On another note:
What Domains would suit
Christianity
Judiasm (note that in the middle ages they were pretty repressed)
Islam
Daoism/Chinese Buddhism (trust me, nothing like the stuff in India!)
Buddhism
Zorastianism
I'm not Jewish, but I've studied the history a little. I would say there are two main categories, the first is ancient Israel. This is a period of many sects of Judaism, much akin to American Protestantism in its variations and vitriol between sects (some got along, others didn't). I would include as possible domains, you could trim the list though, or tailor specific sects from this one:
Artifice
Community
Earth
Glory
Law
Nobility
Protection
Repose
War
The second significant period would be the Diaspora. This is the period after the Romans begin to actively drive the Jews out of Israel. Around the 6th century, Rabbinic Judaism started to coalesce. One aspect of Rabbinic Judaism is very scholarly and because of this Jews became some of the most significant scholars in the West until the renaissance, helping translate and transport Arabic and Greek texts about mathematics and many other disciplines. I would change their possible domains to look more like this:
Artifice
Community
Knowledge
Law
Liberation
Magic
Rune
Travel
The reason that I included Artifice in both, is that golem is actually a Hebrew word. Other cultures have the concept in their folklore. Jewish golems are usually mud (or clay) and technically, the first human created by God was a golem, until he breathed life into him and named him Adam.
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Dudmeister is right. Talk to your players first.
I have one group that I play in and GM sometimes that has one irritatingly strident Atheist. He knows that there is no god, and anyone who believes in a religion is a fool and an idiot who has been duped. I think he thinks of religion as "opiate for the masses. "
The only thing that irritates me about this is that he has an “I’m right and your wrong” attitude if you don’t see things his way, which I realize has nothing to do with his atheism. I don’t think a game with a “Christian “ god would go down well with them.
In another group I play in, I have one friend whom I think is a quiet catholic, a medieval scholar, and my “dwarven friend” he has a big red bushy beard, he prospects for gold, brews his own bear and is a stone mason. We have decided he is a “human sized dwarf”. I don’t think this group would mind if I ran something Medieval with a duality of Christianity / Islam / Judaism, on the one had and Devil/ Satan/ Shaitan on the other. I think they may actually find it interesting.
It depends on your group. Often because of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian’s antagonistic persecution of Dungeons and Dragons in the mid 80s because they believed and some probably still do, believe this game is satanic and the gate way to the occult. Many of us still remember this, and have a hostile feeling towards evangelical Christianity / Catholicism.
So as Dudmeister suggests, talk to your players first
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I used to game with a group of Christians who played (alternating D&D and a Homebrew Traveller) PCs who WERE Christians, living in a Christian universe.
The PCs prayed before adventures and talked to NPCs about God and such. They still killed monsters and retrieved artifacts and such -- roleplaying through Christian-like adventures.
I helped 'em design a few mechanics for Divine Intervention and Hero Points (Grace Points) -- the stuff they had been using was broken and too bulky for ease of use.
I think that you can cover quite a bit with real world religions, and I think that almost every domain can be covered by some incarnation of the christian church. Depending on the time period, and the order/sect you could represent just about any domain as christian. Many wouldn't be very 'Christ-like' but that doesnt mean they weren't christian.
For instance you wouldn't really associate war with the christian faith, but lets face it, the knights templar were a religious order and they were soldiers. Would anyone really object to a cleric templar getting the war domain?
And in case you wanted to object to any other domain I would put money down that no matter what domain you think of, there is a patron saint of it. If there is a saint who's bailiwicke is that domain, why shouldn't it be available to christians?
list of saints invoked against illness, dangers etc
saints of occupations and activities
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The favored weapon for medieval Christianity is the longsword. It looks like a cross. It is the weapon that the templar, hospitallers, and other sects of warrior-monks favored for exactly this reason.
Incidentally, did you ever play Darklands? Because it's amazing for exactly this sort of thing - it shows you the incredible diversity of medieval Christianity through the liberal use of saints. I think medieval Christianity would be just fine with 'choose your own domains' because even stuff like Fire and War is covered under certain saints they believed in at the time.
I'm definitely with Kolokotroni on his ideas.
Also, you probably know better than we do about how it'll play out because you know your group better than we do.
