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[Granite26]

First:  I'm riffing of of this, I'm just going a different direction.  Work on religion is in the eternal voting, so vote for it.

Religion in DF is currently no-pantheon polytheism with a few twists.

Currently, a being can worship any one god or power (megabeast) with varying degrees of furvancy (is that even a word?)
Real world religions:

Monolithic Monotheisms (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Aten)
  One god, and a large belief structure around him/her
Polyglot Polytheisms (Hindu)
  Many gods, but the gods are readily absorbed from other cultures and attributed as aspects of existing gods
Local Polytheisms (Greek and Norse Pantheons)
  Many gods.  Viewed as unique from gods in other cultures.

What is worship?  Is leaving milk out for the fae considered worship?  How about the modern idolatry of Obama?  Paris Hilton?  This sounds flippant but is rather important in deciding how new religous beings are created from common individuals.  If 'respect' or 'fear' is the lowest level on a worship continuum, then religions will develop more naturally (and often) than an 'eruption' type of formation.  OTOH, it requires people to accept the continuum and that definition of respect.

Is idolatry sufficient or does it require belief in the efficacy of prayer or supplication to the individual  Similar to the above.  Do I have to believe in the power of the individual for it to be worship?  At what level does it become worship?

First off:  I think that the 'story' of DF(where humans end up dominating) should be the evolution of religion from Local (civ based) polytheisms into Monotheism as suitable historical figures (and megabeasts) become available.  Once proselytism comes in, religions should naturally evolve due to cultural forces (even without religious powers even coming into play).  This is specifically intended to create histories for the deities in play at the time world creation stops.

For evolving multiple pantheons, gods could 'eat' other gods if A: they are similar (share numerous, 50%+ spheres, they have no opposed spheres) and B: culturally, one dominates another (In more than 75% of the regions where the lesser one is worshipped, the dominent one has more followers).  The consuming god could/should gain aspects of the consumed god (1-2 spheres)

Additionally gods could merge (if they are of equal power) or resolve into subservient positions (Thor is now subservient to Zeus).


Certain races should be more apt to worship different things, and to have a certain resistance to change.  I've given examples of how different races could behave, not to preach my view of them, but examples of what should be possible.

Obviously, the goblins are intended to worship powerful beings, but I don't see that worship extending past the creature's final death.  In short, goblins would be easy to convert by the being, but hard to convert by followers.  This fascilitates demons and other megabeasts ruling goblin civs, but also goblin kings being considered living gods.

If humans continue their 'last survivors' tack, they would make excellent monotheists.  The original converts could become something apostlic, and achieve a high conversion score.  Once a human was converted from the basic human pantheon to a monotheism, he would be harder to convert to anything else.  (This could create large sects of monotheisms that are localized.)  The point here is that in the age of boring, you end up with something looking a lot like the real world.

Dwarves could be a more staid group.  They have their gods and they are happy with them.  They would (as a racial trait) be extremely hard to convert to different religions.  They would keep the dwarven pantheon around as long as they lived.  Using a simple 'high skill = new demigod', and an expansion to polytheism to allow 'respect' for multiple gods,  Great Dwarves could be preserved in the mythbase of the dwarven religion.

Elves might have a high conversion rate to any religion.  They could be lousy prophets or apostles, but great receivers of wisdom.  This would make them extremely non-homogenous as a culture.

Kobolds could 'pray for life'.  The first time they see a megabeast or power, they could convert to worshipping it.  Nothing would challenge or change that faith.

Other Religious Systems (Tags)  Ancestor worship should encourage beings to worship ancestors in favor of other beings.

Notes:
A: Assigning traits to races is intended to be examples of different styles, not a definitive list of how they should behave.  For the most part, these items should be controlled by a set of raw variables and what's above would be a guide to what should be possible to accomplish.  Most of these elements are simply personality traits the races already posses.

Polytheism in society.

It's always seemed rather silly to me that Urist will worship his deity with some random level of devotion but ignore the existance of the others.

I'd like to see the concept of a person being polytheistic, polytheistic dominent or monotheistic.  (Monotheistic procedural might be a bit much)

Polytheistic : The individual accepts and believes in a range of gods, worshipping each as the spheres dictate.  (This person might have a list of deities he 'knows' about or considers to be a part of his pantheon)

Polytheistic Dominent (Henotheisism): As above, but the individual has a Patron deity he worships especially.

Monotheistic:  There is no god but god.  All others are at best, misguided. (As opposed to Polytheisms, which tend to assume others worship gods they don't know about)

Monotheistic Procedural:  As above, only this time it encapsulates the difference between Protestants and Catholics.  Basically the religion has the same deity, but does not consider other sects to be correct.  (Arguably Protestants would be subdivided and Islam and Judaism added to one big pile)

Basically, Polytheists should be able to worship a god or a pantheon, or ideally, multiple things at once.

