So, religions in Dungeons & Dragons fantasy settings usually have some weird “Greek-style pantheism as viewed through the lens of Christian monotheism” thing, with worship of particular deities being fairly “standardized” and big religious conflicts occurring between the worshipers of different gods within the same pantheon. Because you gotta have religious crusades, I guess.
I’m not telling anyone that this is BadWrongFun, but personally I am getting a bit tired of this approach. So instead, how about people worshiping the same pantheons - but interpreting the nature of the gods and the cosmos differently, as well as how to worship them based on their own philosophies and cultural and theological lenses?
As a student of German history and folklore, I can point to the Thirty Years’ War - which was one of the longest and most vicious wars in the history of the country, and was triggered in part by religious differences of people worshiping the same God.
Thus, if there is a religious conflict in my setting, I don’t want it because people are saying: “You are worshiping the wrong Gods!”, but because they are saying: “You are worshiping the Gods wrong!”
Any thoughts on how to interpret the same pantheons in different ways?
The issue in my eyes is less that the “worshipping pool” is so sharply delineated between A and B, and more that the gods are active, present forces which can come down and answer any disagreements promptly. (And yes, this bugs me too.)
Like, it’s hard to have different interpretations if you can just ask the local priest to resolve questions of worship by talking to his god directly, and you’re pretty sure he’s telling the truth because unfaithful priests get stripped of their powers - if not outright smote down - when they misrepresent a diety’s actions.
To make this work - and I agree it’s a much more interesting approach - the gods can’t be a reliably active and predictable force in the world.
Yeah, I’d rather have in-character discussions of faith and morality than just having deities (aka the game master) answer such matters directly. Makes for much better roleplaying!
