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Defining Faiths in Fantasy Campaigns

June 5, 2012 9:06 am / 6 Comments / Chris
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Intro

I’d like to ask for feedback on a template I’ve made for describing religions for fantasy RPGs. This is not a statblock for gods or their avatars, but a way of fleshing out and differentiating the various faiths in your campaign. If you at least partially fill out this template for all the faiths available at the start of a campaign, your cleric can make an informed choice. If you are more collaborative in your campaign development, leave some fields blank and fill them in as the opportunity arises in play. Or you could allow the cleric PC to collaborate in creating the faith.

A list of suggested domains and purviews is at the bottom of this post. It’s taken from my Random God generator (which I’ll be revising soon).

There are some attributes rated from 1 to 20. These help define the organization itself. Is it well organized? Does it tolerate other faiths? Are there many scriptures? There are some notes below and a sample I filled out follows that.

Please let me know if this is unclear, too much work or how I might streamline the explanations.

 

Faith Template

Here is the template as a word file

faith_template

Domain and Purview Notes

These are taken from my Random God Generator. Domain is more general and purview is more specific. Pathfinder GM should write in the terms Portfolio and Domain, respectively.

Attributes of the faith are measured on a scale of 1-20.

Strictness

How strict is the church? How lenient? How many rules and practices are there? With 20 being an Orthodox Jew and 1 being “Can’t we all get along?”

Jealousy

How well does the church tolerate worship of other gods? How much emphasis is put on conversion? With 20 being total intolerant monotheism, and 1 being “all paths lead to one place.”

Revelations

How much has been “revealed” and how much do they generally consider the god’s work to influence lives? With 20 being many epics, testaments, scriptures, commentaries and sutras and 1 being “Crom sleeps. That is all.”

Organization

How organized is the faith’s hierarchy? With 20 being the Catholic Church and 1 being a bunch of loosely acquainted meditators in the woods.

Popularity

This stat that can be used to determine randomly whether there is a congregation in a given community. As the GM, you should determine on a scale of 1-20 how popular the faith is in the nation or region where the party is currently. This also lets the cleric PC know where his church is in the pecking order. A well-prepared GM will think ahead whether this faith is popular in neighboring areas as well. When coming up with this number, consider whether it is a minority faith, whether it belongs to a minority race or culture and what level of religious tolerance the local leaders display.

To randomly check whether a community has a congregation, add the number of digits in the area’s population to the faith’s popularity for that locale. Apply any gut modifiers you think should apply and then roll a d20. A roll under the target number means there is a congregation. It might in in hiding, of course, but it should be there.

Example: The Cult of Torusk has a popularity of 5 in the Principality of Argylle. A cleric of Torusk wants to find a shrine so he can perform an absolution and perhaps find a friendly face. The party has just entered Old Bosk, a city of 12,500. The GM asks the cleric for the popularity number (5) and adds 5 more for the five digits in the population number. He also decides that Old Bosk used to be far more tolerant than now, and it’s slightly more likely there’s a shrine to Torusk than in the surrounding countryside based on that (+2). So 5+5+2 is 12. The cleric rolls 1d20 and gets a 7. The GM says there’s a shrine, but that it will take some urban exploration to find it.

Example Faith Profiles

I’ve used as an example a few locations in the northern part of a campaign setting. The Church of the Aesir is the dominant and national church of Nordland. But it has not gotten a lot of traction in neighboring countries.

