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[Resmisal]

Hello, I want to start a religious discussion. No, wait. I actually don't. What I want to propose is a simple setting that changes world generation only very slightly. Oh, and I feel like the new warning header was written for somebody in this thread.
In the monotheistic setting, ARMOK is the one - or your can call him Mishar or Ricafa or Ahang - and all normally generated deities become reclassified as angels, forces, and saints. That way the elven belief system finally makes sense. Practically, instead of many temples and many altars, you build one temple. Only one. Soon your dwarves will dedicate more time in its premises, they'll want to donate increasingly valuable stuff, and then they want you to make the church bigger until it's a veritable cathedral. The priest(s) will have a therapeutic effect on dwarves in the positive, reassuring sense or a negative, threatening mean-ing. _{Armok loves you, or else!}
In the polytheistic setting, which can include everything from animism over pan(en)theism to regular polytheism with a slight chance of monolatry, you get the world generation that's already coded. Practically in the game, however, you need to build more temples: unknown to popular knowledge many little things important to day to day lives were spiritually tinged and now will be. Industries, zones, structures and buildings will be dedicated to gods or goddesses. To start, hospitals will become nigh synonymous with temples of a deity of health and healing, and the local altar keeps tools that you'd expect a medicine dwarf to use: scalpel, salves, clean water, etc; Military will be dedicated to a god of war and training will be done in its temple, the barracks; agriculture gets its own personality and let's hope he won't eat his own children like the last one; and tombs will hold a special place for necromancers not only because of the dead but because its priests will be little different from historical necromancers; water wells will get one, too. As you can see, the list is inexhaustive and could be only little shorter than the total number of industries and zones. I should probably mention that strictly speaking a temple is the field and the building is called an edifice.
For that matter, translating the names of the deities and realigning them with their races would be a nice tidbit. Interpretatio dwarfica nanica? Armokic syncretism? I'm sure the random numbers generator will come up with something cool.

Edit: Many little errors. Sorry, it's night when it was written.

[jipehog]

* In the monotheistic setting, what happens to citizens/visitors from other civilization with different deity needs?
* In the polytheistic setting, are you suggesting to add more deities that would govern day to day activities with impromptu temples my workshop is my temple?

Btw monotheism is rather modern concept e.g. contrary to what many believe the bible never mention monotheism or one universal god, on the contrary it is filled with ample examples of polytheism with regional gods and practices like, and affected by, every other culture around it.

[Red Diamond]

* In the monotheistic setting, what happens to citizens/visitors from other civilization with different deity needs?
* In the polytheistic setting, are you suggesting to add more deities that would govern day to day activities with impromptu temples my workshop is my temple?

Btw monotheism is rather modern concept e.g. contrary to what many believe the bible never mention monotheism or one universal god, on the contrary it is filled with ample examples of polytheism with regional gods and practices like, and affected by, every other culture around it.

The bible mentions those things, but the bible authors also HATE those things.  The degree of intolerance they have for Polytheism rather implies that they have always been Monotheistic and there is nothing really modern about it. 

Monotheism hates Polytheism, historically speaking this hatred is fundermental to it's existence.  You are no Monotheist if you merely worship a single god as a matter of personal preference, it is neccesery to disregard the validity of all other gods and their worshippers.

So if Monotheism is implemented realistically, it really needs to be properly hostile towards Polytheism.

[jipehog]

There were attempt to unify worship and position their local god as the better god, that is not Monotheism i.e. the belief that there is only one universal deity, this concept doesn't exist in the bible. Like everyone else, the early Israelites were polytheist who had practiced many rituals to many gods, and generally the bigger the polity the more gods it had.

Later Bible authors have indulged in revisionism to whitewash the various evolutions that went along the way e.g. from the early temple where there statues to their and other gods, to no statues allowed abstract god. Modern archeology suggest that Judah (Jerusalem) wasn't even the center of worship but a backwater until kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria, and much of the later stricter scripture came in response to the Jewish Christian chism.

personally, I think that polytheism is the natural progression/evolution and the only setting that make sense for world generation, but it would be interesting to see some sort of supremacy evolution (I vaguely recall religious wars in DF, but maybe its just a story I made) the question is how one would go about it.

