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[Marek14]

First of all, this is my first post here -- I found DF a while bit and got hooked.

I browsed the previous religion threads, but didn§t have time to read them in full -- apologize for that. None of them seemed active. This is more like a collection of thoughts based in a numerical model.

First of all, there would two types of gods and other supernatural objects: obvious ones and hidden ones.

An obvious god is a god whose presence in the world is overt, who can be seen doing things and such. Hidden god, on the other hand, doesn't meddle. While existence of the obvious gods can't be disputed by anyone sane, the existence of hidden gods CAN be doubted.

In addition, an obvious god can only have one religion (since an obvious god would correct any misinterpretations of his doctrine). On the other hand, a single hidden god can have multiple religions (they can split, form sects, cults etc.). There can be also supernatural beings with no religion attached.


So, a dwarf would have a bunch of numbers relating his religiosity.

For every hidden god/supernatural being, the dwarf would have a number 0-100 representing his position on the Dawkins scale (0 - absolutely certain in non-existence, 100 - absolutely certain in existence).

For every religion, a dwarf would have a number -100 - 100 representing his devotion. 100 means absolute devotion to the religion, 0 means neutrality, -100 means that he absolutely HATES that religion. Dwarf that hates a particular religion would make a point in breaking its tenets.

A dwarf can have multiple religions, if they are tolerant enough.

The religions themselves would be basically lists of precepts and prohibitions, i.e. things that the devoted should or should not do. A system of rewards and punishments depends on the power of the religion (strong religion is more oppressive than a weak one).

Precepts and prohibitions could be implemented as lists pairing an action with a value from -100 - 100. Devoted dwarves will get happy thoughts from following the precepts OR seeing others follow them, unhappy thoughts from breaking the prohibitions OR seeing others break them. If a precept is something that normally causes unhappy thoughts, the fact that it's a precept will reduce the penalty or even reverse it -- the same for doing prohibited actions that normally INCREASE happiness. This also allows for hypocrisy -- if something is a precept, but it's unpleasant, dwarf gets mildly unhappy when doing it himself, but he gets happy from seeing OTHERS doing it.

Dwarf gets happy/unhappy from observing others regardless on whether the others are of the same devotion or not.

The value of precept/prohibition is multiplied by the dwarf's devotion. That means that a dwarf with NEGATIVE devotion to a religion would be saddened by observing the precepts and he would enjoy breaking the prohibitions.

Belief affects these changes as well: the lower your belief, the less you're affected by the negative changes. BUT, the positive changes are not affected! If you don't believe in a god and yet are devoted follower of a religion, you get all the gain with minimum pain!

If a dwarf has multiple devotion that all affect a specific action, the average of devotion*value is taken.

Altogether, there would be six possible "extreme" positions:

100 belief, 100 devotion: Fanatic -- the religion is literally his entire life. He derives most pleasure from the precepts and most unhappiness from breaking the prohibitions.
100 belief, 0 devotion: Common position in polytheistic systems -- the dwarf believes in a particular god, but doesn't consider him relevant for his personal life. Not affected by precepts/prohibitions of the religion.
100 belief, -100 devotion: Enemy of god -- the dwarf believes in that god but HATES him and wants to get rid of him and his religion. He derives most pleasure from breaking the prohibitions and most unhappiness from following the precepts.
0 belief, 100 devotion: Believer in belief -- doesn't believe in the god but is a strong follower of the religion because he thinks that the religion itself is good, regardless on the state of the god. Derives most pleasure from following the precepts, but no unhapiness at all from breaking the prohibitions.
0 belief, 0 devotion: Atheist, doesn't believe in the god and doesn't care. Unaffected by precepts/prohibitions.
0 belief, -100 devotion: Antitheist, doesn't believe in the god and hates the religion. Derives great pleasure from breaking the prohibitions, but no unhappiness from following the precepts.

Examples of precepts/prohibitions.

Labor: some labors can be considered holy or unclean. For example, a religion of stone might consider work with stone to be holy an working with wood to be abomination.

