Do any of the homebrew practitioners out there use a lot of religious conflict to drive story?
Not the clergy of one god against another, but say one cult/sect of Pelor (as a generic example) versus another, good versus good. The real world is full of these types of conflicts but the game world (at least as far as I am aware) is devoid of this level of detail. Do any of you out there create sects and practices? Magic specific to sects?
Just curious.
I played in a game about fifteen years ago where the sects/cults were at the very heart of the storyline. My DM back then had his own world and gods (didn't use printed stuff), and had created this elaborate realm, where cults devoted to new gods were slowly taking over the 'ancient ones'. The storyline was pretty dark and gritty (sort of created a hopelessness feeling about the realm), but was very real and down to earth. I guess we could connect with what was going on even if we weren't really religious ourselves. It was kinda cool, and it was very different from what we were used to playing.
Ultradan
I tend to use religious conflicts in games where there's a cleric or other religious type involved. Otherwise, it goes "light" on the religous angle. But, yes, I have used them, to great use.
I personally think that with the deities being "real" and having "real" conflicts, religious war would be the norm of any D&D campaign world. In my homebrew campaign world (currently on hiatus), each nation is devoted to one particular deity and has ZERO tolerance for any other deities. A few nations allow a whole related pantheon in, but most do not.
Since divine spellcasters hold the key to healing, resurrection and crop failure, their power would be absolute--I feel that any organization that holds the key over life and death would wield enormous influence and would oppress and force any non-religious leaders or nobles to follow their will.
...each nation is devoted to one particular deity and has ZERO tolerance for any other deities.
Hmmm, sort of reminds me of the REAL world doesn't it?
Ultradan
I personally think that intolerance, racial and religious warfare would be the norm if historical human nature was applied to any fantasy world. Places where the races and religions coexisted peacefully would be the exception, rather than the rule.
I'm not sure how much fun such a world would be for gaming, but having a major religious war as a backdrop to a campaign is certainly a very plausible storyline.
I personally think that intolerance, racial and religious warfare would be the norm if historical human nature was applied to any fantasy world.
You're right. The humans would have never stopped until they'd have killed all the orcs, the goblins, the kobolds, the dwarves, the elves, the gnomes, the...
Good thing it's fantasy!
Ultradan
To clarify the question was not religious conflict in general, but whether people made significant use of cults and sects to create conflicts between worshippers of the SAME diety.
Conflicts between competing dieties is easy.
Conflicts that have cults competing with each other for the attention of their god, and over their gods resources, are I think an unexplored aspect of the game.
Paladins of the same god fighting each other for what they beleive is right. This is more fertile ground for evil to prosper than a paradigm where good and evil are hunting each other down.
When I watch wrestling, it's always more interesting when two good guys go at it than the usual 'good vs. bad' matches. So yeah, it would be VERY interesting to see two good paladins fighting it out over different points of view.
Ultradan
That's an interesting twist, but with each religion having SO MANY enemies to fight, it's doubtful that there would be much in-fighting within a religion unless all of their enemies and opposing religions were too far away.
Basically, they wouldn't turn on each other until they had no one else to fight against.
But it's a fantasy world, so anything goes. It would be interesting if the internal feud was so strong that even an external threat wouldn't unite them.
good versus good.
Yeah, I played in a campaign where the harpers wanted to kill a certain mage that was providing weapons to the harpers enemies. And the harpers were always considered "good" so we decided to help them carry out their little plot. Well this mage turned out to be a very important individual and was a "good" mage, but was selling items to the "Evil" guys because those "evil" guys were fighting a greater evil, so it was for the greater good. The harpers didn't know that and when they found out didn't want anything to do with the mage and still thought it was wrong. they thought that you can't stop evil by using a lesser evil, while the mage thought that choosing the lesser of two evils is better than certain death.
It was a great twist a very good moral dilemma for most the PCs.later
I've done angels fighting other angels, which is quasi-religious. The PCs had to decide which angels had the "best" motivations, even though they were both utterly good.
-Amber S.
