Fantasy RPG Religion Sucks

Religion in most fantasy settings, and therefore most fantasy RPGs, sucks.

I don't mean it morally sucks. It might well be portrayed as wicked. On the other hand, all those Lawful Good clerics running around the Forgotten Realms seem alright. What I mean is this: the portrayal of religion sucks. This isn't just a problem unique to fantasy or RPGs, of course, but it's particularly notable when we play games wherein divine power is a mechanical fact.

Religion in most fantasy RPG settings is entirely inorganic. It is pasted on. There is often a vague pantheonism, with a number of gods knocking around acting as patrons to different clerics or paladins. That's their main function, in fact – gods exist in most D&D settings (for example) so that there is some sort of patron to whom your heroic paladin can swear an oath. As a secondary purpose, it's great to have a shrine of Lathander or whatever where you can go get healed – or perhaps get a quest to kill some kobolds.

Of course, aside from the divinely-backed PCs, no other character pays any attention to religion in most of these games. Religion isn't a major part of the texture of the game. In one way, this is fine, if it's fine for your game; who cares, right? But if there's any attempt at simulationism – as there is many OSR settings, and which is a sort of prerequisite for the massive worldbuilding projects undertaken by so many DMs and players over the years – then it's weird that one of the great concerns of actual people both past and present is so poorly presented. Throw some generic pantheonistic gods (“one god of thunder, hmm, now I need a goddess of death”) in a pot, stick some temples in your town, and you're done. Maybe people go there to pray for something. Who cares? Save your energy for your complex numismatic system and the detailed history of the orcs in the mountain.

I think there are probably two broad reasons for this. The FIRST is the simple fact that many fantasy writers and readers/players have little personal sympathy with organised religion. Yes, most people who have ever lived have engaged with organised religion, largely with some degree of sincerity; but most Westerners now are at least sceptical if not outright antagonistic, and it is Westerners, largely, who write and consume the material under discussion. This trend is likely to be more pointed in the fantasy RPG genre itself, given the alt-culture traditions involved. (There's an interesting historical essay for someone to write about that – the ways in which the conservative sources of Tolkien and wargaming melded with the more ambiguous Vance/Howard tradition to create the ingredients of the Satanic Panic.) What this means in practice is that religion in fantasy settings is often either strictly functional (“it powers clerics”), or where developed in any way still misses the essence of religious development and observance as it actually exists. It's hard to see how the religions in certain fantasy worlds could come to exist or gather and keep followers thereafter. It may, of course, be that we conclude people are religious due to fear or foolishness or whatever other negative motive; even in that case, if we want some degree of reality in our settings, we have to consider what the believer themselves thinks they are doing and why. No-one thinks they're a sucker. No-one thinks they're backing an objectively evil lunatic cult. We might even concede that they may know their own heart better than us.

The SECOND reason religion in fantasy RPG settings struggles is, I think, simply the force of cliché. Gygax put together a wonky pantheon (with saints, too) as the pulpy religious context of Greyhawk's relatively simplistic setting. It worked for him. Greenwood did something similar, with a little more nuance, in his fantastically overwritten Realms. There's some certainly some memorable stuff there (if nothing else, from the Baldur's Gate PC game!). The religion of the Realms and of Greyhawk leave me cold, for the first reason given above, but I won't deny that they have cool bits or have been greatly enjoyable for many players over time. Their effect, though, is deadening; to give an example of a better work with a similar effect on the genre, look at Tolkien. T.S. Eliot remarked that Shakespeare and Milton accomplished the same for verse drama and epic poetry, respectively – Hamlet and Paradise Lost made it more or less impossible for others to write top-tier examples of the form for centuries afterwards! It's not simply about the gap in quality; it's also that much in the genre thereafter looks too much to the great conquering work, or relies too much on its tropes and themes without carrying across its originality or energy.

We have that in many RPG fantasy settings. Gygax and Greenwood created the most notable RPG settings from the first two decades of the genre existing; they naturally loom over all subsequent work. It's hard for later writers to get out from under them.

I'm going to go a bit rogue, and save my two points of “advice” - that is, two broad principles to follow when constructing fantasy religions – for the end. First, I'm going to give a few examples of some settings which manage to (partially or fully) escape the trap of sub-Greenwoodist religion – that is, religions which no actual person would practise, and which largely exist to fill the religion-shaped gap in a setting. To start with, let's look at two examples which solve the problem by bypassing or reframing it.