Skills: for example, a religion might abhor lying, causing negative thoughts in dwarves who have the Liar skill, and bigger negative thoughts when they apply it or see others applying it. Similarly, a military religion might consider any combat skills to be virtues.

Dwarves will actively try to practice the virtuous skills and they will deliberately let the "sin skills" grow rusty and decrease.

Dietary laws: eating a particular food can be encouraged/prohibited. Either a specific food (like cave lobster) or a whole group of food (like forbidding to eat plants that grow above ground). Can also apply to drinks. There can be even sects of non-drinkers! (They still NEED alcohol, but they refuse to drink it.)

Material laws: they encourage or forbid the use of a particular material or kind of material. For example, a dwarf might be unhappy because his bed is made from alder, which is an unholy tree in his religion. Or a gemcutter refuses to work on rubies because his belief says that rubies are the eyes of demons.

Wealth laws: encourage or forbid to keep your wealth above/below a certain level. A dwarf that is too rich or too poor gets unhappy thoughts (and if too rich, might give some of his wealth away), while a dwarf that is rich or poor way beyond the set limit gets happy thoughts from his conditions. So if the law says that being rich is good, the poor dwarves get miserable from being poor while the rich gets even happier. And if the law says that having ANY wealth at all is bad, even the poor dwarves will try to give away whatever they have.

Belief/devotion laws: considers good/bad to have particular values of belief/devotion or higher/lower. Possibilities are:

"HIGH belief in our god is GOOD" -- the dwarves' belief will cause happy thoughts and grow
"LOW belief in our god is BAD" -- the dwarves' low belief will cause unhappy thoughts, and so it will grow -- but if the belief is low, the penalty for being low is diminished as well, so there's not much incentives to increase it.
"LOW belief in our god is GOOD" -- the belief will steadily plunge as the dwarves are devoted to the religion, until it hits 0. This religion actively creates "believers in belief".
"HIGH belief in our god is BAD" -- the dwarves' belief will decrease, but as it goes lower, the penalty will decrease as well until it levels off somewhere above 0

"HIGH belief in THAT god is GOOD" -- belief in another god will grow, they might eventually pick up HIS religion. Imagine it as a belief in a subservient god that encourages belief in his master.
"LOW belief in THAT god is BAD" -- belief in another god will grow unless belief in THIS god is too low.
"LOW belief in THAT god is GOOD" -- belief in another god will fall.
"HIGH belief in THAT god is BAD" -- belief in another god will fall unless belief in THIS god is too low.

"HIGH devotion in our religion is GOOD" -- high devotion causes good thoughts and grows. NEGATIVE devotion is already under the limit.
"HIGH devotion in our religion is BAD" -- high devotion causes bad thoughts (unless belief is low), so the devotion lowers. NEGATIVE devotion is already under the limit. In other words, the most devoted ones in this religion will be unbelievers!
"HIGH devotion in THAT religion is GOOD" -- devotion in the other religion grows.
"HIGH devotion in THAT religion is BAD" -- devotion in the other religion falls, unless belief in THIS god is low.
"LOW devotion in our religion is GOOD" -- low devotion causes happy thoughts. NEGATIVE devotion causes bad thoughts (since it's low) unless belief is low. Net result: devotion tends to 0, wherever it started. This is "suicidal religion" that actively tries to disband itself.
"LOW devotion in our religion is BAD" -- low devotion causes unhappy thoughts, leading to increase. NEGATIVE devotion gets GOOD thoughts from being so low, and so it falls further. Net result is to drive the value away from 0, eventually making dwarves either fanatical adherents or enemies of the god.
"LOW devotion in THAT religion is GOOD" -- decreases devotion in another religion. If most religions have precents like this (or "HIGH devotion in THAT religion is BAD"), they are intolerant and dwarves will tend to only adopt one. Negative devotion in THIS religion will give unhappy thoughts if he has low devotion in the other religion, driving it up.
"LOW devotion in THAT religion is BAD" -- increases devotion in another religion because of negative thoughts. NEGATIVE devotion in this religion leads to decrease devotion in the other by happy thoughts.

So, these precepts would act as feedback systems for religions -- religious affiliations would strengthen/weaken themselves by being practiced.

