for them or their sphere.
"Wow, death god, I just learned about you and think you're so awesome and I really want to be a necromancer. Secrets of L&D, plz?" The value also reflects the god's favor towards the individual.

[Melting Sky]

Would love to see more variety in religion, would also be interesting to have the occasional atheist or antitheist

I'm not sure atheism would make sense in a world where there are Gods that are literally running around and doing things since atheism is an empirical world view, but I could definitely see there being individuals or groups of individuals that actively hate the Gods.

This is an interesting topic which brings up the question, what would religion look like in a world where there are Gods actually tangibly present and interacting with the populace? It is a world where there is no need for faith since there is tangible concrete evidence of the Gods when they do things like turning your buddy Bob into a vampire for taking a drunken piss on their shrine. Religion would likely be far less transient and fragmentary. Ideas and culture flow and change with time since they are as ephemeral as the minds that sculpt and house them, but in a world where the Gods have a literal constant and permanent presence the ideas about them could not drift and splinter into a thousand different venues and sects. Unlike our world, religions would likely be much more static rather than constantly changing and diverging over generational time.