Wasnt there some sort of historical papal ruling that forbade priests to use edged weapons? Its from that the inital mace wielding cleric came from for all those still able to remember basic-expert and 1st Ed AD&D.
I am confident there are many many papal rulings that contradict and overrule eachother. And there were no walking miracles about(clerics) at the time of said rulings. If there were clerics dont you think some templars would have been clerics? I am certain that the edge weapon restriction should it exist (which i do not doubt) would not apply to holy warriors.
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Wasnt there some sort of historical papal ruling that forbade priests to use edged weapons?
Heavens no. Knights Templar and other monastic Knightly Orders used the shit out of swords.
Its from that the inital mace wielding cleric came from for all those still able to remember basic-expert and 1st Ed AD&D.
The iconic mace-wielding cleric stems entirely from Bishop Odo, William the Conqueror's half-brother, and more of a political bishop than an ordained priest. He was depicted in the Bayeaux tapestry wielding a mace, and apocryphal tales have him talking about how a man of the cloth is forbidden to shed blood, so he used a blunt instrument. I say apocryphal, because anyone who was William the Conqueror's half-brother has seen some battles in his time, and would know that bashing someone with a mace makes just about as much bloody mess as a sword.
It's mostly some nerd fanon created by the Gygaxian Founders to give some flavor to their priestly troop-type in their fightin' game.
It should be also pointed out that if you want nastier domains like Disease in a Christian game, you invoke the old testament prophets. There's a Russian folktale I've read called "A Candle for Ezekiel" where Ezekiel is riding his chariot around through the sky acting like a Russian Orthodox version of Tlaloc, ruining crops and spreading sickness for all the wicked peasants who fail to propitiate him correctly.
And it should also be pointed out that the God of the old testament certainly had access to the Disease domain. Otherwise, doing the Seven Plagues of Egypt would have been a little hard to pull off.
There was a bishop in the song of roland with a mace as well. Can't remember his name off the top of my head. Now I want to re-read the song of Roland.
Ultimately depends on your player base. Some groups will take to it very well. Others might be sensitive about the issue.
An open discussion with your players about the issue is the smarter way to go.
Agreed. Make sure you have the right players for this world.
Speaking only for myself, I've never been TOO comfortable playing characters that were overly religious. It brushes just a LITTLE close to blasphemy for me... So i've usually avoided the priestly characters.
That said... I have a LOT more comfortability playing a character worshiping some OTHER god... then I would bringing my OWN God into a 'game' and playing out miracles and such...
THAT may be taking things too far... Turning religion into a game or parody...
Like your title says, 'Controversy' Make sure your players are OK with the controversy before you try to spring this on them.
Myself, I prefer my fantasy to be just that FANTASY. The more real-world stuff you throw in... the less fun I have ;)
How do you think it will play?
It depends on what you mean by real world religion X. The modern take? The take of people at the time? The take of a semi-literate peasant priest who got his entire education in brief one-on-one sessions with a traveling preacher and is on his own 90% of the time? Or one of his parishioners, who quietly naps in the back for most sermons? The take of a cathedral canon or master in a university? A mendicant friar?
Some of these are compatible. Others are radically incompatible. A true to history depiction of many historical mores could be incredibly horrific, possibly in ways injurious to everyone having fun.
Of course any of these are going to slam hard against the alignment in the real world problems. My preferred approach has been to be inspired by history, but to create something that gives my Christian player or players (I don't know how many of my current lineup are Christians.) room for plausible deniability. It's meant to evoke medieval Europe and medieval Christendom (And Judaism, and medieval Christian anti-Judaism and anti-Islam beliefs too...) without being the same place.
I don't necessarily mind the problem of the paladin and the orc babies, but I really don't want to derail my gaming with "My Church would NEVER..." or "But the Bible says..." I might be find having those arguments in other contexts, but not in the game.
I once played in a d20 Modern campaign where all the PCs were Catholic priest monster hunters, and oddly enough, religion stuff never really came up.
I also played with a group in college that mostly went to church together Sunday nights before playing D&D. The group had 2 eucharistic ministers. The non-Catholic was the son of a preacher man (Anglican), so he also went to church with us, since he was a religious studies major. And religiosity never popped up during the campaigns either.
