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[mickel]

Those are all very good points, though I wouldn't mind having some sillyness in the religions, in the same way that the name generator does it - that is, without affecting the game mechanics.

As has been demonstrated, religion is a touchy subject, and I think perhaps it'd take some of the edge off it all if the religion was called The Jagged Sloppy Temple of the Harmonious Salmon or something like that.

On that subject, I wonder what the procedure to generate a random religion would be? Not all religions worship a deity, for example. The Collins COBUILD (my source of Ultimate Truth about the English language) defines religion as a system of belief in a God or Gods, but I don't agree. There's Buddhism for instance...

[Fishersalwaysdie]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>I'm definitely behind the above suggestions about possession by dieties and possessed dwarves being seen as saints or prophets and the like, and the artefacts they create venerated as holy relics. It wasn't until really recently that western culture stopped seeing insane people as possessed by supernatural beings.</STRONG>

You are kidding right?
What do you think exorcist do? The Collins COBUILD (my source of Ultimate Truth about the English language) defines religion as a system of belief in a God or Gods, but I don't agree. There's Buddhism for instance...[/QB][/QUOTE]
I don't think Buddhism is really a religion.
It's more of a lifestyle. But I agree not all religions believe in gods.
Like animism, spiritualism etc.

quote:Originally posted by TakiJap:
<STRONG> No dwarf should praise something like the lord of salmon.</STRONG>

Hey, I am not offending your religion!

[Fieari]

I think it's time again for repeating what is one the dev pages, consolidating for convenience of discussion.

quote:# DEITY: Have religions in the game correspond to forces or deities and let you play one and do whatever you like, possibly restricted by your defining characteristics and geography.

quote:# CIVILIZATIONS
## state religions and the head of state being the religious leader without necessarily having a full theocracy

quote:Religions:  These can be a powerful force. Temples, priests, pilgrims, orders, monks, vows, tithes, rituals, holy scripts, holidays, excommunication, persecution, burnings, sacrifices... Religious groups can have "rules" (such as the Rule of St. Benedict), and a particularly powerful player could introduce a new rule (the Rule of St. [player name]). Breaking vows might lead to the cursing of the offending creature. Religions that are appealing or that proselytize aggressively can spread over wide areas (being right and being able to demonstrate it doesn't hurt either). Preachers can have fun speaking to others, and the Day of Purification they keep talking about might be real. Religious insurrections and schisms will occur.

quote:Various enmities:  Races, cultures, religions, philosophies, etc. sometimes have deep hatreds for each other, sometimes to the point that one group will de'human'ize another. Foreign adventurers coming into town might be the subjects of ridicule if they don't look too powerful. General appearance should influence the way that people treat the player. Enmity might be created by the player if he or she is associated with a certain entity and insults or attacks another group, even if the player dies during the course of the action (the enmity will be expressed in future games). Actions by the player might also tip off other entities to the existence of the players entity, etc. Various forms of vengeance work. Killing families seems popular, and a necromancer might raise the dead family for added effect (this fits in with zombie recognition in the undeath section). Some ancient powers might have long-standing enmities that are now part of the world structure. On the lighter side, creatures might hold grudges with other creatures and perform resentful annoying actions at the expense of these creatures. And there are some really nasty things that can be done... people can be staked to the ground and left for the dogs. A subdued vampire can be buried underground and have parts of its body exposed to sunlight one by one. Merry stuff like that.

quote:The Future: The Supernatural

Deities, Powerful Allies and Patrons:  How do you meet/find/experience/whatever them? What do they demand in return for power? What powers do they grant? How do they grant them? Many of these questions can be answered by the ideals that a deity aligns itself with. Deities can be set in opposition (Truth/Lies, Nature/Undeath, Honor/Tyranny, Life/Disease, etc.). Deities often have many names in different civilizations. Cults and religions can grow up around powerful beings. Some of these beings might demand sacrifices (as a matter of course, for perceived infractions, etc.). Sacrifices may or may not actually maintain or increase the power of the being. Prayers of mundane followers might actually be answered in certain cases. It might be appropriate for a creature to give thanks to its deity at certain times.