In conclusion, for now, this seems to me as a (moderately) simple way to have procedurally-generated religions that is capable of capturing mutual enmities, as well as some religious things that are not found in the real world, such as a possibility of having "servant" religions serving the "master" ones.

I'm interested in your feedback.

[Gloster]

I like it as a general idea and I'll think it through thoroughly.

Right now, I'll just offer some knee-jerk nitpicking and reactions (please don't take this as criticism)

I don't really see anyone worshiping unseen gods in a world with manifest real ones.
Also, do gods care if anyone worships them? If they do, I think they would quickly vanquish all (practically defenseless) cults of the hidden gods.

I really like the religious prohibitions and precepts, especially those concerning food and materials. Recalling Pratchett, some dwarfs could refuse to go above ground at all, communicate with elves, eat anything grown in light etc.

Religions could also be monotheistic and polytheistic (I think you omitted to mention that), with dwarfs of the same religion (so still bonding on those grounds) worshiping different gods of the same pantheon (or worshiping them all with different emphasis). This would, in my opinion, be better then having dwarfs have multiple religions (I'm at least certain that nobody in the world thinks of him/herself as having multiple religions; people always have one religion/creed, no matter how many gods, spirits etc. they worship.)

I don't think the devotion laws are necessary or practical. All religions essentially say: belief in our god(s) or at the very least in our religion is good, all else bad. If they didn't, they'd become extinct in a short order (which also quite clearly results from your formulas). Yay for memetics...

Based on this, we could also have priests, churches, rites (could work similar to moods - a religious dwarf must perform some task in a given time frame - for example sacrifice a specific animal or item), religious ceremonies, weddings, funerals, pilgrims, saints, preachers, holy sites, relics, altars, blessings, curses, excommunications etc. etc. Again, the possibilities are practically limitless. (And I am pretty sure some of this was already mentioned in a recent DF talk)

One thing this would probably have to be combined with, though, is the often discussed system of immigration controls. I think a constant stream of mutually hostile worshipers (or even just a complete smörgåsbord of believers of different stripes, never allowing you to get the organized religious life going) would be very frustrating to deal with.

[Gloster]

An interesting question is, whether the individual religions should be preset or procedurally generated (or a combination of both).

Procedural generation would certainly be much more within the spirit of the game and feel "right."

On the other hand, we all already are slaves to Armok and our dwarfs worship specific deities. Plus, certain categories of religions would have to established (aggressive intolerant monotheism, broad polytheism, animism? some pantheistic cults, mystics?) so there wouldn't really be all that much to generate beside the names and specific items, animals and other objects of prohibitions and precepts.
One could have much more fun with designing specific cults (for example some hermetic, secretive, free masons-like sect of carp worshipers, gathering once a season in a wet dark room for their mysterious rituals) which would otherwise not come about by a random process. I'd also likely grow more attached to religions I'd encounter periodically.
Perhaps procedurally deciding which preset religions appear in which world?

[Dutchling]

I would rather see Toady implement the real thing instead of placeholders. Because that random -100 to 100 devotion points will be just a placeholder until real actions in the game and world gen will be the actual reason for that number.
So I say no

[GreatWyrmGold]

I like this general idea, and how thoroughly you described it.

A few thoughts and expansions:

Alternatives to Religion: After a while, "scientific" belief systems or other ones that have no deities may come into being. If there are active gods in the area, this will not occur; if an active deity brings its power to the area, these alternatives will dry up.
Crusades: A group of people with high devotion and decent combat skills in a fairly militant religion will move to kill a group of people who violate their beliefs. For instance, followers of a deity of stone, metal, and war that saw trees as an abomination might purge a fortress of all carpenters and bowyers (woodcutters and wood burners are allowed to live), burn down an elven forest (can you say WAR?), or destroy all wooden houses and other buildings in a nearby human settlement. Obviously, peaceful and pacifistic religions would need quite a provocation to start a crusade--but if they do (say, a peaceful vegetarian religion that is against taming animals watching a large group of elves and tame war elephants and bears destroying a nearby human town and eating a bunch of the slain), this transgression will be great enough that a mighty crusade of farmers and soapmakers and such will rise up and attempt to force the offender to never again violate the precepts.
Holy War: Two differing religions hate each other enough that they send crusades against each other frequently. If they are both in the same entity, this will cause massive deaths; one or both religions might be banned, leading to hidden cults performing inquisitions on the members of the other religion and on the leaders that made it all possible. If two people from the opposing religions saw each other, they would instantly form a grudge against each other, and a fortress whose mayor is one of the opposing religions would sentence members of the other religion to extremely harsh punishments.
New Religions Form: Fortresses should be able to start new religions with FBs, maybe clowns, and definitely sufficiently awesome artifacts and/or high-value stuff (like, -cotton candy large serrated disk- or <<+cotton candy battleaxe+>> or something). These would have properties based off of the thing that spawned them-a religion created by an FB made of stone would consider stone to be sacred, one started around a worm FB would consider worms to be the most exalted of creatures, a religion started by an artifact shield would be based off of defense and peace, and a kobold cargo cult created by a cotton candy-crafted knife would be militant. (Try not to think of the religions created by a fell mood...)

[sockless]

I don't mean any offense in what I say below, so please don't feel offended.

In your thread you seem to be saying that gods in the game should have a tangible effect.

I don't think that religion should be tangible. Right now, there are religions, but whether there are actually gods is moot. What I mean is that it is like real life, we believe in gods, but they may well not be there.

I think that it should stay like that, i.e. gods aren't tangible.

I'm not sure about the idea of laws as well, or at least to an extent. It could be really annoying to have a dwarf that won't work with wood, especially if you skilled him up as a carpenter on embark.

Dietary laws should be split up by strength as well, maybe numerical, so if a religion had a dietary restriction of 100 on above ground plants, then a devout dwarf would rather die than eat them, but if the restriction was a value of 80, or there devoutness was 80, then they wouldn't eat it unless there was nothing else to eat. If the restriction was only 10, then it would be essentially optional, like how Christians shouldn't eat meat on Friday. If dwarves eat something they shouldn't they should receive a bad thought.

I don't think that dwarves should get bad thoughts from a high lying skill either. Skills should be treated as in the above paragraph. So later in the game, when more dynamism is added, some dwarves would lie to get out of a situation, but some wouldn't, this would be interesting in adventure mode.

[Gloster]

I don't know... I think the religions themselves are much more interesting then any gods, but since we have demons and zombies and unicorns, the idea of actual tangible gods seems rather... obvious.
I'm just interested - are you approaching this from a perspective of an IRL unbeliever or a believer? (I can imagine both an atheist not really liking the idea of manufacturing "real" gods for the game and a believer not really liking the idea of manufacturing "fake" ones.)


I discussed the religious concept with a friend of mine and we came to the following conclusions (which I'm trying to keep simple for clarity):

Religions operate on the basis of in-group solidarity and out-group hostility. Dwarfs will be happier interacting with others of their own faith and conversely will feel animosity towards believers in other faiths. This opens up many social possibilities and dilemmas.
Several primary "forces" or motivations follow from this basic rule. One force pushes towards religious unification, as having all dwarfs of a single faith keeps them happier and eliminates religious conflicts. An opposing force pushes towards diversity, because a totally homogeneous fort would severely limit you ability to attract skilled migrants of different faiths, limit your interactions with traders and travelers and possibly interfere with some operations of the fortress as all dwarfs might be unwilling to work with, say, wood.
I think this creates a great dynamic for the player to deal with and balance out. Should I accept the new fanatical metalcrafter? Should I let the traveling preacher inside my fortress? Most dwarfs would like to listen to him but he'll alienate my woodcutter minority...

