The Fantasy World Religions Paradigm: Pantheons and Class Essentials
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Cool that we’re getting more discussions about religion in OSR settings these days, hope that extends beyond the “sedevacancy” challenge.
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We sometimes handle them a bit more unusually. One of my favorite methods is instead of having a Cleric/Character devoted to a single Deity, we generate several. Each Cleric Spell/Prayer is sourced from a different place, leading to different proscriptions/rituals of appeasement. I do like to communicate the parameters of that usually obscured “Deity Disfavor” a bit more directly to prevent it from becoming a “Gotcha!” or springing it on the Players. The Taboos/Restrictions sometimes lead to conflicts and tough decisions as well.
To generate ideas for these Deities swiftly, I put together a Deity Generator that pulls in information from a variety of the Random Tables I’ve put together on the topic. I can see now that there are a few I could add to it, like my relatively recent Priesthood Penances & Cleric Contrition, Sacred Ceremonies & Religious Rituals, Shrines & Altars, and perhaps even things like my Vaunted Votives & Religious Relics or my What Does Healing Magic Look Like? table.
For smaller, more hyper local divinities, I had a lot of fun with the couplets for my Picayune Portfolios for Lesser Local Deities as well.
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As soon as I get around to it I will try to write a follow up. I do have some ideas how real religious practices beyond christianity or romantic polytheism could eventually provide fun game experiences.
some very loose thoughts, if people want to comment or react to them:
- non monolithic traditons, syncretisms, uncertain demarcation between religion and other things (politics, philosophy, economy etc.)
- religion without gods
- if gods may be metaphysically unreal how do powers work?
- religion as a reaction to contingent life
- magic as religion
- rituals preceding mythos
- lived religions
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I’m always interested in putting more points on the magic-divine spectrum. We’ve got the 90%-100% separation of classic D&D, and then once people are aiming for Sword & Sorcery, you often get a re-alignment where often everything is black magic from the chaos spheres anyways, and it’s either two approaches or the Thulsa Doom-ish priests are sorcerers, too.
Not enough exploration of e.g. a John Dee-influenced theurgy, historical views of white and black magic or spiritistic and animistic point of views (RPGs appropriated the word mana, but not really used much of its original meanings).
I think this is both philosophically interesting (for pure world building), but also ripe for mechanical usage.
On the lower end of the spectrum, everyday rituals are often disregarded by way too many settings and players. No problem accepting gods, or your fellow party member throwing huge fireballs, but the villagers spilling some salt at the place where you crossed into their home is clear superstition, of course (Bob the farmer obviously doesn’t have Cleric/M-U levels).
Also, the current conclave reporting (and the recent Kidnap the Archpriest review on Between Two Cairns) also reminded me about the election of (high) priests in games. I mean, we had the weird ways to fight your way on top with the Druid and Monk in AD&D 1E, we have the “just build a cloister” in domain-level play, but not much about how that’s really integrated in the world, or alternatives to that. If the churches are that unified/undivided anyways, which isn’t as much a given, we just think that way through the medieval European point of view.
Although I’m still a bit surprised that this is even the case for the US players. I mean, here in Europe we still only have a handful of churches, but in the land of the three Great Awakenings, where forming a church is easy, and you get every shape and form of church between Euro-style cathedrals and rockin’ megachurches? There should be way more different ways to venerate Lathander, St. Cuthbeart or Good.
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YES so annoying. this gets to the heart of what bugs me: system designers feel the need to muck about in this domain. to define what is sorcery and what is the power of the gods. to define how magic works, to give it mechanics that make it materialist. etc. I mean, I get why they do it. its tradition. it helps a lot of GMs who don’t lean so heavily into worldbuilding/storytelling. but…
I view these issues as best dealt with on the campaign/adventure level (which points to minimalist games). I want the villagers to be able to use salt and make that an impenetrable barrier to something/someone, even the PCs if the circumstances dictate it… and not have that “break” the game.
“wait, what spell did they cast? that’s powerful magic, is that villager 7th level or something?”.
ICK.
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I mean it all points to the problem of class based religion in traditional systems. And the rigid paradigm that seems to be prevalent (what I ramble about in my post).
This needlessly limits gameplay and fiction.
I would argue against the need for clerics to be magical characters…
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indeed, I like clerics to be (depending on system) charisma or say will based characters with really good social connections. (almost like a merchant character). I don’t like them doing typical spell type stuff.
I do like “turn undead” type powers, those feel good to me. I also like them being able to just BE PROTECTED now and again when it makes sense in the fiction. basically, I like them to be uh, religious characters from stories? and not the weird thing that D&D invented (wargame medic miniature hammered into to a “square hole” to fit ttrpgs?).
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I’ve long dislike the cleric class. I’ve dumped that as an archetype in my system and am ambivalent on including priests (keep changing my mind on including any priestly classes).
Among the objections I have to clerics and the D&D approach to religion:
I object to theology being of great importance. I prefer praxis to be primary–nobody really cares if you think the gods are real or paying attention, as long as the forms of observance are performed…at least every so often. The priesties can perform rites on the daily ala the Egyptians, while the laity can do the holiday things and perhaps toss an occasional coin in the temple coffer.
I object to the idea that anybody has only a single deity they embrace. While having a favorite or two is fine, when one believes in a pantheon, then one embraces the whole, in some regard. It may be prudent to avoid gaining the attention of some of the less benevolent deities, sure, yet one acknowledges their place in the grand scheme.
