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[oitohca]

Although every dwarf has his preferred deity and claim to be faithful worshippers and such, they never spend any time praying or anything. It's not really that I enjoy having my dwarves not working, but that would make the game closer to a fantasy world with religion related things, and not so... you know... compulsively industrial
I'd like to suggest a few additions which I think could add interest to the game (I hope they aren't repeated, I searched for them but found nothing).

- Praying time, for each dwarf, according to how faithful or casual whorshipper they are.
- Altar furniture which can make personal chapel rooms or public churches, where they would prefer to pray. Maybe public churches could be assigned to one deity, or left "open". A personal chapel could be demanded by nobles.
- Dwarves collecting and owning items related to the deity and storing them in their altar or church.
- Dwarves receiving happy thoughts when praying or getting objects. Also: complaining if there are not enough altars, receiving bad ones if can't find an object of the liking of his god...
- The Major Priest noble, with new mandates like sacrifice a bull or a dozen kitties. Or slaying the next elven caravan. Unhappy thoughts on failed mandates would affect every dwarf, or maybe less for worshippers of a different deity or less close to religion.
- Quality of the cult in the fortress could affect other aspects of the game, such as clima, immigrant wave size, help with the quality of the harvest or items produced, wild animals visiting the region...

[TheyTarget]

It could get a little hecktic if you have 200 dwarfs and 20 different gods to make temples for. I agree with the personal chapel, and the thought of a temple too, though. Possibly, you could create holidays for worship, so many people seem to forget holiday literally is holy day, and is a religious thing. Pick a time in the year, kinda like setting up schedules for military, and all the dwarfs will have it off to worship, and enjoy themselves. Though I always though dwarfs were just naturally industrial, unlike humans, they require little to no breaks, and would rather work until they die. I agree with the idea of a noble thats a priest, and I think he should also be elected, it just makes sense to me, that the people decide who leads them religiously, or be chosen by either the monarch, or some Godly force, like the God they worship. A prophet kinda, but less important and impacting other then the normal useless noble. Basically I don't think the play should decide who he/she is. It would be like you can make public zoos, statue gardens, and now temples. I could see him making less mandates, but plenty of demands, all for the temple and none for himself. I think it should give them happy thoughts, but if you over do it unhappy thoughts, no one likes being forced to church every second day, when they have things they have to do to keep alive. And to simplify it, I think we could assume dwarven religion is one with multiple gods, all coexisting, so we don't have to make twenty temples, yes dwarf A follows this God, and dwarf B follows another one, but they are still of the same religious belief.

[Waparius]

Perhaps allow altars (and an associated "Temple" room) to be assigned to gods or left for any dwarves to use in worship, with dwarves demanding specific altars for more important gods? That way you could have 2-3 major temples and a general-purpose temple for the rest. Major temples could provide happy thoughts to the devout while general-purpose altars just prevent unhappy ones.

[thijser]

Maybe we could add in diffrend religions? Like one group of god beeing able to get worshiped together because they are in one religion. A god might be allone in it's religion or it might have to share with many.

[Rowanas]

I've spoken about this topic before. I think dwarves should be happy enough to just privately worship, but Gods would be more or less demanding, based on their personalities. Gods that demand more worship will require greater worship areas, defined from an altar. The more demanding and jealous the god, the better temple they want. Keeping up with the demands of the gods would mean boons of whatever sphere the god is in charge of. Fail them, and your reward will be less sweet.

Short version:
Religion should be less about keeping dwarves happy and more about keeping gods happy.

[madjoe5]

I've always wanted to see a good religion model in DF. I say we have basically what OP said with a few tweaks.

Perhaps change worldgen to not make nearly as many gods. Or, contrarily, make temples much like a general spiritual area; intended for worship of any god (akin to the Roman Pantheon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome). Maybe instead of a noble, some sort of ministry (ie priests/priestesses) would be a job with an appropriate skill. I guess they just administer sacrifices to gods to appease them or to fulfill mandates of particularly religious nobles. And most importantly, IMO, is seeing gods appear in game depending on your relations with them; for they could bring great riches, aid in battle, blessings of food or even attack you, curse dwarves, and lead HFS (both evil, like the current ones, and good ones, seeking to rid the world of your fort) style armies in a siege.

Could make for some awesome stories and play throughs.

[Zrk2]

Maybe we could add in diffrend religions? Like one group of god beeing able to get worshiped together because they are in one religion. A god might be allone in it's religion or it might have to share with many.

