RP Information - Religion in the Realms

[GodBeastX]

I wanted to touch upon something that has been pricking at my neck for some time now and that is the talk of religion.

First I will say why it pricks me a little.

Our player base (Not everyone) has become very rigid and black & white with the views on religions and their scope. Often times we see people throwing around words such as evil, good, corruption, pure, and it's sort of become the standard greeting in a lot of ways.

"Hey, are you evil? If so you should die."

This is CERTAINLY a valid roleplay in the realms. And I am not in any way saying nobody should do this. However, it's become so much the norm that you see it all the time.

If anyone has read the wiki they will notice something like this:

All followers of the following gods must register with the city of Sundren:

--Bane
--Shar
It is not illegal to worship these gods. However, too many of their followers have shown themselves not to be fearful of the gods, but madmen who would cause tremendous harm to the citizens of our land.

Now some of you might be wondering "Why wouldn't worship of Shar or Bane be illegal?"

This is where everyone starts to lose track of just how religion works in the realms. You see, every god in the realms gets honored by the people in some way. It's a polytheistic society. Someone who is strictly all for one god tends to be an extremist.

While gods fight among each other or love one another this is not always how it is on Toril among the people. Helm and Torm, for example, are very close friends, but their worshippers tend to fight one another quite a bit.

To help you get a clearer view on this I will post this excerpt.



A particularly malevolent goddess, for example, is Beshaba. If you read her entry in Faiths & Pantheons, nearly everyone will invoke her to stay off bad luck. It's common practice, for example, to say her name in a wedding ceremony so bad luck doesn't ruin the marriage. This is common behavior of the people.

Shar, for example, is thought to be a goddess one can turn to when someone is feeling the pain of loss and depression and the clergy is thought to ease people's hearts to bear the burdens despite her being arguably the most evil god in Forgotten Realms.

Priests of Myrkul are thought to bring death upon anyone who brings transgression against them.

Many rulers who want to have a solid political rule may sometimes honor Bane.

These are the habits of the people in these realms. The world knows this all the way over, and so, do not create laws to stop people from doing so. Hence why there are laws against blasphemy as well. No man, woman or child with any sense would stand next to the man who raises his fist in the air and says "FUCK BESHABA!"

Divine Ranks tend to be how much worship, lip service, and prayer a god gets in the realms. It's easy to tell what the common person concerns himself with if you consider what each god's divine rank is.

Chauntea has the highest, goddess of farming, agriculture, (I think autumn?), and more. So it's obvious the majority of the world is concerned with this. But right behind her are gods like Bane, Shar, etc. Consider that for a moment. Bane has more Divine Rank than Torm. Wouldn't that mean people pay more homage to Bane among the people than Torm? And that is truly the case!

What you will find is among clergies is where these wars spill out. Priests and Paladins, Blackguards and Divine Champions, go to religious wars against one another. Often, this doesn't involve the common man unless they are hardcore zealots in the church. So for the Paladin, he may say "Fuck Beshaba" but he is ready to go to war for his views.

This is also why Clerics, Priests and such have stronger auras of good and evil than a typical person. Because they hold their god's power and beliefs close to their souls. That is an important distinction when doing things such as detect evil. If you get a faint evil aura from someone, chances are they did something rotten, but they aren't living their lives in harmony with a dark force.

This information isn't here to confuse people, but I wanted to simply clarify that we have a large amount of extremists and this doesn't tend to be the case in the realms among it's people.

[cmosier]

I've actually wanted to RP Byrun making tributes to Beshaba to aid with perceived "bad luck" with certain areas in his life. I haven't done so because I'm concerned about how Religion is RPed. As a player, I hate avoiding good RP, but I also have to maintain my sanity.

[Atmosphere]

I've actually wanted to RP Byrun making tributes to Beshaba to aid with perceived "bad luck" with certain areas in his life. I haven't done so because I'm concerned about how Religion is RPed. As a player, I hate avoiding good RP, but I also have to maintain my sanity.

Feel free to voice concerns and questions. If you have them, chances are somebody else may as well. And answers to setting questions is always a good thing.

[Fury]

Yeah, Byrun had better make the appropriate sacrifice,donation, whatever to Beshaba.... Clearly, she's pissed at him.