Domains don't really make sense when looking at real world religions. They're built towards Greek pantheons where you have a god of three or four things and you devout yourself towards one god.
I mean really, Abrahamic religions are pretty straightforward. "There's one god and he's god of everything." Kinda hard to limit that guy's domains.
What about less Abrahamic religions? Hinduism has a lot of gods, certainly, but you aren't really expected to just choose one as your "patron." At what point do you say "No, this domain can't be used because your religion literally has no access to that."
Of course your biggest problem is in how many spells explicitly contact the divine. Kinda hard to have multiple religions all stating they're the real one when you can literally phone the divine and ask which religion is the right one.
Domains don't really make sense when looking at real world religions. They're built towards Greek pantheons where you have a god of three or four things and you devout yourself towards one god.
I mean really, Abrahamic religions are pretty straightforward. "There's one god and he's god of everything." Kinda hard to limit that guy's domains.
What about less Abrahamic religions? Hinduism has a lot of gods, certainly, but you aren't really expected to just choose one as your "patron." At what point do you say "No, this domain can't be used because your religion literally has no access to that."
Of course your biggest problem is in how many spells explicitly contact the divine. Kinda hard to have multiple religions all stating they're the real one when you can literally phone the divine and ask which religion is the right one.
I politely disagree. While God is presented as being the god of everything, certain things are either not iconic of his concerns, actions or are opposed to his concerns. A few things are even unimportant.
For example, looking within the Bible, I would definitely agree that elements of nature are present, but I would not say that the Animal and Plant domains would be iconic of the stories within, while Weather might better represented.
I agree, having religions present in a game like this one must make definite decisions to how their very nature is affected by the presence of magic. If you remove plane-hopping and direct conversations with outsiders, you can maintain an element of mystery if you choose, though it can be difficult to maintain.
Whether this would end up controversial/tasteful/whatever in any particular group really depends on how you present it and how your PCs react.
How are you explaining the way that different contradicting religions all work miracles? I'd say that's the most serious danger area.
I'd be tempted to say that it all comes from a real divine (or similar) source, but nobody can agree what it is. A Christian cleric, for example, might see Islamic miracles as coming from the Christian God understood in a different way, or from Satan in disguise. The Islamic cleric would see the Christian cleric's magic in a similar way.
Domains don't really make sense when looking at real world religions. They're built towards Greek pantheons where you have a god of three or four things and you devout yourself towards one god.
I mean really, Abrahamic religions are pretty straightforward. "There's one god and he's god of everything." Kinda hard to limit that guy's domains.
In reality Christianity especially is only slightly more monotheistic then the Greek pantheon. In a victorian game for instance we have the order of saint micheal, grants protection, justice, and a couple other domains. The saints provide a very easy division along very similar lines to the existing domains.
What about less Abrahamic religions? Hinduism has a lot of gods, certainly, but you aren't really expected to just choose one as your "patron." At what point do you say "No, this domain can't be used because your religion literally has no access to that."
Of course your biggest problem is in how many spells explicitly contact the divine. Kinda hard to have multiple religions all stating they're the real one when you can literally phone the divine and ask which religion is the right one.
You are presuming there is a 'right' one. Modern religions are not the only ones that claimed to be the one true religion.
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Spells that contact the divine are no problem.
If God came down in our earth today and said "This is my religion...", then this could potentially solve our religious disagreements for about a week. Then we'd start fighting again. Assuming we listened in the first place, which is really a big assumption.
An interesting thing to note, during the 12th-15th century the church had a strong opposition to spilling blood. Enough so that surgery and treating those with a bloody wound was viewed as sinful.
I ran a Ravenloft game that had a Christian Cleric as a pre-gen NPC once. I also am working on incorporating Judeo-Christian religions for my 17th Century idea, as well as for many other ideas that I have.
Usually, my take is that there are almost no Christian Clerics. (Or Jewish Clerics, or Muslim Clerics, et cetera.) The clergy is mostly composed of Experts. If a PC is a Cleric, he (or possibly she) is an exception her the religion makes no recognition of his Cleric class.
For my 17th Century game, considering that it is in a sort of alternate universe where Pathfinder classes exist, I am strongly considering making the Jesuits an order that includes a number of Monks (as defined in the Pathfinder rules). This is one way to justify a Monk character.