Forces:  These are things like "the elements", the spirit of a forest, or the psychic remnants of a lost civilization. They act like deities basically, but may not be sentient. Towns might have local spirits that can exact retribution for violent acts, etc. Note that any elemental planes could just consist of one driving force, or they might be as complicated as the normal world with inhabitants, items, entities, and everything else (perhaps even many magic types within the standard elemental art). Regional forces might be able to compel the natives of their region to act in certain ways. Forces may also be able manifest in different ways (as a single powerful being, a mist, a multitude of fairies, etc.).

[mickel]

Hmm. Dwarf Fortress on other planes of existance? Now we're talking deep.

[mickel]

As for not wanting your dwarves religious, well... you're the governor. If someone comes around preaching the Way of the Dill Pickles, throw them out, have them arrested, impale them on a spike outside your fortress to show the world what you think of evangelists, or have them tragically die in a freak magma floodgate accident. ("We told him not to go in there, but he must've forgot, and the door... we couldn't get it open, it must've jammed... and then the floodgate came open, it was terrible! Oh, the screaming! Oh!")

[Pnx]

I don't think religion should be a problem. As long as it's kept in at least a semi-random state it should be fun. It's one more thing making the world more interesting and keeping realistic, dynamic politics in the game. You have to remember that religion is likely going to be less a statement of beliefs and more a statement governing the actions of people, civilizations, and other entities.

Think of it less as
"Phfti'k says to us that lies will take us to hell where an eternity of misery will await us"

And more as
"The religion of Phfti'k forbids us from lying."

[mickel]

Exactly!

What I see as important for the religions in-game is not as much what they're specifically about and absolutely not about whether they're right or wrong, what is important to me is that they are a subsociety that affect both the members of their society (it's followers) as well as the society of which they are a part (your fortress). In this sense they are no different than the nobles (who are each a sort of religion of their own as it currently stands) and the guilds (when they get developed more).

What makes them even more interesting is that the members of the Church of the Chasm in your fortress are connected to the members of the Church of the Chasm in other fortresses.

Let's say the Head Honcho of the Church of the Chasm, who dwells in a very big, very rich fortress, decides that lo, to chasm refuse is bad ju-ju, yea, verily. That will eventually reach your fortress and your local high priest of the Chasm will of course demand that you stop chasming refuse.

You can ignore the demand, but then the high priest and all his followers will get unhappy thoughts. And eventually word will get to the Head Cheese over in that fortress that you're committing sacrilege against the Holy Chasm. And what then?

Depending on his sway over the local fortress rulers, anything could happen from your not getting any trade with that fortress (and other fortresses under its or the Church of the Chasm's influence) to an invading army coming to destroy you, you heretic you.

Or if that doesn't happen, perhaps all those who believe in the Church of the Chasm will emigrate from your sinful fortress lest the infamy be upon them and they will not be saved when the Cosmic Chasm swallows up the world in the end days...

What's important here isn't whether it is sinful to chasm refuse or not, the important thing is that the Head Hookah says it is, and the ramifications to your fortress.

[Albert the Absentminded]

Another thing is, gods can be tiny. The goddess of a spring might not be interested in building up a vast empire dedicated to her worship. Or even be jealous of other deities, so long as none of them forbid worshippers to come to the spring to offer whatever is precious to the spring-goddess.

A lot depends on what various gods are. A god might be nothing more than a psychic pattern influenced by the beliefs, desires, and demands of his worshippers. In the same world, another god might be the spirit of a place. Another god might be a particularly venerated ghost. Another god might be merely a person who became immortal by eating of the fruit of the tree of life, who's picked up some preternatural tricks along the way.

Gods might be venerated as creators, but which creation? The preservation of the civilization after the last apocalypse? The creation of the tribe? The creation of the species? The creation of the world? The creation of the cosmos? Some gods might deliberately lie about what level of creation they were involved in. Others might be old enough that their memories of the earliest times have been overwritten by the beliefs of their worshippers, so that they believe they were responsible for a grander creation than is actually true.

The relationship between god and worshipper may vary. See Errant Story for a case where a powerful deity is a summons created and controlled by the church. The Egyption sorcerors and priests were said to have a similar extraordinary amount of power over their deities by knowing all the hacks and cheat codes. On the other end, Christians and Jews are expected, ideally, to consider themselves the servants, students, and children of what they believe to be God. And Islam is, fundamentally, about being the slaves of what _they_ believe to be God.