You can already choose to build a temple just to one deity. What else?

[Resmisal]

I can't believe how poorly I've written my thread opener. From now on I promise to write only when I'm well rested.

Thank you for your replies, Jipehog. I'm sorry if my post was somewhat below forum average.
In a monotheistic world, individual preferences and societal needs would be relegated to culture rather than creating denominations, which is a more modern concept than the idea of monotheism itself. Other religions have the exact same problem about religious correctness and they too have their "denominations" and sects. The so-called high churches have each a list of reasons why the other churches are wrong rather than accepting that other churches exist, but they all agree than US-American churches are cheap. Without trying to impose a the Catholic Church is exemplary for monotheism angle you see as a fantasy trope so often, I think it'd be neat to see Armok in the game.
To answer your question about polytheistic settings: Yes. Many people don't realize how much simpler the daily life of simplefolk became when they converted during the early centuries AD / CE, because they would've had to follow different codes of conduct for every single temple and sometimes not seldomly they conflicted. Did you know abstract concepts were very often personified? What I'm proposing is a minimum number of gods and goddesses created during world gen.
As for your understanding of the Bible, mine is a little different because I think you need to know what the words meant in context of the times they were written in. Rather than say that there are no other gods like Islam or that there are gods but not creator god like Buddhism, Judaism has turned monolatry up to 11 and declated all other gods and goddesses fallen servants of the one true god; Christianity has simply taken the Ancient Greek notion of euhemerism to heart in addition to work out the hierarchy of higher powers many have erroneously called biblically correct angels. You may have mixed up the Bible with the Quran, and I should note that the latter rejects fallen angels and rather believes in djinn and that the Devil was a chief djinn rather than the first naysayer. Believing Jews and Christians believe in demons, beings of pure energy who're envious of humans and followed the Satan who thought that the perfectly orderly world/universe was a tyranny.
Please, I made this thread for a game with a really good simulation engine.

And thank you for your replies, Red Diamond. I didn't intend for the thread to start a fight. When looking for other threads to necrobump, it became apparent that they discussed fleshing out deities and the lives of dwarves rather than world generation.
Since this is a game we're talking about and often games treat their history, the so-called lore, as un-doubtedly correct - canon - without any hint of the unreliable narrator, it necessarily follows that the other types of faith become cults in a one-godded world and humans, elves, or even your dwarves become subject to religious missions or holy wars.
You're right. What you describe is the opposition between monolatry - choosing one over others - and true one-god belief - that the others aren't worth it. Did you know many rules of the Tanakh (the Old Testament minus a few books) probably arose in enmity to enemy states? Archeology does a really good job explaining the when's and why's.

Edit: typo.

[jipehog]

In DF force, deities, demons and angels actually exist, some of them even manifest in the world.

I am still unclear what exactly you are advocating. Is it an option to simplify thing, remove the need for multiple temples and religious need.  Set the number of deities created during world gen to one, and all other stuff will be determined by culture thus an elf that join as citizen will have his religious practices change along with his ethics to dwarven. (i am referring to the monotheistic setting)

Judaism has turned monolatry up to 11

When did this happen is the key question here.

There is no doubt that early Israelites have been predominantly polytheist, the bible is battle for henotheism and eventually consolidation of ritual practice in Jerusalem presumably affected by major events like the conquest of Assyria and Babylon, Hellenization and the Jewish Christian chism. Though their practices took longer to evolve, after the destruction of the second temple there is thousand year black hole no one know about until the printing press and some influential people turned up.

[jipehog]

Side track, sorry.

Since this is a game we're talking about and often games treat their history, the so-called lore, as un-doubtedly correct - canon - without any hint of the unreliable narrator

This is a good observation, I think that unreliable narration of the collective memory, syncretism and time are at the core of what shaped much of the our myths. As I hinted above, much of what we know about the bible are roughly the reinterpretation of few people from the last millennia, which in many cases contradict to what the early Israelites practiced for two millennia prior. More broadly we can see this through comparative mythology or even much more recent and familiar works of the Brothers Grimm.