Seconded.

Grammar Nazi'd: Maybe we could add in different religions? Like one group of gods being able to be worshiped together because they are in one religion. A god might be alone in its' religion or it might have to share with many.

[Soralin]

I've spoken about this topic before. I think dwarves should be happy enough to just privately worship, but Gods would be more or less demanding, based on their personalities. Gods that demand more worship will require greater worship areas, defined from an altar. The more demanding and jealous the god, the better temple they want. Keeping up with the demands of the gods would mean boons of whatever sphere the god is in charge of. Fail them, and your reward will be less sweet.

Short version:
Religion should be less about keeping dwarves happy and more about keeping gods happy.

That could be fun.

Armok demands Dwarven sacrifices to fill the fountain of blood, or magma will rain down from the sky and destroy your puny fortress!

The dwarves respond, by giving the chamber below the forges a skylight.

[cog disso]

Craftsdwarves would be able to produce different objects for worship, such as holy symbols, water fonts, staves, altars, etc. You would be able to choose to which god you align these to, much like you can now do with funeral memorials and individuals. This would make it more likely that dwarves could "convert" to a single deity in a fortress, and give the player a little bit of control over the sort of worship they'd like to see (good gods would result in more industry, evil gods would result in better soldiers, etc).

Alchemists could produce incense, sacred waters, holy oils and special perfumes that would allow for some personalization for individual worship, they would be extravagant trade goods and elite industry challenges. These could also be made available for Adventurer mode, and allow for special defenses against certain kinds of monsters. They might also aid with medical duties by lending faith to the proceedings.

[KaguroDraven]

Why "Good" or "Evil" Gods resulting in those things? That doesn't make much sense. It makes more sense to extend what already happens, the God's, names, looks, and 'spheres' are randomly generated for each world, have each god give a bonus to their sphere.

[ZebioLizard2]

I've seen a sphere of evil before. So technically still right on the money that they should work their sphere's if someday religion allows for sacrifice/giving/pleasing/rewards. Such as

You please Karom, god of weather you get potentially (good effects):
Rain to refill murky pools and to refresh soil (Someday when soil effects are in)
Sunny, producing good sunlight for soil/plants
Really cloudy, enabling even cave adapted dwarves to walk without sickness outside

You Really piss off Karom, god of weather (bad effects)
Rain (As in, heavy rain, flood out the backside)
Tornado.
Hurricane: "Head for the caves, the hurricanes flinging cats everywhere!"
No clouds or rain.
Endless rain

This of course presumes that gods will be pleasable beings who someday can interact with you in a viable manner based in a religious setting or offering system.

[Rowanas]

Zebio, you describe it as it should be.

I think the pantheon worship idea is also a good one, although this should be done by creating your own pantheon. Say you want Gods X, Y and Z to be the gods worshipped in your fortress, but your starting 7 worship W, Y and Z. you set shrines to W, X, Y and Z, to bring in people of those faiths or to convert existing dwarves. You then slowly begin to phase out worship of W, increasing the splendour of the other three shrines, until no dwarves worship W. Then you deconstruct the shrine, having made yourself the pantheon your fortress will follow.

Of course, this assumes that gods will only want recognition if some of your dwarves worship them, and that the amount of tribute they require increases as more dwarves join the faith, otherwise you'll have to appease every god in your civ, perhaps in the entire world, right from the start with glorious chapels and sumptuous offerings.

[Lord Vetinari]

I'd like better to see religion as a commodity (I mean something that satisfies a need and causes good or bad thougths). In every single fantasy game out there we have gods as phisical beings that give the player some form of bonus/malus, it's becoming boring.

[ZebioLizard2]

And you'd rather them be reduced to a simple thought ala like the Ceaser games? The reason why most people generally make them more viable beings is that because religion as a whole is rather boring without its mythological aspects. Reducing them to classical private prayer/thoughts generally makes it a simple easily accessible thought to do. Since pleasing a god is harder then pleasing a dwarf generally, and people like boons and things that are useful, or can be made FUN!

Of course gods could be init toggable, whether they make actual appearances and/or allow blessings of the like. aka. Religion Mythology On or Off. Off would turn off the mythological portions of it, and make it as real religion.

[Rowanas]

Indeed. The only thing interesting about real life religion is the opportunity to hold an intelligent argument about it. In games, that's not quite the focus.