ONE. Dark Sun. A post-apocalyptic D&D setting from the mid-90s where overuse of magic has ravaged the environment and most of the world is ruled by evil sorcerer-kings. The pantheonic gods are dead, and worship is now directed either to the sorcerer-kings or, in a more pantheistic manner, the world itself. Of course, there are still pantheonic gods, so the question of how and why people used to worship them is open, but it's irrelevant to the setting. Religion here is either the “false religion” of the sorcerer-kings, or a vague and nonspecifically positive environmentalist worship. We can see a philosophical juxtaposition here – organised religion in the hands of power vs 1990s hippieism. It may not be in some respects a convincing account of religion – except that it does communicate something quite sincere about the beliefs of many who might play in the setting. Religion is still painted broad-brush, is still unnuanced as an account of actual beliefs, but has a degree of vibrancy and vigour lacking from most Realms-clones.

TWO. Anomalous Subsurface Environment (ASE). A science-fantasy gonzo setting coming out of OSD D&D. Really great fun. The three main religious groupings presented are Cthulhu cultists, a demi-Catholic church that actually worships and loves (but does not at all understand) science, and the Orbital Gods – satellite AIs capable of blessing their followers in return for worship. This moves strongly away from cliché and immediately excites the imagination. There is a pantheon – but of artificial intelligences with no reasonable right to worship. This is a satire, of course, and one that connects into the wider setting well. This reframes the problem of cliché fantasy religion by making fun of it. That's just fine, and enjoyable – but it doesn't offer a solution to those who want their fantasy religion to be as simulational as they want other elements of their world to be.

Dark Sun removes the gods and substitutes, at a fairly nominal level, a religious landscape that likely matches some of the authors and certainly many of the readers/players. ASE parodies the traditional RPG religious tropes. Neither of these offer a textured view of religion's role in a world, nor do they consider the interior life of the (presumably numerous) people in those worlds who are religious. I can't remember a Dark Sun product with a warm and generous NPC who loved her sorcerer-king sincerely and deeply and in a rather admirable way, but found her own decent nature clashing with her rather impressive (if ill-founded) faith when it comes to the treatment of slaves assigned to her; or another who had a serious regard for “Mother Athas” but considered using massively environmentally destructive magic to defeat the bad guys.

There are other settings which address the question more holistically – that is, in a way that appeals to the simulationist (and religious person) in me. They do so because they address questions rarely addressed seriously in other settings (how do religious structures and beliefs form? and why do serious people hold them?), and do so in a sympathetic manner – actually interested in the beliefs and their holders in themselves.

Some honorary mentions before I offer some detailed examples. Brandon Sanderson's fantasy fiction includes about the most thoughtful representation of religion in the modern genre that I know. As a way of understanding human ethical standpoints, the Path system in the Vampire: The Masquerade is surprisingly robust (your vampire has a code, usually that of “Humanity” but sometimes something stranger; holding to the code prevents you from becoming a mindless beast; your character gains or loses points in it based on whether their actions match up to it). The Underdark societies outlined in Patrick Stuart's Veins of the Earth have compelling and engaging philosophies that are coherent on their own terms, if mostly relentlessly (and fittingly) dark.

The two examples I have in mind of good practise, however, go a little further than Vampire or Veins, and are embedded in actual gameplay, unlike Sanderson.

THREE. Dolmenwood. Dolmenwood is a fantastic setting, largely set out in the Wormskin 'zine (with a campaign guide book coming soon). It's a Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell kind of setting, heavy on British folklore and the Faery mythos. There are two things that are particularly praiseworthy about Dolmenwood in respect of religion, aside from the exceptionally good writing: (1) it's part of the texture of everyday life, and is written as such; the stand-in for the Catholic Church (which is even described as such) has churches and monasteries which fulfil particular functions in people's life, which are embedded in their communities, which you can imagine the populace congregating at, which you can see PCs feeling some sort of tie to. Meanwhile, the weird local mystical groupings fit into their own zones of influence, with the mysterious sect of the Drune having a coherent philosophy and naturally fitting into the setting. There's even a serious consideration given to their family life! (2) The motives of those who might practise a religion are comprehensible, and the beings (real or imagined) they worship or follow or deal with resemble real gods and godlings, with authentic-sounding mythologies (where even Corellon and Gruumsh, one of the better examples from the Realms, is a bit sterile and formulaic). I think particularly of the witches and their forest-gods in this respect – though more of a cultic sect than an ordinary mass religion, the witches' mystic beliefs are both original and fresh (to me) but also resonant of real mystery religions and lesser-known pagan faiths. To give some two short examples from Dolmenwood #8, when discussing the forest-gods:

The gods of the witches are entities that have dwelt on the astral fringes of Dolmenwood since the dawn of time. They are seemingly a manifestation of the spirit of the forest itself (or, seen the other way around, the forest is perhaps a physical manifestation of the gwyrigons). Though it is impossible to truly comprehend the motivations of such entities, they in some way feed off of the connection that witches establish with them.

…

Limwdd the Quiet Brother: Has dominion over stasis, growth, and rejuvenation. Limwdd is associated with seeds and the depths of the earth. Witches bound to this wood-god can feel the pulse of its energy in the ground when walking barefoot. Limwdd’s primary locus is in hex 1006 (see Wormskin issue 6).

FOUR. Against The Wicked City. The star of the show, to me – also, generally an excellent setting, and FREE. Find it in the links on the sidebar. In Against The Wicked City, there are a couple of ways religion is presented – in individual sections on a given group, and via a big random generator chart for “Religions of the Great Road”. The idea of the latter is to offer a way of finding innumerable peculiar grouplets, echoing its real world inspiration of Central Asian religion.

For the former, let us consider the official religion of the Wicked City, the Way of Light, which follows the Full Moon Sage. It was once a popular religion in every sense of that word, but has long been corrupted and hollowed out by the endemic and incipient banal evil of the Wicked King's state apparatus. To quote:

Barely anyone keeps idols of the Full Moon Sage in their homes any more. For them, her image has been irrevocably tainted by its association with the hated regime which rules over them: a regime which has turned her church into simply another system for indoctrination and the extraction of taxes. Regular purges of the clergy by the Secret Police have served to eliminate almost all the real believers, ensuring that her current priesthood consists largely of people who bought their way in because they thought that the embezzlement opportunities offered by their new clerical ranks looked like a sound financial investment. Their huge, gaudy temples stand empty, abandoned by the crowds that once flocked to them on every feast day and fast day. The idea that anyone might go to them for actual spiritual guidance would be viewed by most of the city's inhabitants as little more than a bad joke.

There is a hint here of something promising; yes, it's another Eeeeevil state religion, but by dint of a particular set of historical events. Other settings see the Eeeeeevil state religion as a Platonic state; it's organised religion, which means it's evil by nature and exists to support established power. Here we see that actual motives and sincere belief are part of religious practice, and that historical development affects religion – not as an “evolutionary” force, but as a fact. This texture is followed through by a d20 table of things priests might be found doing. So there are results which highlight the corruption of the clergy and church: “Taking advantage of the fact that this is a holy day, when every respectable citizen in this part of the city needs to show their face in the temple, to harvest 'donations' from their captive audience.” or “Carrying out creepy rituals designed to terrify new initiates into obedience. Darkness, masks, flames, blades, blood, chanting men in black robes - the works.” But others hint at something else: “Actually reading the scriptures for once, and getting increasingly worried by what they find in them.” or “Secretly running an illicit school for local children, teaching them the actual doctrines of the Way of Light in order to keep some remnant of the true faith alive for future generations.”. Now, the Full Moon Sage may or may not be worthy of worship; even the pre-Wicked King Way of Light will have had its problems. But these feel like real people with real beliefs and motives. Some are simply corrupt, but others are sincere; we can think what we like of their belief, but there is an obvious sympathy here, if not agreement. And it's gameable! Those are all things that could be cool in your game, and your players could be involved in, and it'd be cool – way cooler than a priest of Pelor wanting to kill some undead.