With upcoming Myths and Magic System, which I am actually excited about, I wonder if there is a chance that the devs can introduce something like that to the setting, because I can't even imagine how it would be possible to even go about it.

[Red Diamond]

There were attempt to unify worship and position their local god as the better god, that is not Monotheism i.e. the belief that there is only one universal deity, this concept doesn't exist in the bible. Like everyone else, the early Israelites were polytheist who had practiced many rituals to many gods, and generally the bigger the polity the more gods it had.

Later Bible authors have indulged in revisionism to whitewash the various evolutions that went along the way e.g. from the early temple where there statues to their and other gods, to no statues allowed abstract god. Modern archeology suggest that Judah (Jerusalem) wasn't even the center of worship but a backwater until kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria, and much of the later stricter scripture came in response to the Jewish Christian chism.

personally, I think that polytheism is the natural progression/evolution and the only setting that make sense for world generation, but it would be interesting to see some sort of supremacy evolution (I vaguely recall religious wars in DF, but maybe its just a story I made) the question is how one would go about it.

You can already choose to build a temple just to one deity. What else?

The fundermental idea of Monotheism is asserted clearly in the bible by the statement "The Lord your god is a Jealous god".  To worship any other god is to sin against the one true god. 

The concept that archeology can provide any real answers to what people believe is just silly.  We can conclude that the Jews weren't monotheistic based upon X artefacts, or we could simply conclude that the people that built the artefact weren't Jews at all. 

According to the bible, the Isrealites did succumb to 'spiritual fornication' and started worshipping other gods.  Jews is not Isrealites for a reason, the majority (of Isrealites) abandoned Monotheism to become Polytheists.  As Monotheists they conquered, killed and enslaved all the Polytheists that lived in Isreal but then in the end they split between a 'liberal faction' under Jeroboam that ends slavery, compromises with Polytheism, starting tolerating their worship and a 'reactionary faction' under Rehoboam (both sons of Solomon) that refuses to stop enslaving everyone but remains strictly Monotheistic.  The latter controlled the rump state of Judea (hence Jews) while the former ends up with the rest of Isreal. 

In the end this doesn't matter, because they all get conquered by Babylon anyway but you can see there is nothing harmonious or evolutionary about the emergence of Monotheism.  The actual idea is actually Egyptian rather than Hebrew and we can basically say that the Hebrews edited their own traditional mythology to monotheist it according to more abstract Egyptian notions. 

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Correct me if I'm wrong as Bible study is hardly my field...but to my knowledge, while it doesn't paint them in a particularly positive light, the Bible (the Old Testament, at least) also doesn't outright preclude the existence of beings that would be called gods by a polytheistic culture. It's just that they're all subservient to the one true God and not worthy of worship in their own right (hence Monotheism).

[Nordlicht]

Correct me if I'm wrong as Bible study is hardly my field...but to my knowledge, while it doesn't paint them in a particularly positive light, the Bible (the Old Testament, at least) also doesn't outright preclude the existence of beings that would be called gods by a polytheistic culture. It's just that they're all subservient to the one true God and not worthy of worship in their own right (hence Monotheism).

There's Mary and the Saints that are worship in their own right, have their own side altars, pilgrimage site,
and sites / objects / professions that are dedicated to them (e.g. St. Florian and firefighters)
In a polytheistic religion they would be called minor gods.

Different religions influence each other all the time, e. g. Artemis/Frau Holle/ Mary and I'm quite sure we'll find a lot of polytheism and animism in Christianity.

So without getting to know what is a God, what is religion, how does it change when gods are really visible in everyday life (although there are irl religions that have those too) , I think superimposeing a Mono- / Polytheistic structure on procedural generated religions might be more restrictive than it needs to be.

[Pillbo]

So without getting to know what is a God, what is religion, how does it change when gods are really visible in everyday life (although there are irl religions that have those too) , I think superimposeing a Mono- / Polytheistic structure on procedural generated religions might be more restrictive than it needs to be.

Couldn't there be a group who believes their god is the only 'true' god and the rest are just minor powerful beings?  Or worlds where there is an all powerful god and lesser gods which wouldn't be really that different than the Christian god/angels/saints or LOTR's Eru Iluvatar/Valar/Maiar?