Each religion is different, and each person is different.  Fortunately, there already exists a conversion factor for this.  A person's basic wants and needs can be conflicted with the demands of the religion based on their level of commitment to the religion.  (Whenever there's a conflict, there's an unhappy thought, no matter who wins.  FUN in the form of fleshed carved A's)


Pantheons would almost have to include a set of deities and exist apart from people's minds.  This is made complicated when you add new demigods to your mythos.  How do people learn of new demigods?  Certain people may worship gods from more than one pantheon.


Civs would have a starting religious setup, but the behaviour of individuals would take over from there.


Religions would need a set of stats that represent teachings.

Tolerance (How likely they are to hate other religions
Proselytization (How likely they are to teach)
Shuns (Unhappy thought for doing)
Bans (Will not do; This may conflict with the personal ethics)
Encourages (Happy thought for doing)
Laws (Imagine a religion that says you MUST be a miner?)
Type (whether the gods eat other gods, whether a follower can have other gods)

Races would need certain traits (possibly used for other things) that determine their interactions.  These traits would be defined the same as stats, with a normal value and standard deviation.

Faith How strongly they worship (exists)
Adoption How hard it is to convince them to join
AdoptType As above, by type of religion
AdoptPower As above, by type of power
Resilience Once faith is achieved, how hard to break it?  Prophets must overcome this first, then adoption.

New Content:
Historically, conversions are more effective coming from non-family members.  This has a few plusses.  When the Legend of Captain Ironblood spreads beyond his home fort, the people that are converted will have MORE respect for him than the people telling the tale (natural exaggeration, at least).  This enables religions to grow without the people around the figure treating him like a god.  Since most religious views are inherrited, the respect in the fort will stay reasonable, but outside the fort, a religion might grow.  People who are not naturally religous will tend to stay with their parent's religion and be relatively secular about their lives.  Converts on the other hand, will be crazy.  (You'll also get a heavy minority of people who adopt their parents religion vigorously)

[Sunday]

A couple minor quibbles:  the word 'polyglot' means 'speaks more than one language' - I'm not sure it fits in with your description.  Maybe 'expansionary polytheism' or something.

Also, I'm not really sure that religion 'evolves' from local polytheism to monotheism.  I don't think that (say) Shinto or Hinduism are 'less evolved' than monotheism.

Plus, where does animism/shamanistic stuff fit in with your worldview?

Overall, though, I think it's a cool and interesting way of looking at implementing religion.   

[Megaman]

Maybe children born and grown up in the fortress may consider the 'highest' noble a god?

[ChairmanPoo]

The example about the greek pantheon is not accurate either. Greeks and Romans did not shun other polytheist religious beliefs. Heck, in fact I'd argue that pretty much any polytheist religion you can name is synchretist. It's just something they do.

Religion "advancement" in itself would be more dependent on how much ellaboration and thought has gone in them than whether they are mono, polytheistic, animist, or whatever.

However, for practical purposes, we could consider that monotheist religions evolve from polytheist ones, methinks.

[Granite26]

polyglot was...  an alliterative liberty I took with the language, implying that different cultures 'speak' different religions.

I WILL argue that the western religions are more refined than hinduism, because they are more homogenized in terms of practices.  Doesn't mean better, just more refined.  (think refined sugar, not refined tastes)

I tried to include the evolution to a hinduism type religion in the gods 'consuming' other gods.  Thus, an advanced hinduism type religion will involve gods with lots of spheres and aspects.

I wouldn't include shamanism (beyond a celtic or north american pantheon) as a religion, so much as a magic brand or religious culture.

Animism and Shintoism.... I don't know... That starts to get out of the 'who you worship' religion and more of into the 'this is just how the world works'...  I could almost see separating mysticism from religion entirely.  Mysticism could then either be a true belief (I KNOW there are spirits in all things, because magic can affect them) or a world view that compliments religion.  (Animism would be a high mysticism atheism... Modern Protestantism versus medievil Catholocism would allows be largely differenciated by mysticism.  Finally, compare the religion of Aristotle with that of the Greek peasantry)

[ChairmanPoo]

mysticism as in...?

[Granite26]

The example about the greek pantheon is not accurate either. Greeks and Romans did not shun other polytheist religious beliefs. Heck, in fact I'd argue that pretty much any polytheist religion you can name is synchretist. It's just something they do.

I agree with you... for the most part.  They were just the best examples I had that would equate to a dwarf or elf or whatever pantheon.  Given the existance of Gods (in some fashion), some pantheons would be more resilient than others.

mysticism as in...?

As in differences in belief over the innate magicalness of the universe.  It runs from 'we're all just chemical machines', through 'we all have souls and true love exists' to 'angels are watching over us' and 'never walk under a ladder'

It's hard, because we've got beliefs over the real world mixing with our beliefs over what the fantasy world should model, and confusion over how to model a characters beliefs in a world where we the players know the truth. 

