Introducing New Religions

[Nightshade]

One of the flashpoints in our history has been creation or transformation of religion. The beginnings of Christianity, Muslimism, the Reformation, and I am sure that there are more.

 

Has anyone ever dealt with this type of subject in their game? If so, was it a good experience, bad, somewhere in-between?

 

If you were in a game and something like this started going on, would you be interested? Is this a good plot device?

 

Nightshade

 

edit: This was actually intended for the Fantasy HERO site. Sorry for the disruption.

[Battlestaff]

Actually, this is an interesting idea for a SH campaign. With the large number of civilizations dealt with, there would surely be a large number of religious philosophies out there, even if the philosophy is that there is no God or other higher power.

 

I haven't run a SH campaign yet (I just got the books, and really like them), but I think I'm going to introduce a few, just so when religion is introduced, the players don't immediately jump up and figure out it's pivotal to the story.

[CrosshairCollie]

Religion almost never comes up in my games, regardless of whether it's fantasy, sci-fi, or superheroics. Other than inserting a different name for when you exclaim the name of your personal diety, there's really no big difference.

[Fitz]

I seldom deal with religion in any of my games, even in fantasy stuff which has gods and what-not oozing out of the woodwork left and right. It's not something I have any interest in except when I get a morbid fascination with some particularly ludicrous delusion, and in real life it generally just makes me annoyed and angry, so I tend to avoid it in my make-believe life.

[Kristopher]

The number of religions already presented in Star Hero would realistically be just the tip of the iceberg. Look at the number of religions on earth, 1 planet of just over 6 billion people, and how diverse those religions are. Don't overlook all the smaller religions, and all the wildly different sects that are nominally part of one religion.

[NuSoardGraphite]

A major theme that will be running throughout my campaign will be a new religion that spreads through the galaxy like wildfire. They call themselves The Children of Misha (the media referrs to them as "Mishites") and the worship a "Goddess made flesh". The religion actually began during one of my playtest sessions back in the day (WAY back in the day, like '93) when the PC's were supposed to be protecing a girl who was a eugenics experiment (designed to create the ultimate being) and the shiznit hit the fan, and the girl (Misha, of course) had to unleash her vast psionic powers to save the PC's and several hundred natives of the world on which they were currently stranded. Her actions fulfilled an ancient prophecy of these people, and they immediately enthroned her as their Goddess.

Mish then began teaching her newly adopted people how to access their dormant psionic potential and the religion began to spread from there.

There also happens to be another of her model (there are only two. Misha and Ares. Ares is her male counterpart. They are designed to be a mating pair) who believes himself to be a God. He will carve out an empire for himself during the campaign and will be the obvious villain in the first half of the campaign.

The true villians, however, are a race of psionic interdimensional Horrors who have been infiltrating the galaxy superpowers for several centuries (if archeological evidence is to be believed, for millenia!) and their powers of illusion and mind control are so advanced that only other Psionics can detect them. Thus, the importance of Religions like The Children of Misha that advocates and trains people in the use of Mental Powers. Of course, due to the influence of The Horrors, anti-psi sentiment as at an all time high.........

 

damnit, I sure hope I actually get to run this campaign someday.

[BoneDaddy]

Recommended reading: The Broken God, by David Zindell. It deals extensively with religion in a pan galactic setting.

[Guest Champsguy]

I've toyed around with what other religions intergalactic civilizations would have, mainly as a thought exercise than as anything else (like many, I'm not really interested in actually running it). My thoughts centered around Earth's early religions, and how some basic conditions that existed here might not have existed elsewhere.

 

Example: Earth has a sun and a moon. There's duality here. Earth's moon (part of that duality) changes phases over a 28 day cycle. It shouldn't be difficult at all for early man to recognize the similarities between the moon's cycle and the menstrual cycle of a woman (hey, they're even about the same length). It seems intuitive that early cultures develop polytheistic religion, given the man/woman sun/moon relationship. Then, of course, you get the children from the sun and moon.

 

But what if we look at a culture that's not on Earth? What about a civilization that arose on a planet with no moons? With two moons? With a moon that didn't change phases? There could be much more diversity in early religions than our planet had (we still had diversity, but a polytheistic system centered around the sky was central to most Earth religions). If religions are too diverse, it might have led to either very warlike, or very peaceful civilizations, as it would be more difficult to assimilate conquered peoples.

 

Anyway, I just found it interesting.