For this setting I also invented two fictitious orders of that include Monk characters, but may also include characters of other classes as well: the Verteidiger who are a Protestant order of martial artists, and the Theclanae, who are an ancient order of female ascetics, most of whom are actually Bards. But these are fictitious ideas that I figured would help support Pathfinder character classes in a Christian world.
As for domains, I would say that if the clergy are not recognized as being members of the Pathfinder class, then Clerics (as defined by Pathfinder) could have any domains that made sense for the character. After all, if there is only one God, then He has to be the God of Everything, and so therefore every domain has to be available for his servants.
One interesting question is the relationship between the Judeo-Christian God and the other religions.
As for domains, I would say that if the clergy are not recognized as being members of the Pathfinder class, then Clerics (as defined by Pathfinder) could have any domains that made sense for the character. After all, if there is only one God, then He has to be the God of Everything, and so therefore every domain has to be available for his servants.
I still very much disagree. For example, Darkness, Death and Evil would NOT be iconic of the abilities displayed by God and those given to various servants within the Bible. I think several other domains would also fall outside this purview. While God might have a particularly large domain, as compared to Greek, Norse or Pathfinder gods, not all of the domains would fit within the narrative that is the Christian religion.
I highly recommend checking out some of Joseph Campbell's work to help gain a deeper understanding of the story and symbolism of religion. They just added roughly another 12 hours of lectures/interviews on Netflix (in addition to 6 hours they had previously). He was a scholar who had a deep love for all religions and I highly recommend anything based on his work.
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If you do go the route of using real-world religions, I recommend:
1) No alignment.
When you start assigning the simplified alignment system to real world religions and people, things are going to get strange. Most religions would paint themselves as Lawful Good, but would a Lawful Good church be able to go to war with another Lawful Good church? Could a Lawful Good church commit atrocities or be plagued with corruption, and still receive spells from their god? If not, then you're going to end up with a lot of religious orders without divine spellcasting, or a weirdly friendly set of major religions traditionally at arms with one another.
(In the Heroes of Horror book for 3.5, there's an optional "relative alignment" system, where your alignment is determined by local customs and morals. If you must use alignment, this could be the way to go, but it brings all kinds of new issues to the table.)
2) No sphere restrictions.
As mentioned, most monotheistic religions make up for the lack of multiple deities with a plethoria of saints, martyrs, and angels, all of whom may have prayers directed to them. I would remove the alignment domains, but that's about it.
3) Take a look at GURPS Banestorm. There is a setting that does the "real-world religion in a fantasy setting" rather well, and that's GURPS Banestorm (formally GURPS Fantasy). In the setting, people from various times and places have been deposited by the titular Banestorm on a fantasy world called Yrth, including various human cultures. Arcane and divine magic are mostly the same thing (a rare few have true faith-based powers), with clerics having to study for spells.
There are some verses in the Bible that say that all darkness and evil, come from God, and of course Jesus supposedly conquered Death. This is part of the paradox of monotheism, because if there is only one god, then where does evil come from?
But as I said, a Cleric could have any domain that makes sense. If a player wanted the Evil domain for his Christian character, I would have to ask some very hard questions for why that domain makes sense.
As for alignment, the solution I intend to use for my 17th Century campaign is to make alignment "occulted", meaning that the characters in the world do not know anything about alignment, but characters are still responsible for alignment restrictions.
Jewish Clerics would have to maintain an alignment within a step of Lawful Good, because they saw God is Lawful and Good. Christian Clerics, though, could choose among the three "persons" of the Trinity, and thus could be within one step of the Lawful Good "Father", one step of the Chaotic Good "Son", or one step of the Neutral "Holy Ghost".
If you can figure how that works out metaphysically, let me know. I'd also like to know where this puts Muslim Clerics.
I do suppose you could worship the Anti-Christ, and be within a step of Lawful Evil.
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Technically, Jesus drove the money changers from the Temple with his belt, like some sort of drunken, abusive messiah.
The whip. Its the only weapon Jesus ever used
That's the funniest damn thing I've read all week.
Domains don't really make sense when looking at real world religions. They're built towards Greek pantheons where you have a god of three or four things and you devout yourself towards one god.
I mean really, Abrahamic religions are pretty straightforward. "There's one god and he's god of everything." Kinda hard to limit that guy's domains.