[Atmosphere]

Chauntea has summer (think things are growing). Myrkul has autumn (think things are dying)

[Fuzziebunny]

Thanks for posting this GBX. It is a little frustrating sometimes when people use source book information in RP as if they ICly know it. I can not tell you how many tells I got about how Helm and Torm are buddies when I RP'ed my cleric's dislike of the church of Helm.

[Jai_V]

Since a lot of people that play this game have (presumably) been raised in a largely monotheistic (with sometimes slightly dualistic characteristics for us down in the south US) society, I think it's difficult to grasp showing favor to more than one deity.

I've often found difficulty expressing religion with a character, though I have tried. Mostly it's translated to unique oath-swearing. For example, a couple of Cazen's favorite condemnations are "Bane's tyrannical testicles!" or "By the quivering cunt of Sharess!" I've always thought upon that in the same way many people think of "God damn it" in modern society.

[Farmboy2003]

great post! Perhaps we'd think more of this as players if we could pick a few deities as well as the patron deity. It is perhaps more of a habit from character creation. I know for one that I should now go an read up on the seldarine so I can invoke the others a bit more...

[GodBeastX]

Thanks for posting this GBX. It is a little frustrating sometimes when people use source book information in RP as if they ICly know it. I can not tell you how many tells I got about how Helm and Torm are buddies when I RP'ed my cleric's dislike of the church of Helm.

I think these paragraphs are for you.



Things to note from this:

1) The goings on of gods are generally outside of mortal knowing. Generally such information almost ALWAYS requires a high DC on Knowledge Religion rolls. Essentially a high priest is likely to be the only one who knows what's up with a god or a particularly well knowledged individual.

2) Even in each faith there are sects, and sects conflict quite a bit. Notice that they do not lose divine abilities for conflicts unless they stray too far from their dogma, or a Divine being takes direct interest in that moment (Which is also often limited to high priests).

3) Doesn't matter if your church is lawful or chaotic, conflict arises, but chaotic churches are often more wild in viewpoints than lawful churches.


So if someone comes to you and says "Hey, Helm and Torm are friends so we should be too" just reply to them with "Says who?"

[Kitsunestume]

I tend to be along the lines of thought that a character can have a patron deity and a patron pantheon. Just because you follow one deity more than the rest doesn't make them any less a part of how life is: Just because you uphold the tennets of Myrkul dosent mean you nescessarily want Chauntea to stop going her thing of making more life so it can die.
However, a pantheon usually has all the roles it needs filled in it's own system; someone in the Faerunian pantheon is highly unlikely to be making any utterances to Set, for example. Likewise, Elves have their OWN deities of evil, and are probably more likely to curse Lolth than Bane, depending on circumstances.
Not to say you should usually go out of your way to piss off gods, regardless of pantheon of course.. .. .. they ARE still deities.

Also, Farmboy, Deities are sometimes known to have public affiliacations: James follows Gond as his primary, but Gond and Denir are both (mostly) subservient to Oghma and all are roughly equally appreciated by my mad mage. The trio isn't called the Deities of Knowledge and Invention for nothing, after all. And yes, James usually forgets entirely about Milil.

[Fury]

This is depressing- I had a great, thought provoking post all written up, then accidentally hit the back button, and.... gone. So I'll try to do it again.

Jai_V is right in that, for the most of us, our experience with religion is the monotheistic "I'm right, and everything else is a lie" mentality. Instead, I tend to think of it like the Catholic Faith, if you were to count Ao as the "overgod", and all the gods and goddesses as the various patron saints (since, you know, that's what the Catholic Church did with the polytheistic faiths anyway.) You would still follow the God or Goddess whose portfolio had the most impact on your life (and no, it is not necessary to have the same alignment as your god), but offer a prayer to another when you needed their assistance- or offer the appropriate prayer as tradition dictates. People would think nothing of it.

As it stands, it seems like we sort of have a "Faith Gestapo" running around, and that- to me- is... well, very familiar since I'm smack in the middle of the bible belt... but it's unrealistic in the Forgotten Realms setting. Mind you, current events do have an impact on public opinion- while saying a traditional prayer to Beshaba or Umberlee may not create a hint of a stir, doing the same for Bane, or Myrkul might- because of the Black Hand, and because propaganda works (hence, republicans). That wouldn't make offering those prayers illegal, by any means- I just imagine that it would make the common man mutter behind the suplicant's back, or if he's the suplicant, to offer his prayers in a very private setting.

