Minor Detail

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

The town's priest is named Brion. (Whether or not he's the town's only priest and the one Monica has referred to in his journal depends rather on whether Steve and Ruth play again.)

Brion is a kind man, a competent healer, and something of a scholar; he is somewhat timorous of combat.

Comments

[cellio]

Something for you to chew on (of primary interest to us locals -- not sure who exactly that is):

What is religious life like around here? Is there one dominant religion and everyone does its equivalent of going to church every Sunday morning and otherwise doesn't get that involved, or what? Or is it even important to the locals? Is this priest serving the community, or is he here more as an evangelist, or what?

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

For locals: I think Larissa is the only one from this town. Prolix is from this small area, though he's been in this town for a month or so. Kyle and Larissa are from out of town but from this general region, and Turok is of course from far away.

Here's what I suspect this part is like--I welcome your opinions on whether it makes sense:

The community is polytheistic. Since there are multiple gods who have gotten involved with the world in legend, this seems necessary.
However, Pelor is the god most worshiped around these parts, particularly because things have been peaceful enough that people are a bit suspicious of folks who get too enthusiastic about the more bellicose gods. But pretty much everyone is comfortable giving support to good and healing.

So, to reconcile this, I propose that there is a reasonably intricate set of feast days and ceremonies for various gods throughout the year (though it would be much more intricate if the lunar and solar calendars didn't align so nicely). People in town observe most of the major ceremonies for various gods, but are more likely to attend monthly or weekly services for Pelor than for anyone else
Brion officiates for the services for Pelor; services for other gods are presided over by a circuit rider priest, or by a deacon or layperson from town.

People also live in general under a melange of gods, with different gods being invoked in different parts of life. I want it to be the case that Brion can handle most of the divine intercession that most people need. I also want it to be the case that he is especially favored by Pelor and especially favors Pelor. So I think it's the case that he invokes Pelor in most of his rituals, and if he needs to invoke some other gods for a marriage or funeral, well, Pelor won't smite him for that. (This is one of the big reasons that if you have only one priest serving a community, they're likely to be a priest of Pelor.) This does mean that for something like a funeral for a paladin devoted to a different god, Brion would have to get in some help.

I think the temple has a reasonably large area that can be used for the services for most of the popular gods, and a smaller chapel that is Pelor-specific.

The priest is serving the community. He is basically guiding the town's relationship with all the gods, though he has a special affinity for Pelor and would encourage Pelor's worship more than anyone else.

Does that all seem reasonable?

[cellio]

This makes sense to me. In particular, D&D (at least previous editions; haven't looked closely at 3rd) had this IMO broken view of religion, where you worshipped (and could serve) one and only one god regardless of the pantheon's structure. Yet if you look at real-world polytheistic societies, like the ancient Greeks or the Vikings, you see that what god(s) you prayed to depended on what your situation was, and was thus variable. You didn't have priests of Odin who had no relationship with Thor or Freya, and so on. So I'm glad to see Brion with a "primary" god but working with the pantheon as a whole.

I would guess that if the pantheon's gods call for regular worship get-togethers, they'd be pretty much god-inedependent and would be attended by most of the village.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

D&D still has that view of religion. I agree it's broken.

(Another way D&D's theology is broken: evil gods. I'm not convinced human history contains much worship of evil gods.)

I do think that people who are especially blessed by the gods (i.e., clerics and paladins) will have a special relationship with one god, who might get jealous if they're not giving him/her priority. But I do think that most people will give due respect to a lot of gods, with variable priorities that reflect their own circumstances.

I might revamp the whole pantheon D&D describes, or I might just let it wither since the party doesn't have a blessed character.

One thing about D&D gods that we don't have a real-world example for, though: D&D gods do grant real miracles with far less ambiguity than in our history. I'm not sure how this would affect belief and worship--it would certainly mean that you wouldn't find too many atheists.

[cellio]

I agree about paladins and clerics. "Just plain folks" can have a more casual relationship with the entire pantheon, but those actively dedicated to the religion would have a "patron", so to speak.

Evil gods: this actually ties into the whole question of the alignment system (which I think you said you kind of wanted to ignore for now). I don't think anyone decides to "be evil"; it's just that his definition of "good" is one that most others don't agree with. (Ironically, yeserday afternoon the adult study -- between services -- revolved around the question of whether humans are naturally good, naturally evil, or naturally neutral. Maybe I'll bring it up in my journal.)