Contributor
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Its kind of a tough thing to get across in game terms if your playing with strict alignments. I've done it in alignment light/ alignment free games however. I find it kind of puts an edge on to paladins, especially when they decide they want to duel over the semantics and interpretation of a holy text. I'm definitely a fan of having different cultures interpret the same deity in different ways however, and having them debate and fight over their neighbors heathenistic blasphemy.
Part of what makes the game world different than our real world is the fact that paladins and clerics can dicern if their opponents are of evil intent, and at the very least, if they are still in conflict, will usually try to use non-lethal means of incapacitating the "misguided" party.
Also in the game world, if a cleric or paladin managed to kill a person that still had the favor of their god, they would likely loose their powers soon after, and thus know they had made a grave mistake.
The best example I can think of within D&D of members of the same clergy being at odds, or creatures that were good being at odds, would be the Cataclysm in DragonLance. Many clerics lost their powers, but rationalized that the world was so good that the gods didn't need to grant them anymore, and the ones that did still have their powers were concerned the that Kingpriest was oversteping his authority, but knew the common folk loved him, and knew that he wasn't evil, but misguided and insulated from the real world.
Similarly, after the Cataclysm, when there were no clerics or paladins any longer, the Hill Dwarves went to war with the Mountain Dwarves becuase they were convinced that the Mountain dwarves had food and provisions in their mountain that they would not share, and the mountain dwarves couldn't persuade the Hill Dwarves that they were as poorly equiped as the Hill Dwarves, and could not spare anything. In the end, some of the Mountain Dwarves decided that if they could not persuade the Hill Dwarves otherwise, and if they were all going to die of starvation or disease anyway, let them cull the population in a war that would at least make them feel as if they had done something good for their nation.
In short, these situations only really come into play when something drastic or major happens.
The only other thing I would point out might be conflicts within clergy when there are Neutral and Good members of the same faith, or even Neutral, Good, or Evil members of the same faith serving the same god, such as Boccob (to use an example from a recent Dragon Magazine).
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I played in a game ages ago set in Greyhawk (before Greyhawk Wars) which the DM had church politics at the center of the campaign. Two of us were playing church knights (paladins + now forgotten kits) dedicated to Pholtus. Since we were the two most regular players our story sort of took center stage.
The big enemy was Iuz. but we had as much or more trouble with factions of our church. Some were traitors, many were wealthy churchmen lining their pockets, but most were trying to do what they thought was right but they were all getting in our way.
It was very similar to the plot of David Edding's Elennium trilogy complete with the election of a new head of the church and the rise of an evil god.
Unfortunately the campaign died before we even broke 10th level. When Greyhawk Wars was released our DM ran the boardgame to resolve some of the war but the rpg never fully resumed.
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I am now running an Eberron Game with a Paladin of the Silver Flame and a Cleric of the Undying Court. Each of these folks will definetly see conflict from within thier own churches.
It's not just Good Vs. Evil, it's how does good best fight evil? And, not everyone of a faith (even if the same alignment) always agree.
Morale dilemas just make good storytelling.
I enjoy religious infighting immensely. I play a made up (at least for 2nd Edition) character, which I call a bishop, but is essentially a neutral paladin. Balance being my ultimate objective, my DM has put in all sorts of conflicts between good vs. evil (at first) and lately more good vs. good. For the good v. evil, I would be forced to choose which held the dominant position (in a world-wide sense) and help the other, but I've found it increasingly difficult (and therefore a whole lot of fun to play) to pick a side in these new conflicts. The reasons for the fights are always realistic ones and could easily be taken out of a real world setting.
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I have a similar experience to Locke 1520, except it was conflict between another player's Cleric of Pholtus and my Paladin of St. Cuthbert. In Greyhawk, the Theocracy of the Pale is a monotheistic realm, and in the game we were playing, worship of any other religion...good, evil, or demihuman, was expressly illeagle. It made for some great conflict (in the good RP way) when we were adventuring outside of the Pale, and some painfully hard choices for all characters when we were drawn by necessity into the Pale.
I love character-driven role-playing like that and think it's a great source of story... levels of zealotry, corruption within a rival's religious structure, corruption within your own, trials of faith, acts of the gods themselves... It has led to some memorable sessions. I still have lots of trouble stomaching followers of Pholtus in any game.