The way it works now the gods are real but nobody worships them all, so couldn't some group choose to worship a single god they think is the ultimate and deny the rest? Or groups that see no relevance to the 'true' god so they worship the lesser beings that they actually interact with even if there's a more powerful absentee god?

Sounds to me like just another variation on creation myths.

[Resmisal]

For the record: I don't regret creating this thread.

Thank you for your replies, Jipehog.

In DF force, deities, demons and angels actually exist, some of them even manifest in the world.

I take it you mean they materially exit. I myself also believe an abstraction like democracy exists and neither I nor you or anybody can point a finger and say where or what any abstract concept is. Please don't take it as a slight!
Since nowadays there are many one-godded belief systems in the world, each with their own codes of conduct, ethics and morality, it's safe to say a dwarf and an elf can have opposing views on how to best honor Armok a creator mundi. Would they pour blood as a libation, or spill blood, or drink blood? Choices a simulation enginge is equipped to generate. By no means should dwarves be the norm or there'd be less fun to be had. What are elf raid if not religious wars over the felling of trees? You can totally see them spout a line like "the tree of the force must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of elves and dwarves."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Normally I don't link to encyclopedias but this link has a good list to introduce into the world gen code.

I reiterate my point to not enter into a religious discussion. For the believing, the history of the Israelites is a blueprint story of salvation to come. In my reading, the ancient Israelites weren't the only ones in the ancient Middle East and the myriad of laws in the Tanakh were based on enmity with neighbouring civilizations. The others ate pork? We forbid it! They wore clothes woven of two fabrics? We forbid it! They bow down to statues? We forbid it! Something which has happened everywhere on Earth back then and it's not so different today. I don't see why a video game can't have that.
The game has a really good simulation engine, is all I'm saying.

And thank you for your reply, Red Diamond.
I can only repeat what I read on biblical archeology, that there's more than artifacts. Phoenicians were polytheistic, but the earliest Hebrew inscriptions tell a story of a single creator with helpers. The Bible starts with Genesis, and Genesis in Hebrew starts with a singular verb and a majestic plural noun of a single entity creating the world / universe. If that isn't monotheism, I don't know what is.

And thank you for your reply, PlumpHelmetMan.
Did you know that in the New Testament, human authorities such as judges are called little gods, and that the prince (ruler) of the world, the Satan, was called the god of this world? Evidently the term was a bit loosely associated with the creator, which is why they had to come up with the tetragrammaton. I wonder what the game could come up with.

And thank you for your reply, Nordlicht.
Now we're digressing into the so-called holy tradition. Every religion has its literature (including oral literature), and then they have their traditions which arise from their history.

And thank you for your reply, Pillbo.
What you describe is encompassed in monolatry, and cults that believe that their chosen deity or deities encompass all of reality can deny the rest, or civilizations will rally around a deity that has the [creation] tag. In any event, they'd conflict with the so-called canon that's been generated for a given, generated world to play in.

Edit: typo. I need to read up on forum etiquette.

[Eric Blank]

I think the thread is confusing to some people because you're trying to say some worlds should only have one "real" deity and all the others are false/parts of that real deity, and calling these "monotheistic worlds."

That's going to be a myth and magic/long wait thing because currently the game doesn't make that distinction at all, so all deities are equally real/not real (ignoring POWER creatures impersonating deities, obviously.) This kind of world could absolutely happen with the projected myth and magic update as its currently set to go, where one initial entity/forcw creates the world. Or where no deities are known to exist, and people just make things up. Currently elven force worship are the only "monotheistic" civs because there isn't a "this civ is only allowed to generate one deity" flag and I don't think I've ever seen a civ actually generate less than four.

However, all organized religions/cults are currently monotheistic. The religions that generate in game currently only worship a single deity out of the pantheon. Individuals can practice that religion and worship other deities on the side however. But the other deities either don't get any religious organizations attached to them or get separate ones. So in world gen a religion could form venerating one deity and then spread into other civs, leaving behind its old pantheon, and I've started lots of forts where the majority of my dwarves do worship a god from some other civ, or that religion is the only one in my fort big enough to demand a priest.