As for the religious demands, laws and prohibitions, I think they should reflect this group dynamic and the "religious density" of your population. Conditions should be different depending on the composition of the fortress inhabitants. I'll try to illustrate this on an example of a religion prohibiting the consumption of aboveground fish as unclean (lets call it Caveism).
In a mixed fortress with many religions, lukewarm worshipers and no dominant group, a devout Caveist will not eat fish (a less devout one might just generally avoid them), and would only get a mildly unpleasant thought when observing others eating them (so religiously separate dining rooms for the sensitive souls might be in order). But as the number (and percentage) of Caveists rise with migration, successful preachers and legendary Caveist craftsmen attracting more of their kin, they first place restrictions on all co-religionists, barring them from the consumption of fish entirely, regardless of their individual level of devotion, and start strongly demanding that they not come in contact with fish and fish eating. Once Caveists become the dominant or only group, they would demand that fish eating be forbidden entirely for everyone in the vicinity of the fortress and all fish and fish products be dumped.

A variation of this could instead operate with "holy" instead of "unclean" approach to fish (i.e. what really bothers the believers is the act of capturing and killing...) and generally could work with any prohibition, precept or demand.
This is on the stick side of the incentives and pushes the player towards more diversity (As having strong dominant religious groups is highly onerous). As for the carrot part of unification, I would imagine that temples, altars and holy sites could only be effectively established and priests and saints would only appear once a sufficiently numerous believer base is present. Erecting temples would attract migrants of a particular stripe but would upset other groups in the same way nobles envy better living quarters - e.g. promoting one of the two mayor religions in you fort a little more with better facilities would not cause much unhappiness on the other side, but constructing a lavish temple for a tiny sect would cause an uproar within a 70% strong dominant religion. (And religious groups would naturally demand a certain number and quality of altars and temples as a function of their total number, share and average devotion of their adherents.)

This results in several natural functional models of fort operations, from downplaying religion, keeping a very mixed population and preventing any proselytizing (avoiding the penalties and conflicts associated with religion), to completely unified fanatical fortress with huge temples, relics, pilgrims, monks and arch-priests congregated around a holy site (maximizing on religious bonuses). And anything in between.

I guess this is not everyones cup of coffee (so I am strongly of the opinion religion should be an on/off option), but I would totally love a game that allowed me to do this.


Oh, and as far as the "I designated this guy as a carpenter and he won't work with wood now!" problem - you can check the preferences and traits of the dwarfs before assigning them skill points.

[NW_Kohaku]

Not to get too involved in this, since I only skimmed the responses, but Toady has said that he wants the Gods in this game to be actual, physical Gods. 

As in, if you're strolling the city of Athens after a military triumph, Athena might have a parade in her honor for brining victory, and she'd literally be sitting on a throne being carried by the people, drinking a toast to herself in the middle of the street.  Elsewise, an old man you meet on the road could really be a god in disguise and if you are rude to him, he'll turn you into a donkey or something.

It's kind of hard to be an "Atheist" in a world where people claim that a dragon is a god, and you can actually point to the great big fire-breathing lizard sitting on a mountain of gold.  It obviously exists.

It's just that it's also a little easier to prove that "godhood" ain't all it's cracked up to be if some random punk with a shield and a sword can deflect all of "god's" fire breath, and then cut "god's" head off and stuff and mount "god" on his fireplace.

[Marek14]

Some of you seem to be unsure whether I propose real gods or not. I deliberately wrote about both because both are possible. The difference is that a physical, tangible god (I think) would have the power to keep his religion unified. (A prophet suggests that certain religious rule is optional. The god fries him with a column of fire and says "No, it's not.") A hidden god (which may or may not exist) can't do this and so it allows for development of religious differences. In other words, religions based on hidden gods would be more like the ones IRL (as we quite obviously do NOT have obvious gods here). Also, would make for an interesting experiment: if a religion of a physical god competes against a religion of a hidden god, which one will win in the end?

As for a question from which side I approach this question, I am, personally, an atheist.

The system would allow for the possibility of gods without religions (for example various evil demons - though even those COULD have cults that worship them), as well as the possibility of "religions" without gods (wouldn't be religions anymore, but they would still be philosophical systems that can guide you through life - secular humanism might be an example).

What I probably got wrong was the effects of low belief (maybe low belief would reduce the religious thoughts from the dwarf's own actions, but it wouldn't affect thoughts gotten from observing the others?). I just think it's generally a good idea to separate a belief in a god from devotion to a specific religion, as even IRL, they can be quite different things! (There's even a complicated options that BOTH belief and devotion will affect mood change from an action, with several possible combinations.)

