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[Draco18s]

Just because of Neat Stuff coming up in the dev logs I have some input that probably won't get looked at by Toady for a while, but it'd make World Gen religions more interesting.

Death of Gods:
Over time it should be possible for civs to forget about their gods.  This would allow for changes over time of what religion a civ worships more easily such that Megabeast-dieties become more common.

Birth of Gods:
Over time, civs that have/do worshipped a pantheon but currently either have a very small pantheon or no pantheon at all should create new gods.  With the site that lacked gods entirely in the dev notes, those children growing up and starting a new site should have created new gods relevant to their lives.

Indoctrination:
Leaders should be able to have some control over the religion of the site (or civ, if they're high enough up (i.e. King, etc.)) such that the civ's main religion can change.

Megabeasts:
Megabeasts should be able to exert a bit of control over the religion practiced by a civ.  The more inteligent the megabeast, the more control they'd want to exert based on their personality.  For instance a dragon would want the civ that's worshipping it to ONLY worship it--"I am your god, there are no others" and the citizens would obey due to the fact that the megabeast is right there and their other gods are being rather...absent.  Of course, some megabeasts might be happy to be a part of a pantheon, others wouldn't, some wouldn't care or even know.

[Elitay]

It should be possible for rulers of large civs to be worshipped. Perhaps posthumously.

[Sen Rojo]

quote: Birth of Gods:
Over time, civs that have/do worshipped a pantheon but currently either have a very small pantheon or no pantheon at all should create new gods. With the site that lacked gods entirely in the dev notes, those children growing up and starting a new site should have created new gods relevant to their lives.

It should take some generations for new gods to be created in a society that doesn't have the concept of gods.

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Sen Rojo:
<STRONG>It should take some generations for new gods to be created in a society that doesn't have the concept of gods.</STRONG>

Debatable.  I will agree however, that the 'first generation' of worshipers won't consider them gods, but they'd definately have some kind of religionish thing--minor nature spirits, a general sense of higher power capable of influencing life.  When you're a group of stranded orphaned children in the wilderness struggling to survive I'm sure you'd make some kind of scream at the cosmos for help.

It will be undirected and ill defined, but it's still a prayer.  The "god" that answers won't be a very powerful god/spirit/entity, but belief is a powerful thing.  Eventually you get rituals (few years, but less than a generation) to aid luck, hunting, crop growth, foraging, the like.  The mind is a simple organ, if you do something and good results occure, you are very likely to do that act again in the hopes that good results will continue.  This is the basis for all religious beginnings.  Farther on down the line it turns into something that is most definately a pantheon of gods, someone has to name them first and that doesn't ussually happen until the rituals and practices have been around longer than anyone alive can remember there being a beginning (in human terms, about 150 years minimum after the death of the first generation practitioners).

quote:Originally posted by Elitay:
<STRONG>It should be possible for rulers of large civs to be worshipped. Perhaps posthumously.</STRONG>

That too would be nice to see.  There are numberous real world and fictional religions where assention to godhood was recognised.  In that vein, heroes of a significant power level could also attain godhood.  Likewise villians can achieve godhood as well, afterall, not every god is good.

Folowing this line of logic, what about scions?  Mortals born of godly activities (*cough* god/mortal ofspring *cough*), i.e. Hurcules, Jesus, couple others.  I'm pulling from the RPG Scion a little, but it was written based on existing myths.  Basically gods interfere maybe a little much, have a kid, kid has Super Powers, uses them for good or ill, maybe gets some guidance...eventually--assuming he doesn't die--attains enough power (in the RPG it's called Legend, which costs an assload of EXP to get and using certain powers in front of mortals will fatebind them to you (i.e. devout followers), but for our purposes here we're talking deeds that get done--slaying dragons, fighting off goblins, killing demons)--gathers renoun and cultivates belief eventually fostering the individual to assend and become a god.  The antithema to a scion is a Titanspawn (as in the Greek mythos, the Titans came before the gods and were imprissoned as they wanted to remake the world in their image).  DF doesn't have titans, but it does have demons, so I don't see why not.  Demonic ofspring are common enough in various religions and fictional writings.