You could do it with Christianity, Catholicism anyway. Saints specifically have domains which they cover.
For example, looking within the Bible, I would definitely agree that elements of nature are present, but I would not say that the Animal and Plant domains would be iconic of the stories within, while Weather might better represented.
I guess the counter-point would be the pretty consistent use of a variety of animals by God and His prophets in the Old Testament.
Everything from a big fish to a giant worm, a mother bear to poisonous serpants, quail to ravens, gnats to frogs.
In cataloguing the actual miracles done by God and in the same of God, I think Animals would be their own main category. Hence, a domain would be appropriate.
On the other hand, Jesus' main relationships with animals were cursing them and eating them.
Domains don't really make sense when looking at real world religions. They're built towards Greek pantheons where you have a god of three or four things and you devout yourself towards one god.
I mean really, Abrahamic religions are pretty straightforward. "There's one god and he's god of everything." Kinda hard to limit that guy's domains.
You could do it with Christianity, Catholicism anyway. Saints specifically have domains which they cover.
Maybe there could be special feats available to those who venerate the saints. I think Iron Kingdoms might have defined something similar, since they had a deity called Merrow who had a team of "Ascended" working under him.
For example, someone who venerates St. Christopher might be able to take a feat that gives them a 50% chance of avoiding encounters they'd otherwise have on their travels.
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Urgh.... it's bad enough when people think that paladins and clerics can't have sex, we don't need anything adding to the confusion. Sure it will work for you, but I'm tired of pointing out to people, about the paladin's "sure, go ahead" position on intimate intercourse, or the cleric's "...what's your alignment? that will determine the available options for sex" position on the subject. The paladin's a bit loser on the subject, because if anyone is willing to throw away their paladin-hood for sex, then they don't deserve to be a paladin.
Also, if there isn't a Saint covering a specific set of domains someone wants to play, just pick another real-world god and anglicize his name somehow (Thor = Saint Donald as an example) and voila!
It's where a lot of the saints and angels come from anyway. (I know there were those that didn't (St. Francis Assisi being one of my favorites) so don't argue with me too much. ;) )
For example, looking within the Bible, I would definitely agree that elements of nature are present, but I would not say that the Animal and Plant domains would be iconic of the stories within, while Weather might better represented.I guess the counter-point would be the pretty consistent use of a variety of animals by God and His prophets in the Old Testament.
Everything from a big fish to a giant worm, a mother bear to poisonous serpants, quail to ravens, gnats to frogs.
In cataloguing the actual miracles done by God and in the same of God, I think Animals would be their own main category. Hence, a domain would be appropriate.
On the other hand, Jesus' main relationships with animals were cursing them and eating them.
I definitely agree, they're present and part of God's domain, but aren't necessarily iconic of how the religion operated. To me when you assign a domain to a god, you're saying that that domain is iconic, not just within the realm of possibility for that god.
Law is iconic for Judeo-Christians, it's part of the worship, beliefs and stories. Chaos is not. Could God replicate any of those abilities in Chaos? Sure, but that isn't really the message he's sending to his followers, so he it isn't included. That's my point. And regarding Animals, Christianity is not an animistic religion, does not worship or revere animal spirits. Animals are subservient and lesser. Compare to a Native American religion, or any hunter/gather people, and you'll see the difference.
I highly recommend checking out some of Joseph Campbell's work. It's highly informative, especially if you want to find the similarities and differences between religions, because it's those similarities and differences that help make interact well within a piece of fiction, even an RPG.
Domains don't really make sense when looking at real world religions. They're built towards Greek pantheons where you have a god of three or four things and you devout yourself towards one god.
I mean really, Abrahamic religions are pretty straightforward. "There's one god and he's god of everything." Kinda hard to limit that guy's domains.
What about less Abrahamic religions? Hinduism has a lot of gods, certainly, but you aren't really expected to just choose one as your "patron." At what point do you say "No, this domain can't be used because your religion literally has no access to that."
Of course your biggest problem is in how many spells explicitly contact the divine. Kinda hard to have multiple religions all stating they're the real one when you can literally phone the divine and ask which religion is the right one.