As for the high lying skill -- the idea is that a religion can forbid lying as an action (which would cause unhappy thoughts when the dwarf lies or sees another one lying), BUT a religion can also forbid lying as skill -- and in that case a dwarf with high Lying skill (which implies he lied a LOT in the past to train it) would feel guilty and sinful, and he would get an occasional bad thought from that.

BTW, I think the religions should of course have their own histories, martyrs, wars, and so on -- of course I don't propose to just throw together a bunch of random precepts and call it a religion. I propose to simulate the history, add and drop precepts (always given some rationalization, like that the high priest almost died after choking on a fish bone, so the religion forbade eating fish), split into sects, etc.

One thing religions could do would be to have their own version of "prehistory" (i.e. history before Year 1). That way, mythical events are said to take place at that time, they can be mutually incompatible or contradictory for different religions (since that part is not actually generated).

Of course, high devotion should affect (among other things) engraving or statue making -- a very devoted dwarf would be much more likely to engrave an event from his religion, a verse from his holy book, a holy symbol, and so on.

As for strength of laws, I DID propose that, didn't I? (a strength of law, exressed on 0-100 scale)

Now, what a religion would need. I feel strongly that one of the most important things for religion in the medieval ages were BOOKS. Books were what allowed for a fixed religious tradition (a tradition transmitted orally can change much more significantly). I will describe my ideas about books in a new thread since it's a tangent.

[Gloster]

As for strength of laws, I DID propose that, didn't I? (a strength of law, exressed on 0-100 scale)

Perhaps I misunderstood; I was thinking on a "global" fortress scale and thought you had been talking about the strength of laws for individual dwarfs. Or in other words, I thought that in your model dwarfs individualistically respond only to their own subjective feelings and convictions (something you would probably rather call religious "rules" then laws), while in my more societal idea, sufficiently strong religious groups force their ideas on everyone, regardless of their personal opinion (essentially in the form of laws proper). I hope this clarifies my position; was that what you had in mind as well?

[Starver]

Just want to say that I'd tend towards preferring the Discworld sense of Gods.  (Indeed, the detail within "Small Gods", when it comes to low levels of belief, as well as high levels of Philosophy.)  However, this is Toady's work, not Pratchett's (as proven by female dwarves being beardless in DF ) so I only put that down as a datum, and would work with however Toady decided to roll with it.

But I do sort of imagine that most of the God-type gods being worshipped are just lazing around in DF's version of Dunmanifestin, not even playing a game of Significant Quest with live pieces, then there are the Quetzovercoatl-type gods that are actually demons or other extraordinary beings who might indeed be running riot ahead of any forces they might command...

And then there's you, the player.  A relatively Small God, out in the world to run/ruin the lives of a bunch of dwarves (bearded or otherwise) within your limited sphere of influence, by planting ideas in their heads and being vengeful against the ones that annoy you in rather devious indirect ways, and usually by proxy...

[Marek14]

As for strength of laws, I DID propose that, didn't I? (a strength of law, exressed on 0-100 scale)

Perhaps I misunderstood; I was thinking on a "global" fortress scale and thought you had been talking about the strength of laws for individual dwarfs. Or in other words, I thought that in your model dwarfs individualistically respond only to their own subjective feelings and convictions (something you would probably rather call religious "rules" then laws), while in my more societal idea, sufficiently strong religious groups force their ideas on everyone, regardless of their personal opinion (essentially in the form of laws proper). I hope this clarifies my position; was that what you had in mind as well?

It's like this: the precepts are set by the religion as a whole. But, the level of devotion and/or belief of the individual dwarf determines how strong he feels those precepts are. The set precepts are "ideal case" of what a 100-belief, 100-devotion dwarf would do. But in reality, the dwarves won't be usually THAT devoted, and so the actual effect of the precepts will be smaller than the religion actually says.