-Albert

[Core Xii]

Ok, that cleared some things out. I'm not worried anymore.

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by Albert the Absentminded:
<STRONG>And Islam is, fundamentally, about being the slaves of what _they_ believe to be God.</STRONG>

I wouldn't say slaves. Their god is the same as Christians and Jews after all. They just acknowledge one additional prophet.

In order to get this sort of thing into the game, one might consider a religion as an individual with a personality. Much like a noble who likes bronze items will mandate their production, forbid their export and demands their inclusion in their dwelling, one might have a religion that "likes" bronze items and mandates these things.

Except in the case of the religion, it's the lead interpreter of the religion (pope or analogous functionary) who recieves these mandates and then passes them to the followers of the religion.

To keep track of all the religions, one might have a "religions" screen much like the "nobles" screen wherein are listed all the religions, their creeds, and whatnot.

[Asehujiko]

Religion to the hairy walrus of desserts where worship means giving expensive crap to the high priest = bad.

Religion to the dragon living in a cave ontop of your fort who actualy does something other then being "godly" = good.

For a god to be a god, he/she/it/they need to PROVE it. For example, what proof do we have that, lets say, the cristian god exists? A souped up version of lotr they call the bible and a large horde of cultists claiming every word in it is true. The high ranking priests got themself a nice church/cathedral because of the religion and what did the working class get? The inquisition.

Summary:
0 evidence other then a book written, rewritten and rewritten again 300 years after the events happened.
The wealthy people became more wealthy.
The average commoner became less wealthy and got burned when he started to wonder why.

[mickel]

Let's not start bashing real life religion here, or we'll have a real life religious war on our hands in the forum, and a very upset Toady will start to wonder if we deserve his art. At least I know I would.

The cause for religions to appear, and the function that every religion fills is to explain those questions that can't be explained any other way. They make people content in giving them a way to understand the world, and it also makes them content in giving them something to hope for when life sucks.

It's these fundamental things that I think dwarves need just as much as humans, and that's why I feel religions have to be in the game to make it feel real to me.

Because it makes no sense to me that dwarves wouldn't wonder where dwarves come from and what their purpouse is in life.

[ August 31, 2007: Message edited by: mickel ]

[Fishersalwaysdie]

That is what belief is all about: believing.
And DF is about maximum realism in fantasy.
And don't make a flame war here by being offensive to Christians.

[Turgid Bolk]

quote:Let's say the Head Honcho of the Church of the Chasm, who dwells in a very big, very rich fortress, decides that lo, to chasm refuse is bad ju-ju, yea, verily. That will eventually reach your fortress and your local high priest of the Chasm will of course demand that you stop chasming refuse.

Damnit man, we just got rid of outrageous free-loading noble demands (mostly), and now you want to put essentially the same thing back in! The priests are just nobles by a different name, now with even more righteous pretention.   :roll:

I suppose that's ok, but they better have a damn good reason for pulling stunts like that, and they better give my dwarves a lot of happy thoughts or other positive things.

I think it would be better if big changes like that happened very gradually. Religions should be pretty set, so you know what to expect if a missionary immigrates to your fortress and starts to gain some influence (competing with the current major religion and other small sects, of course). You know if they get some followers that those dwarves don't like chasming things, or wearing leather, or whatever. And if they do happen to become the dominant religion in your fortress, you know that you can't risk chasming anything at all, lest the high priest (the original missionary) get too upset.

The religion could change over time, i.e. getting more aggressive or liking scepters instead of skull totems, but it would take awhile for major change to happen. Unless some major holy war happened or something, but that would be rare.

[ August 31, 2007: Message edited by: Turgid Bolk ]

[Sylverone]

quote: No religion please.

quote: I think religion would be awesome in DF.

I read somewhere that Toady and Threetoe plan to make the world generation more customizable, for instance letting you change the amount of desert you want in your world, among other things. How about eventually being able to set how religious your world will be? That would allow a solution for people who do and don't want fantasy religions in the game.