[ChairmanPoo]

/nitpick
I ask because mysticism actually refers to a mystical approach to religion. Meditation, private revelations, that kind of thing. Thus, since neither modern protestantism nor medieval catholicism were particularily mystical, I didn't understand the statement (or rather, I understood you were referring to something else).

Come to think about it, many variants of modern protestantism aren't too different from medieval catholicism regarding the "magicalness" either (Creation museum anyone?)

[Granite26]

/nitpick
I ask because mysticism actually refers to a mystical approach to religion. Meditation, private revelations, that kind of thing. Thus, since neither modern protestantism nor medieval catholicism were particularily mystical, I didn't understand the statement (or rather, I understood you were referring to something else).

Come to think about it, many variants of modern protestantism aren't too different from medieval catholicism regarding the "magicalness" either (Creation museum anyone?)

It may not be the right world, but it's as close as I know of.  Open to suggestions, for sure.

I'll argue that modern Christianity has come a long way towards rationality from the point where it was adultering its message with pagan practices to win converts.  (Something else that a religious system might want to consider)

[Sutremaine]

It's hard, because we've got beliefs over the real world mixing with our beliefs over what the fantasy world should model, and confusion over how to model a characters beliefs in a world where we the players know the truth.

We know a truth. With a videogame, creator changes revelations after the fact and alternate interpretations can change the truth about the game's gods.

eta: Just to clarify, while we do know what's going on it's easier to think about the issue if we pretend we don't.

[ChairmanPoo]

I'll argue that modern Christianity has come a long way towards rationality from the point where it was adultering its message with pagan practices to win converts.  (Something else that a religious system might want to consider)

uhm, frankly, it's not like there was a "pure, rational" unadulterated christianity before the pagans. As for the rest... whereas some denominations have clearly improved (namely, those that accept modern science), there are plenty of non rational ones around still (beggining with creationists and finishing with the downright crazy cults). And the improvement has been in the second half of the XX century, for the most part. I dont know to what extent it is an improvement as much as  it is a final affirmation of religious laws not being above secular laws.

[Granite26]

Before it became formalized under Rome, (circa 400AD), Christianity had a lot more in common with Eastern morality religions than it did with paganism.  As it expanded and incorporated more aspects of local rites and rituals, it lost a lot of it's morality focus and gained a procedural focus.

This may have as much to do with the church leaders growing wealth and corruption, or that could have been symptomatic of the change in focus.

It's been my experience that modern Christianity has been moving away from procedural elements back to the moral elements  (Open communion is one example).  I agree that this is largely a response to the Enlightenment reducing the mysticism of the average person, and that affecting religions.

Sadly, most people who aren't involved in a faith only see or experience the crazies, because the crazies are the ones who seek attention (or the news finds entertaining to report on)

[Felblood]

There's some good ideas in the OP, but I think there's a lot of bad assumptions there that could be scraped off, to make them shine through a bit clearer.

Most importantly, I see no reason that we have to start out with hundreds of gods and evolve that into monotheism. Even granted the assumption that that's how things work in real life, there's no reason for DF to be weighted towards that scenario. It should be one of many possibilities that can grow up from emergent behavior.

[ChairmanPoo]

Before it became formaliced there was no such thing as a single, unified christian creed, but a lot of cults of different flavors. I dont think that a claim about some original purity can be substantiated. Much less a modern return to this hypothetical original purity.

[Granite26]

Before it became formaliced there was no such thing as a single, unified christian creed, but a lot of cults of different flavors. I dont think that a claim about some original purity can be substantiated. Much less a modern return to this hypothetical original purity.

srsly dude... that's not what I said at all.  Just that there's a difference between a religion who focuses on washing your balls the right way and a religion that says 'don't kick puppies', and that modern Christianity is leaning more towards the latter than it has in less recent history.  It's also a trait shared with early Christian teachings (I.E. what's actually in the bible), as well as a good number of Eastern religions, and some of the more casual Judaic and Islamic sects.

We may be at the 'agree to disagree' point, since our views on history seem to be indelibly tainted by our perceptions.

There's some good ideas in the OP, but I think there's a lot of bad assumptions there that could be scraped off, to make them shine through a bit clearer.

Most importantly, I see no reason that we have to start out with hundreds of gods and evolve that into monotheism. Even granted the assumption that that's how things work in real life, there's no reason for DF to be weighted towards that scenario. It should be one of many possibilities that can grow up from emergent behavior.

1: Not sure what the assumptions are, short of the racial ones I called out in the article.  I figure it'd be harder to read if I took all references to the existing races out.  Could be wrong though.  I went with a more 'power goal' feel than 'this is the way it should work'

2: I (personally) think that it fits the feel of the world becoming more boring with time.  Note that as presented, the 'human' religion structure would do this.  The dwarven would stay true to it's origins.  Whatever the absorbing religion is would eventually settle on a large stable of different deities with disparate spheres.  (Inheriting titles and nicknames would create some truly fascinating deities.)