As for the power, of course the bigger the religion is, the more power it has. Separation of church and state is a relatively modern idea, in the past the norm was that church and state both used each other to keep power, and before that, the church WAS the state and the monarch was also the highest priest. I presume the most usual type of religion would be the confluence one, where there's secular authority and religious authority, but there's lots of influence of each on the other one.

In fact, the patriotism, i.e. the feeling of belonging to a particular culture, could be implemented as a "godless religion" as well -- apart from not having a supernatural object of worship, it works very similarly. This could, in time, even subsume the existing ethics system for civilizations.

So, there's a need to define the difference between things that are WRONG (from the POV of religion) and things that are ILLEGAL (from the POV of secular authority). If the influence of a church is big (one of the most obvious influences is if the ruling monarch is highly devoted -- there are cases of kings literally deciding their subjects' religion), then the religious prohibitions will be simply passed as laws, with punishment corresponding to the precept's strength (Our Founder was betrayed and given poisoned sewer brew. Therefore, whoever brews this drink has no respect for our most holy Founder and will be drowned in the foul stew he himself has brewed. Signed, the King).

There's another side of the coin, though, and that is vigilantism, i.e. when dwarves take it onto themselves to punish someone for violating a prohibition, even if he's not of their religion and they don't really have any authority to do anything about it. I presume that high devotion and high belief are both needed for this behaviour (and dwarves that can't effectively resist the peer pressure would be swept along).

Vigilantism would be affected by the ratio of believers -- if a religion is in minority, any act of vigilantism would be probably met with swift punishment. But if it has a significant majority, dwarves feel sure that they have the public on their side.

(Ever noticed that vigilantism is only ever aimed at the negative precepts? You never see a mob spontaneously forming and rewarding someone for being meek...)

So, in conclusion:

Dwarf does something that is encouraged by his religion: Dwarf gets happy thoughts
Dwarf does something that is discouraged by his religion: Dwarf gets unhappy thoughts, feels guilty. If the thing is actually illegal, the guilt might drive him to confess and accept punishment.
Dwarf sees someone else doing an encouraged thing: Dwarf gets happy thoughts
Dwarf sees someone else doing a discouraged thing: Dwarf gets unhappy thoughts. If the thing is illegal, he'd try to get the offender punished. If he gets VERY unhappy, he might turn vigilante and attempt to punish the offender himself. Maybe the chance of vigilante mob forming would be dependent on how many devout dwarves saw that act? They'd encourage each other and if even ONE of them snaps, he'll take the rest with him...

[Dwarven WMD]

Few things I wonder about, here, though.

First of all, a God's power. What is it derived from? What limits their powers? Moreover, say we have a religious war between two Gods that make their existence actively known. What is going to stop God A from simply making all of God B's followers explode into a giant blob of hellfire? Why can't God B just will God A into disappearing in a puff of logic? Why can't a God simply destroy whatever limits them?

Slight idea, what if their system of gaining power and it being limited was similar to that of ActRaiser, the old SNES game? If I remember correctly, the God the player takes control of gains power through it's belief by followers and their prayers, though in the end people stop believing in the player after he has saved everyone, because people no longer need to pray to him. They only did so because of the demons wreaking havoc.
Perhaps the Gods could derive their power by similar means; The Gods gain their powers by people believing in them, and are limited only by the amount of power they can sustain from the people. This would give the Gods a reason to constantly act and fight each other, because otherwise they would be taking turns playing "See how far we can spread a fire by setting one idiot on fire and have him run around town." If their power stems from belief, the reason for acting against opposers and for warring with other religions is simply to gain more followers, therefore more belief.

However, what about the rewards of following the religion? I'm pretty sure the reward for Satanists is when they go to Hell, they get to sit in the VIP Boxes and watch everyone else get tortured for all eternity. That sounds like a pretty damned good reason to me.
In all seriousness, what is the reason that the followers even BELIEVE? What can the rewards be in depth? Other than the fact that you likely have less of a chance of a fireball hitting your house, at least from your own God, and the fact that you may get some meager protection, why are you going to follow that God? Can they make you stronger, can they intervene if someone tries to murder you, can they give you supernatural powers...
Also, say we had a promise of an afterlife on a cloud somewhere. How the hell is that going to work? Is it ever possible to see it?