[ June 06, 2008: Message edited by: Draco18s ]

[Sen Rojo]

quote: Debatable. I will agree however, that the 'first generation' of worshipers won't consider them gods, but they'd definately have some kind of religionish thing--minor nature spirits, a general sense of higher power capable of influencing life. When you're a group of stranded orphaned children in the wilderness struggling to survive I'm sure you'd make some kind of scream at the cosmos for help.

Also Debatable. To me it seems like the concept of gods are so prevalent that it is hard to imagine a society void of them. I doubt that they would have such a parental attachment to the cosmos because in order for survival someone in there must have taken charge as alphacreature and taken up that parental slot. I also doubt that they would have enough time to develop a language which is essential for developing ideas (try to imagine how old the orphans were, they were young enough to miss the indoctrination process, now try to imagine how primitive the society would have been, I doubt that they had language). Progress in any field is slow without a standardized communications medium but I do concede that they would probably have a great want for closure if they had friends or family that died and that by the end of their generation may form the barebones kit of religion, the afterlife, generated from fear of death and lack of closure from the departed.

[Fishersalwaysdie]

Religions should branch over time, like having a cult based around one god in a pantheon, or taking religion from another culture and changing spheres of influence and names a bit. Most religions come to be this way.

[Grek]

quote:Originally posted by Draco18s:
<STRONG>Birth of Gods:
Over time, civs that have/do worshipped a pantheon but currently either have a very small pantheon or no pantheon at all should create new gods.  With the site that lacked gods entirely in the dev notes, those children growing up and starting a new site should have created new gods relevant to their lives.</STRONG>

In addition, Gods should produce more gods. Nearly all of the greek Gods were Zeus's children or grandchildren. Spheres would be mostly inhereted, with a good chance for a noninhereted one to spring up. You could have a Goddess of agriculture that has a child who is goddess of pregancy and love. Goblins could also have a pantheon of sorts, if the main demon has a 'court' of same sphere lesser demons.

Gods from foreign religions, megabeasts and very powerful leaders should enter pantheons. Alot of the time they would be renamed, of course. A human civ that gets around alot might have a goblin demon as the god of death, a dwarven god of forging and a local elfen river spirit as a fertility goddess. They might also adopt a king as a god, ie; the cult of Augustus in Rome.

I would be amused if a Titan coerced a preist into proclaiming that he was the son of a God and that he needs offerings of cattle and wine and a temple built in his honor with a big throne or else he's going to crush the city.

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Grek:
<STRONG>In addition, Gods should produce more gods. Nearly all of the greek Gods were Zeus's children or grandchildren.</STRONG>

I sorta had a thing on that.  In there with Scion.  But yes, I didn't specificaly mention god + goddess -> new gods.

Also, remember that Zeus had both Father and Grandfather (father--Chronos--is considered a titan, his grandfather--Uranos--is something else entirely, Uranos was as primal as it got for the Greeks; Gaia, Zeus's mother, is also a primal being and her progeny were the titans).

Ah, the Greeks.  Lots of sexual deviancy in that religon/society.

[Cuchulain]

Perhaps the tomb of a leader of long standing could be used to designate a "temple" room or some such, a place of worship.

[Awayfarer]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Draco18s:
<STRONG>Birth of Gods:
Over time, civs that have/do worshipped a pantheon but currently either have a very small pantheon or no pantheon at all should create new gods.  With the site that lacked gods entirely in the dev notes, those children growing up and starting a new site should have created new gods relevant to their lives.</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>In addition, Gods should produce more gods. Nearly all of the greek Gods were Zeus's children or grandchildren. Spheres would be mostly inhereted, with a good chance for a noninhereted one to spring up.