I think it far better for any priest classes to focus on maintaining social order and a functional society. Friars engaging with communities to assist in taking care of the frail and help with emergency hardships. Priests that perform the regular rituals and provide some guidance and counsel to the community. That sort of thing.
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I like both of your points. What systems or hacks do you usually play @pladohsghost and @eeldip? I’d be interested in all stuff building on these notions…
Odd likes and black hack likes. Classless, levelless… Diegetic advancement only.
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One “solution” to the role of the cleric I’d prefer (but hardly ever get to actually use) is getting rid of most of the undead. Zombies and vampires might have older roots, but their RPG interpretations are pretty modern and more horror than fantasy (granted, especially the OSR is leaning quite hard into horror tropes anyways).
Also too much avoidance of monotheism/bitheism. Reasons are obvious, but hey, once you put in all the catholic window dressing anyways, might as well go for it.
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I mean the Priest/Cleric as an expert in all otherworldly matters is a pretty good concept. I just think tying this to the mechanics of a spellcaster is unnecessary. Religious specalists are far more interesting as experts, academics, community leaders, agents imo.
It also depends on the way the fiction is designed like you pointed out. Why not make undead really scary and thus harder to confront for the average adventurer while the cleric is the exception as someone who is trained in this? This would not necessarily have to be tied to a morale mechanic but could be if people like it.
Priests and Clerics having access to the instituional knowledge of their traditions is also a cool thing. Encounter a demon? Well, the cleric will be the one with the connections to those who possess the appropriate knowledge.
I also feel like the semi successful avoidance of christian monotheism in ttrpgs is very much shaped by the strong influence of north american christian socialisation. Of course not exclusive to the US (just look at latin america, eastern europe or korea for other regions where there is a strong presence of evangelical or “fundamentalist” christianity). Still, the biggest part of the TTRPG community seems to be US based. And I can see how for them the romantic fantasy polytheism represents a refreshing alternative, almost a rebellious one. However, it inadvertently remains structured by christian concepts. (Like popular satanism just looks like another christian schism to outsiders 
) So yeah why not go for it? I had a lot of fun creating campaigns with alternate christianity-like schisms…
But of course there is so much more to explore when it comes to religion than boring old monotheism or faux polytheism!
I do find it interesting that in trad. modern DnD there are already other modes of religion established like the druid or the monk or even the warlock if you will. But they seldom get treated that way. Of course there all the other issues with these types of class based game systems but thats not my primary point. What I do think to be interesting is that these non-traditional religions are always framed through difference to a christian understanding of religion. They represent the tropes of irrational heathenism, evil heretic or orientalist mystic…
(sorry this got a bit long and rambly)
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Isn’t the Warlock more a Faustian bargain type of thing or did I miss some lore-widening in recent years?
But treating the Druidic “faith” as something else is somewhat common. I think even Greyhawk had the Old Faith that wasn’t closely tied to divine beings, and D&D 4E started the trend in making it a different kind of magic (“primal”).
I’ve got some issues with this. Especially if it also brings in a somewhat monotheistic, antagonistic fate, this gets a bit too close to reality, and especially the beliefs of some of the more alternative crowd I got to know (LARPs did a number on me). Or even beyond that, where it’s not just “primal nature vs. organized religion”, but almost nature vs science. I think it’s quite possible to have a mono-/bitheistic system that isn’t too “sacrilegous” vs. real-world religions, but the more you bring in from real-world conflicts (contemporary ones, this doesn’t really mirror historic Christianity vs Paganism, as much as some people would think).
The Iron Kingdoms setting actually made that work (for me), though. Mostly by just making every party more aggressive, where the “primal” side also was the “Devourer Wurm”, not just treehuggy harmony.
I think Trudvang does have an Organized vs. Primal conflict, but not sure how well that goes.
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Yeah you’re right. It is not considered religion within the lore or game afaik. But I would argue that it can be seen as a form of fringe indivualistic religion. Having access to a supernatural entity’s powers, ritual magic, some (reluctant) devotion etc. But this maybe just a conceptual thing for me because of my academic background. In religious studies witchcraft and magic are often considered to be modes of religion. Although the line blurs between religion and other. Some even claim things like Agrippa von Nettesheim’s De occulta philosophia to be proto-scientific in a certain sense by creating an encyclopedia on magic.
The whole rational vs irrational discourse that surrounds this is just awfully boring and reproduces nothing but the paradigm I talked about in my post. And the blind affirmation of irrationality by some of these alternativley religious types is also somewhat dangerous as you’ve hinted at. (Covid has pushed a lot of them off the deep end).
This might also be one of the reasons why I have such a problem with traditional fantasy religion. Because in a lot of ways it reacts abstractly to a monotheistic christian paradigm without reflecting this and then ends up opening all kinds of doors to possibly reactionary ideas. like a lot of neo-paganism and new age stuff…
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Well, my bespoke system is under development, which means I’ve lots of notes that are slowly becoming a manuscript.
I’ve also a project where I’m taking my house rules for AD&D and turning those into zines for folks to salvage parts from for their B/X and AD&D (and clones thereof) games. The Priests zine was expected to be written late in the series, though I can actually begin with that if somebody’s interested in it. Shoot, they can be among the playtesters who get to see if I can explain everything well.
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