Then we come to the part which is essentially the only reason I'm even giving a damn about the religion, because I only enter Fortress to make things for my Adventurers; How can our adventurers be involved in religion?
How can our adventurers take up a religion? How can they show their faith, and how can they benefit?
Perhaps we can just take up quests from priests or we can become missionaries, or we can attend some sort of sermon (I imagine you go into a temple/church/etcetera, you use a bench or something, and the game skips six hours ahead.) to gain knowledge and faith in the religion. If a person of the religion notices your faith somehow, maybe he can baptize you or charm you. If the God is active, maybe, depending on your devotion and faith, something like this will happen:

Priest: Ah, brother ____! How may I help you?
Adventurer: I would like to attend a sermon.
Priest: Very well, please take a seat.
You sit down and begin to listen to the Priest preach about Armok, God of Blood.
Time slowly flows by.
: Your devotion to me over the pathetic infidels who dare oppose my reign of Blood shall not go unrewarded...
A searing pain flashes through you!
You feel a strange pulsation of intimidating power flow through your veins...

Maybe if your devotion is noticed enough, and you are already regarded as a Hero in that civilization, the King may knight you or turn you into a paladin. Possibly, if your faith and devotion is strong enough, you could become a literal demigod (Instead of just figuratively speaking because of how skilled you are.)?
Perhaps if they aren't this devoted, but still show faith, the God will occasionally intervene in your affairs when things turn sour for you, such as if you're being chased by Bogeyman at night, this could happen (If you were considerably lucky and faithful.):

You miss the Bogeyman!
The Bogeyman charges at you, and you both stumble to the ground!
A great flash of lightning suddenly consumes all as thunder suddenly booms out in a rhythm that sounds like the drums of a marching army!
A sudden nightmarish thirst for blood overcomes all of your senses!
The Bogeyman is stunned!
You swing your silver sword at the Bogeyman using finesse and strength you've never felt before!

Another thing is, say my adventurer dies and was extremely, extremely loyal to his religion. Maybe you could play as your adventurer, only in their afterlife? (I imagine at that point our character would end up as some friggin deity.)
All of these suggestions, by the way, would be assuming a huge amount of faith and devotion. If these sorts of things were possible for an adventurer, their faith and devotion needs to be very high.

[Starver]

Another thing is, say my adventurer dies and was extremely, extremely loyal to his religion. Maybe you could play as your adventurer, only in their afterlife? (I imagine at that point our character would end up as some friggin deity.)

Sounds too powerful to me, always leave something in reserve.  A significant amount of faith might grant a form of reincarnation.  You lose all/most of the "faith points"[1] you accumulated in return for revival.  But apart from perhaps an affinity to some aspect of the god who returned you to life worshipped, you're back to scratch and need to make your way in the world again.

And maybe you don't choose the same god, this time round...  I've ideas about the mechanics behind this, but I don't want to be too prescriptive.

OTOH, I don't like the idea that this forces the player to worship a god in order to 'survive'.  Perhaps this would be best left out until and unless apatheitic characters get a form of revive[2] just without any deitic affinity aspect to it.


[1] I'm more used to FP in another context, but this is as good a term as any.

[2] Other than the way they currently do, insofar as the player starting again with a new adventurer.

[Gloster]

It seems to me our concepts are quite similar.

My question is, who do you envision creating the laws? (Practically, in the game.) There are various possibilities, perhaps not entirely mutually exclusive.
Of course, the founding civilization could have its own fixed set of rules, but taken to extremes, that seems rather dull. You would essentially be stuck with a single-faith fort from the beginning to the fun. (Although this opens some possibilities for the patriotic rules and traditions you mentioned.)

The second basic possibility is for the fortress to make its own laws, which could either happen automatically (once a religion achieves a certain position of prominence, it's promoted to a certain status and starts issuing binding rules in a way analogous to nobles) or it could be done by players decision - the dwarfs would demand and require some rules and become upset unless the player yielded to their requests, but it would ultimately be up to the player to make the decision.