The Hebrew Bible acknowledges the existence of many gods, which is why the First Commandment demands that Hashem be the only object of the Hebrews' worship. He is the god of that people. If he were the only deity in the world, he wouldn't need to try to monopolize their attention. (I'm not stating this as fact, because I don't believe it myself, but from that point of view it is fact.)
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Or maybe there were lots of people that worshiped what God knew to be stupid, useless idols, but he didn't want to go on a long diatribe that nobody would listen to about how those idols don't actually do anything and have no power.
It's a lot simpler to say "Don't worship other gods" than to say "You know those gods that other nations say they have? Well, they don't exist. I know, you can see those idols and statues, and the statues exist, but the gods they're supposed to represent don't exist."
This doesn't completely rule out the possibility of other gods existing. It just means that there's more than one possible meaning for a 4,000-year-old text.
Urgh.... it's bad enough when people think that paladins and clerics can't have sex, we don't need anything adding to the confusion. Sure it will work for you, but I'm tired of pointing out to people, about the paladin's "sure, go ahead" position on intimate intercourse, or the cleric's "...what's your alignment? that will determine the available options for sex" position on the subject. The paladin's a bit loser on the subject, because if anyone is willing to throw away their paladin-hood for sex, then they don't deserve to be a paladin.
I'm not sure where the thing about Paladins and Clerics not having sex comes from. That seems to be a Roman Catholic thing, and even then, Paladins would be expected to get married and contribute to the royal line.
Protestant, Jewish, and Orthodox clerics would not only be allowed to have sex, but be expected to get married and have children. I've even read that the secrets to the Cabalah were not to be revealed to anybody who was not at least 40 years old and married.
In my fictitious Judeo-Christian Theclanae order (which happens to accept females of Christian, Jewish, or Islamic faith), the members of the order need to take a vow of chastity. But in my fictitious Vertidiger order in the same setting (a Protestant order of Monks), there only restrictions are the same ones laid on anybody else: sex is only allowed with the one person of the opposite sex that you are married to.
(I am learning some interesting things about homosexuality in the 17th Century. Apparently it was not that rare among the nobility, but I don't think the Vertidiger would approve.)
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Of course, the Jesuits, if you have them as an order of Monks in your campaign, would also be prohibited from having sex, as well as any other Catholic order of priests, monks, or nuns that actually abide by Catholic teachings, post 11th century of course -- wikipedia indicates that the actual story is a lot more complicated than I have time to read right now: details
I'm not sure where the thing about Paladins and Clerics not having sex comes from. That seems to be a Roman Catholic thing, and even then, Paladins would be expected to get married and contribute to the royal line.Templars (and I believe Hospitaliars) were expected to be Chaste as part of their vows... which was one of the Knightly orders that the Paladin concept was drawn from.
Politically (I am TOTALLY leaving religion out of this bit) it made sense to not allow for married 'Paladins' and 'Clerics' - it made rules of inheritance moot. They could have children - a lot of them did in the middle ages but it gave the children NO claim to legitimacy (and thus inheritance) and so kept all the wealth (and power of titles/offices) within the church.
There is also the question of whether "Paladins" and "Clerics" are the same things as "knights" and "priests". One could be a knight but not a Paladin, or be a Paladin but not recognized as a knight. Especially if there is a situation (which there usually is) where there are multiple sects each claiming legitimacy: a person could be a Paladin, but belong to a heretical sect.
I think that you can cover quite a bit with real world religions, and I think that almost every domain can be covered by some incarnation of the christian church. Depending on the time period, and the order/sect you could represent just about any domain as christian. Many wouldn't be very 'Christ-like' but that doesnt mean they weren't christian.
For instance you wouldn't really associate war with the christian faith, but lets face it, the knights templar were a religious order and they were soldiers. Would anyone really object to a cleric templar getting the war domain?
And in case you wanted to object to any other domain I would put money down that no matter what domain you think of, there is a patron saint of it. If there is a saint who's bailiwicke is that domain, why shouldn't it be available to christians?
list of saints invoked against illness, dangers etc
saints of occupations and activities
In Christian religion you have a "calling". During character creation each player must decide, who called. Michael or one of his subordanates will have called a paladin or war priest.
You need to watch the Qubo show Book of Virtues. If an angel tells you go out and be a bandit, you do that. God always has a reason that will become clear in time.