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[Sarvok]

I did the pre-suggestion tasks and found nothing exactly like this.  I'm aware religion in DF is complicated, so a focus on meditation avoids that.

I have a DF game set in a stereotypical Eastern monastery.  One of the things done in such places is organized, scheduled group meditation.  There is currently no way to organize or schedule meditation in DF.

Suggestion: To improve the experience of monastic life in DF, I suggest a way be provided to compel the dwarves to meditate.

One implementation would be to make "meditate" a military order.  The dwarves would head to a non-denominational temple and meditate there, similar to how they would be stationed or trained there, meaning they may drift in and out, be more or less likely to go, etc.  A little more complicated would be to designate a piece of furniture as a meditation spot, as is done for training.

The meditation would be generic, not specific to a deity, not "on" anything.  Regular meditation would still occur.

That's it.  Thanks for listening.

[IndigoFenix]

Meditation is already included as a form of worship.  Instead of making it its own unique activity, I think it would make more sense to expand the religion system in general to incorporate more possibilities.

There should be religions that are associated with a sphere or set of spheres, but no particular deity.  For these religions, meditation on their associated spheres would be the only form of worship.

I disagree with the idea of "generic" meditation.  From a gameplay perspective, meditating on a particular concept is a lot more interesting of an activity and tells you more about the belief system of the dwarf in question than simply "meditating".  Whether all meditation is, in fact, meditating on a concept - even if that concept is "emptiness" - is a philosophical discussion that goes beyond the scope of DF.

Meditating as a military order seems weird, but if meditation works the same way as worship, there probably should be a way for religious orders to schedule prayer gatherings, as scheduling gatherings at specific times (during which sermons, etc., could take place) is one of the primary functions of religions in the real world. For non-theistic orders, these could manifest as scheduled meditation.

[Sarvok]

...

I disagree with the idea of "generic" meditation.  From a gameplay perspective, meditating on a particular concept is a lot more interesting of an activity and tells you more about the belief system of the dwarf in question than simply "meditating".  Whether all meditation is, in fact, meditating on a concept - even if that concept is "emptiness" - is a philosophical discussion that goes beyond the scope of DF.

Meditating as a military order seems weird, but if meditation works the same way as worship, there probably should be a way for religious orders to schedule prayer gatherings, as scheduling gatherings at specific times (during which sermons, etc., could take place) is one of the primary functions of religions in the real world. For non-theistic orders, these could manifest as scheduled meditation.

Thanks for the feedback.

I think "scheduled meditation" is a good summary of the suggestion.  The player being able to get a group of dorfs in a room all meditating.  I was thinking generic meditation for simplicity's sake, and because it's a stereotype, but I'd be fine with them individually meditating on whatever they wanted to meditate on (after all, no one can tell what meditators are really meditating about).  That could be hilarious, actually, especially if one option is "Meditating on <favorite food/drink/acquaintance>", for example.

If the player could influence specific religious fervor somehow (lavish temple, more images), or the other things mentioned, that would be good, too.  But religion in DF is thick soup, so I didn't want to go there.