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darkworldsawake · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 4:47 am Post subject: Religion?

I kind of want to eschew the typical fantasy trope of having a single pantheon that everybody worships.

On the other hand, I know that the supernatural entities depicted by one religion actually exist and interact with people.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

Daistallia · Newcomer Joined: 17 Jul 2010 Posts: 17

Just to clarify, do you mean that there are supernatural entities depicted by other religions that don't actually exist or interact with people?

Velkas · Conjurer Joined: 02 Sep 2009 Posts: 235

You could have one big pantheon that exists, and have groups that each have their own perspective on the different deities, exaggerate certain aspects, and worship different gods out of the pantheon.
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darkworldsawake · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 3:12 pm Post subject:

That's exactly the trap I didn't want to fall into. It's too D&D.

jseamus · Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:54 pm Post subject:

Cerne · Wizard Joined: 16 Dec 2006 Posts: 863 Location: Canada

Why don't you just have each society/culture believe in their own mythology and then have those mythologies interact with each other in some way? There could be a few deities that originated in one society's mythology but appear in other societies' mythologies as part of some cultural integration process. This works especially well when the two societies had been interacting with each other for a while but have drastically different types of societies. A pastoral god of horses that originated from the mythology of a society of horse-riding nomads might fit well in an agricultural society's pantheon when the latter starts keeping horses as well - probably as draft animals at first, though - to name an example. I would imagine that if two societies had been interacting with one another for a long enough time, their mythologies would eventually fuse.

Just a thought.

darkworldsawake · Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 6:27 am Post subject:

Blake · Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 1:39 am Post subject:

I suggest that you examine the differences between science and pseudoscience in real life, and consider the differences in methodologies relative to the interaction your people have with the real gods in your world. That it, that interaction needs to be something that bad methodology could get terribly wrong.

Most crucially, there needs to be something like that to explain why one particular group has it so right, and the rest have it wrong. Otherwise you're stuck with all people generally believing in the pantheon that actually exists.
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Curlyjimsam · Newcomer Joined: 10 Feb 2007 Posts: 7 Location: UK

I'm not quite sure what your problem is supposed to be, but might I make the following suggestions for alternative religions:

- something like a host of lesser spirits masquerading as "gods" that are worshipped instead of the "true" pantheon in some areas?

- maybe some religions that either reject the existence of supernatural beings altogether, or don't regard them as worthy of worship? A bit like Buddhism, perhaps.

- one or more religions that accept the existence and/or worship only of some of the gods of the "true" pantheon?

Furthermore, some religions could have ideas of the true religion that are largely based on reality but for whatever reason have become distorted.
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