So there's lots of aspects of this already in play in the game already or intended to be possible in the myth and magic update, but not the "only one real deity the rest are fake" aspect just yet. Another suggestion could absolutely be a flag that forces a civ/gives it a chance to sometimes only generate a single deity.

One possibility the myth and magic update could absolutely have is people during worldgen just deciding to invent a new god out of the blue halfway through generation and start a cult around them, even in worlds where there are real gods that are able to interact with the world in some way. And maybe as the cult grows that deity can either start to become a real thing, like manifest a new god or a material creature, and/or another god/demon from the underworld can attempt to take that identity and act as if they are the "new" god. That would be pretty sick.

And I really don't think monotheistic religions, whether in a world with other "real" gods or not, have to hate polytheists. That's an aspect that appeared in the abrahamic faiths explicitly because of one of its first commandment, and led to "any other supposed deities other cultures believe in must either be (incorrectly worshipping) ours or works of the devil" thus necessitating the conquest and annihilation of other faiths to reconcile their core belief that nothing else is possible outside their religion. But other hypothetical monotheistic faiths could absolutely be willing to allow the idea of alternative gods or faiths, or just conclude that there's no devil trickery but they're just worshipping our god differently, if at least they don't have such malice as a core tenet of the faith.

Sorry for the wordy post

[jipehog]

I take it you mean they materially exit. I myself also believe an abstraction like democracy exists and neither I nor you or anybody can point a finger and say where or what any abstract concept is.

Indeed, it should be noted that their existence is meta knowledge. Who said that mortals in the world would have any inclining of the divine let alone grasp of its inner working. Even if some interacted with the divine, who said that they were told the truth..

I am not sure what the extent of the lore here but  I think that vagueness and mystery would serve well here and raise interesting possibilities. Imagine you searched all your life for your god, finally reaching its grand temple, reverently unveiling a tablet hundred years old saying:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"I am.. I was.., God. And now I am dead. I am sorry."

But we digress, I am still unclear what exactly you are suggesting to change and how?!

----

couldn't some group choose to worship a single god they think is the ultimate and deny the rest? Or groups that see no relevance to the 'true' god so they worship the lesser beings that they actually interact with even if there's a more powerful absentee god?

How would that work? For example, when/how would you make such choice? Would that affect visitors and citizens from other races?

----

Personally, I like the existing sphere mechanic, which allow to choose the deity that best fits my playstyle, and I like that we have individual belief system (rather civilization\race wide like ethics). I would like to have more tools to endorse specific deity. I find the idea of supremist ideology intriguing especially if my choice would have an affect in the world (or the other way around, a religious civil war?), visiting apostles with consequences if they are killed could be interesting too.

According to the bible, the Isrealites did succumb to 'spiritual fornication' and started worshipping other gods.  Jews is not Isrealites for a reason, the majority (of Isrealites) abandoned Monotheism to become Polytheists.

Yes, that is the biblical black and white narrative, that relies on some revisions and interpretations. But like I said there is not a single mention in the bible of the belief in only one deity, an all-supreme and universal. On the contrary it is rife with hundreds (thousands?) references to other people gods (not in negative manner) (as well as references that Jewish god was worshiped along with the other gods) can be found in every book in the bible including the poetry sung in the temple. And overall you can see how traditions evolved and ideas slowly spread to rural folks over the centuries. Similarly we seen with Egyptians where gods started from natural phenomena and slowly got more complex domains like justice, and Greeks who copy&pasted some Egyptian gods with different names, etc etc etc

The point being that polytheism is the natural progression and the only things that make sense to me for world gen.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

I think, given the fact that the bible consists of the compiled accounts of many different authors writing over the course of countless centuries, one will be hard-pressed to find many universal messages or attitudes which can be applied to every book (including the treatment of non-Abrahamic/polytheistic religions and validity thereof).

But seeing as we're drifting from the thread's initial suggestion into the realm of fruitless nattering (or so it seems to me), I just want to say that I agree the polytheistic approach to world gen works fine as is and I don't really see any need to change it.