Regarding the ineritance of spheres: Really I don't think would make much sense if any of this gets based on real world mythology. For example, there's only ont thunder god in Greek mythology. Likewise, there is only one thunder god in Norse mythology. Zeus never passed on that spehere to any of his (many, many children) and Thor didn't recieve his from Odin.

Makes sense in a less "real" way too. If you were a god, would you want people going to worship your damned punk son or daughter or you? 
Multiple gods with the same schtick would have to share the number of available worshippers.

Bill the Bull God: "Dude, you totally sacrificed four goats to me last year. What gives?"
High Priest: Well, some folks have been saying that Bill Jr, the other bull god, deserves some sacrifices so I sent over two rams.

Basically I could see gods with similar portfolios actually going to war rather than coexisting.

[perilisk]

Add animism and ancestor/hero worship (like megabeast worship, but the opposite), and allow it to escalate into organized religion over time. 'Smy two cents.

[Granite26]

Well, non-real gods get created by major events.  Say, a hurricane... Then you get a god of storms.  Also, there's crop failure associated with it (drought earlier in the year) so famine...  Finally, the system looks around and notices that trade was good earlier in the year too.

So BAM, Hurricane (major tramatic civ level event) hits, and a god of storms, famine, and trade is added to the pantheon.  Of course, he's some other god's kid or something.  The tramatic event gets 'followers' a la the megabeasts, so he gets some default followers.  New religion.

Of course, this only happens in the early ages (say, first two or three) when gods are still getting created.

[Belteshazzar]

Well lets remember that some of these gods and powers (the deamons among them) actually exist and wield actual powers in Dwarf Fortress so there should be some way to deal with actual deities who may not actually rely on worship for power or existence. However, not all of these beings may be interested in actual worshipers or may discourage it. However it would be interesting to watch the interactions between a simple personality cult (perhaps with some magi to lend credibility) and an honest to god religion with powers ect.

[Puzzlemaker]

Well lets see...

Lets look at a few of the major religions in the world.

First, lets start with... Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

It all started with some dude named Abraham.  Then he had some kids, and they started a religion.  Or that's generally how it worked.

And then we had branching, to Judaism and Christianity.  Then further to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  Of course, all three of them share many of the same beliefs, view many of the same people as prophets (Noah, Adam, Ishmael, etc), and even share a lot of the same religious text.

Of course, they are the ones that fight the most.  Mostly because they are different enough from each other to not be truly on the same side, and they all have the same roots so they view the same things and land as holy.  Thus, you end up with a feud.

Think of it like three brothers fighting for their dads inheritance. 

Now lets look at other ones.  Buddhism came out of nowhere and started with one dude, who had some neat ideas.  He got some followers and stuff, and they decided he was a pretty cool dude, so they wrote down his crap and started teaching it.  Very similar to how Christianity (Jesus), Islam (Mohammad), and Judaism (Moses) started.  And Confucianism, although that was a bit different.

Maybe there is a pattern?

Hinduism I don't know as much about, but that one didn't seem to start from one source really, more like a hodge-podge of stuff thrown together going back a long way, and was constantly evolving.

Most religions evolve, too.  It's evident in the Schisms that have happened.

So there is another pattern, religions constantly evolve due to outside influence.

Thusly, I conclude...

Beliefs systems should evolve slowly over time.  Large events should trigger additions to a religions lore.  There should be a chance for people to preach different ideals for the religion.  The success of the preacher should depend on how charismatic he or she is.

If the preacher is very charismatic, he/she has a higher chance of creating change and gathering followers.  Now, if he/she does, it either ends up being rolled into the current belief system, or becoming a bit of a schism.  This depends on how much control the church has and how loyal the preacher and his/her followers are to the current belief system.

A similar system should be done for nations, generals, etc.  They should be able to get followers, have schisms, or just be really popular and start a golden age.

[Elvenshae]

And then we had branching, to Judaism and Islam.  Then further to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Your order's off, there.