[GodBeastX]

To further add on to the above, I want to post something to give you guys an idea of just how hard it is to know something about outside beings from the world.

I was reading through the book on devils which stated that Mephistopheles has trouble getting his cult off the ground because most cultists DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEPHISTOPHELES AND ASMODEUS! They get them confused! They don't have source books to pop open and go "Ohhhhh, I see! DURRRRRP!"

I tend to use the Take 10 rule on knowledge. If something would be a DC10 or lower for knowledge, then common people know it. Identifying grass, for example, would probably be a DC 1 on Knowledge Nature.

So lets check what someone would have to roll for Asmodeus.



So, to even know that Asmodeus is a patron to oppressors and might. You have a DC 20, and to be CERTAIN you know without rolling, you need 19 ranks in Knowledge Religion.

It's a DC25 to even know Asmodeus rules hell!

People don't know this stuff! Let me give you another piece of information that might make you go O_O. Most mortals CANNOT tell the difference between Celestials and Erinyes. Erinyes use this to their advantage to get souls. Another drop of information you may not have known, you can actually find devils to bargain with very easily! They tend to hang out in bars and stuff waiting for someone who they can get a soul from. So, think about that next time you walk into the Second Wind. There might be some poor mortal who came out without his soul and a pocket full of coin not realizing he just bought his way into hell.

[GodBeastX]

That being said, it is 100% ... wait no, 200% okay to ask a DM if your character would know something if you're not sure or ask for clarity on something you think you might know. As said by my cohort earlier, it's always safe to ask us. If we were around a table doing P&P I'd definitely be telling people "C'mon, your character doesn't know that." or "You should totally know this, cuz you got mad knowledge planes."

And for people with 0's in every knowledge, I feel bad for you son! There's a reason I maxed Maine's knowledge planes, cuz she knows that shit!

[Atmosphere]

Since a lot of people that play this game have (presumably) been raised in a largely monotheistic (with sometimes slightly dualistic characteristics for us down in the south US) society, I think it's difficult to grasp showing favor to more than one deity.

I've often found difficulty expressing religion with a character, though I have tried. Mostly it's translated to unique oath-swearing. For example, a couple of Cazen's favorite condemnations are "Bane's tyrannical testicles!" or "By the quivering cunt of Sharess!" I've always thought upon that in the same way many people think of "God damn it" in modern society.

If it helps, try to think of it more as pagan rome than modern anything. Or pagan greece as city states are still a thing in faerun. Calling yourself the son of hades would make you viewed as both feared and cursed. Cursing his name would make you look either foolish or fearless. Worshiping him might not be popular because he is a jerk but it happens as a necessary need to appease the one who holds a specific domain. The gods are very much real and calling out their name is to ask for their gaze. You risk being smited by Bane himself who clearly has a presence in Sundren by teasing him. People might want to distance themselves from you to avoid the baddness you are requesting. But using humor in your word play with a god who has a great humor may bring you favor. Remember some of the gods were mortal at one point and they can be as petty as man. A cleric or paladin who acts against their god's will, who they draw power from, may find themselves having issues - divine block/fallen. Not venerating any god, aka not having chosen one, means your soul ends up in the wall when you die and not that you are a cool modern day atheist (because once again, the gods are very much a real thing per setting).

That actually makes me have a godbeast question. How does soul of a demon/devil cultist work once they die. I assume the demon or devil claims it? *edit/add* Uh, you answered this. Lol

[cmosier]

Feel free to voice concerns and questions. If you have them, chances are somebody else may as well. And answers to setting questions is always a good thing.

I pick my battles carefully. I'll keep this in mind though. I'm working on my skill as a player to better handle the "High Profile" character thing. It's a definite challenge. I'm trying to be better at "is he metagaming" changing to "of course he's under scrutiny, he's a powerful Noble."

Yeah, Byrun had better make the appropriate sacrifice,donation, whatever to Beshaba.... Clearly, she's pissed at him.

This was meant for after Aquor. Yes. Things have been looking up for Byrun. River is extremely special and unique. :-)