Example 2

Domains and Purviews

List of Domains and Purviews
Roll d100 Domain Purview
1 Household Play
2 Household Fertility/Harvest/Babies
3 Household Health/Disease
4 Household Hunt
5 Household Hearth
6 Household Doors/Household Safety
7 Household Baking
8 Household Wine/Beer
9 Household Sewing/Weaving
10 Household Wealth
11 Household Household Item
12 Household Food (particular)
13 Household Important Commodity
14 Household Male Virility
15 Household Bridges/Gates/Crossing/Crossroads
16 Household Fidelity/Adultery
17 Household Animal Husbandry
18 Household Gossip/Reputation
19 Household Books/Scrolls
20 Household Important Domestic Animal/Insect
21 Human Endeavors Invention
22 Human Endeavors War
23 Human Endeavors Indulgence
24 Human Endeavors Theft/Kidnapping
25 Human Endeavors Travel/Hospitality to Strangers
26 Human Endeavors Sailing
27 Human Endeavors Building
28 Human Endeavors Exploration/Adventure
29 Human Endeavors Cannibalism
30 Human Endeavors Honor/Justice/Vengeance
31 Human Endeavors Trade/Commerce/Unexpected Windfalls
32 Human Endeavors Slavery/Freedom
33 Human Endeavors Learning/Ignorance
34 Human Endeavors Hiding
35 Human Endeavors Art/Poetry
36 Human Endeavors Healing
37 Human Endeavors Protector of Our People
38 Human Endeavors Mining
39 Human Endeavors Sport
40 Human Endeavors Gambling
41 Nature Animal
42 Nature Mountains
43 Nature Night
44 Nature Oceans
45 Nature Season (1d4: Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter)
46 Nature Plants/Woods
47 Nature Predominant Local Climate/Weather Type
48 Nature Fresh Waters
49 Nature Natural Disasters
50 Nature Thunder / Storms /Monsoon Season
51 Nature Death/Destruction
52 Nature Sun
53 Nature Moon
54 Nature Planet/Stars
55 Nature Air
56 Nature Fire
57 Nature Earth
58 Nature Water (all)
59 Nature Natural Beauty
60 Nature Decay (and rebirth)
61 Personal King/Pharoah/Emperor
62 Personal Queen/Empress
63 Personal Consort
64 Personal Parent of (roll again)
65 Personal Child
66 Personal Aescetic/Hermit
67 Personal Bastard
68 Personal Hero
69 Personal Villain
70 Personal Monster
71 Personal Traitorous Advisor
72 Personal Criminal
73 Personal Folk Hero
74 Personal Wise man/Wizard
75 Personal Brother/Sister
76 Personal Twins
77 Personal General
78 Personal Physician
79 Personal Martyr
80 Personal Roll Twice
81 Spirit Wisdom
82 Spirit Compassion
83 Spirit Tricks
84 Spirit Protection from Spirits
85 Spirit Miracles
86 Spirit Afterlife
87 Spirit Pre-life
88 Spirit Karma
89 Spirit Undead
90 Spirit Laughter
91 Spirit Song
92 Spirit Love/Sex
93 Spirit Destiny/Fate
94 Spirit Dreams
95 Spirit Fear/Bravery
96 Spirit Greed/Generosity
97 Spirit Jealousy/Equanimity
98 Spirit Hate/Love (non-romantic)
99 Spirit Abstinance/Indulgence
100 Spirit Bardo (Trial grounds between lifetimes)

 

 

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Posted in: legacy D&D, Organization / Tagged: campaign background, clerics, gods, religion

6 Thoughts on “Defining Faiths in Fantasy Campaigns”

  1. Jez on June 5, 2012 at 9:36 am said:

    The only issue I can see is the Attributes – is a 1-20 scale necessary, does it perform some in-game mechanic, such as “find an church of this faith in this strange new city, roll under Organisation or Popularity to succeed”. If not, would a smaller scale suffice?

    Also at first glance at the sheet I thought those Attributes were those of the deity, not of their followers. Maybe add Follower’s or Faith’s before there for clarity.

    Otherwise it’s really well done.

  2. Daniel on June 5, 2012 at 10:15 am said:

    Are you planning to hang anything off the attributes? It looks like you’ve set them to be used like character stats.

    Also, I think wealth would be better as an abstract rather than a definite number. I have trouble really appreciating how much 50zillion silver is in relation to the world, whereas if they had a wealth of 18 we know they are hand-wavey super wealthy.

    But yea, cool sheet. Going to hand these to the clerics in my groups and see what they do to them.

  3. Chris on June 5, 2012 at 10:40 am said:

    Thanks both of you. I do plan on hanging something off of those stats. One of the challenges for me in working in a system-neutral setting is deciding what sort of checks make sense. The popularity check is a trial balloon to see if it makes sense for people.
    @Jez, I chose a d20 scale because it’s wide and might be convertible to DC checks. Also, each +1 is +5%, which is simple.
    @Daniel, the wealth in the examples reflects what I myself would put in my own game. I looked at the costs of strongholds in Aventurer Conqueror King and thought about how many of those the church should have or be able to build and then converted gold to silver, since I use a silver standard.
    But your point is well taken–it should probably be a stat and details such as the wealth might be something to keep from the player.

  4. zak s on June 6, 2012 at 4:50 am said:

    I think strictness jealousy and revelations are things I wouldn’t wanna nail down too hard at day one because:
    -it’s fun to find out in play, and
    -different factions (and priests) have, no doubt, different ideas about these things. I wouldn’t wanna limit roleplaying.
    I think a more simple “notes” section might be what you want if you have a good idea about one of those things but if you have no idea, don’t pick something out of the hat just to fill it in.

  5. Spiralbound on June 6, 2012 at 2:12 pm said:

    Is “physical Description” referring to the Deity, Priesthood, Churches, or the style of iconography used by the church?

    I suggest two other Attributes:
    1) How zealous they are in spreading the faith.
    2) How politically active they are.
    Both of these would aid greatly in determining the behaviour of the church in a region, the attitudes of the clergy, other groups and individuals attitudes towards them. It could even help inspire potential campaign plot threads.

  6. Daniel on July 25, 2012 at 10:49 pm said:

    I’ve been handing these out to any players that want a custom religion and it’s been rather popular so far. They’ve appreciated having a framework to slot their thoughts into and to prompt deeper thinking, helping to create a nicely fleshed out idea.

    Here’s a recent example of what they’ve been doing: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4741111/faith_template_Doctrine.rtf

    This is from a first time pen&paper RPG player and the form got them inventing places and people quite naturally.

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