The other way religion is presented is by the big random generator table mentioned above (http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2017/02/religions-of-great-road.html). This system basically inspired the “Alignment” system I use in my Against The Wicked City games, though it's also somewhat influenced by the Vampire system mentioned above. Basically, a PC holds a particular set of beliefs – which include social practices, importantly – to one extent or another: Devout, Semi-Devout, or Non-Devout. This isn't a straitjacket for the PC's actions, but it is a useful guide and a practical way for the DM and player to understand the PC's motives. I'll write about that in detail another time, but for now let's finish on an example of the generator being used. There'll be some random rolls for name, origin, and how it's perceived in its homeland, before rolling for the object of worship, d4 core beliefs, and d4 social practices. I've written it up as one coherent entry, and added a couple of details for flavour.

The Apostles of the Great Revelation (from the east)

Originally hailing from another land, the Apostles were persecuted into oblivion and are now extinct in their homeland, living on only amongst of the clans of the High Steppes. The Apostles worship one god (Goktanri, “Sky God”) – all others are false. They believe that if only the Reign of the Faithful could be instituted everywhere, then everything would be perfect!; that we are being justly punished for the sins of our ancestors; that the End of Days is upon us, and we must prepare ourselves for the final battle of good and evil! Due to the syncretic fusion of its teachings with the shamanic traditions of the area, the faith is actually mostly concerned with the management of troublesome spirits. The faith places a strong emphasis on the practise of silent meditation. Its holiest ceremonies are very quiet and very serious. Every faithful household maintains a small family shrine within its dwelling-place. The faith has exacting ritual purity requirements, which its followers are expected to observe scrupulously (although many of them don't).

That's nearly all randomly generated, with a few extra touches (God's name, the location of its worshippers). It sounds like a real religion – and certainly shares something with Tengrism, which offered some inspiration to me in the small details. You can imagine coming across the yurts of a clan who follow this faith; you can imagine a khagan rising and leading them down from the High Steppes, to institute the Reign of the Faithful; you can, perhaps, imagine a PC holding these beliefs, and carrying their family shrine with them in a wicker box. Its randomly generated nature should make it ridiculous, and some wag will surely say that's more or less how real religions arise; but to me it works, and makes an engaging and authentic group to put in my game. Moreover, it escapes cliché despite being so close to actual religions – some feat!

How has Joseph, the creator of Against The Wicked City, done this? I don't know; you'd need to ask him. But here are the two principles I'd suggest one might follow to achieve something of the same result.

FIRSTLY, and most significant in avoiding shallowness: when creating religions in your setting, imagine what their adherents actually feel, think, believe. You may have decided they're accurate or inaccurate in their beliefs, but come to the human level and engage with them sympathetically. If you are taking a simulationist approach to world-building, and you want your players to engage thoughtfully with things in the world, the belief structures and socio-religious practices of the majority of your NPCs matter! What your NPCs want and do will be as improved by giving them rich belief systems as by giving them strong personal motives. Studying real world religion will help here (just look at the differences between the closely related belief structures of “orthodox” Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and the accompanying social structures – incredibly rich); so will reading the fantasy and RPG authors who best deal with religion. (Incidentally, doing this when dealing with traditional fantasy religion helps, too – embedding the Temple of Bahamut in actual local social practice will make it massively more useful and compelling.)

SECONDLY, and helpful in avoiding cliché (though point Firstly will help with this too): having read about real world religions and looked at the best fantasy writers on the topic, write some stuff, and keep throwing stuff at the wall. Look for some conceptual density. Make it messy and confusing. Come up with ways the religion/mysticism you're creating might help or harm its adherents or opponents (if only in a promised afterlife!). Don't primarily think of it in terms of its strict game utility – don't make up something just because the town needs a temple. Of course, your town may need a temple, and you want it to be gameable – but step aside for a moment when creating the temple. Your setting probably doesn't need a generic sun god called Lord Sun who people go to for healing and (if you're pushed for more) bland high holy days with unspecified ceremonies. The sun, after all, is believed to be a telescope from the heavens, and the sun god is the telescope operator; he's a reverse-astronomer, and his gifts are chiefly to do with mechanical devices and intelligence-gathering. Right sacrifice to him is believed to aid the city's automaton defence force in combat, and so even poor families will donate annually, and everyone attends the feasts of his holy week in the summer, the Assembly of Cogs.

Hopefully that helps you. What is your favourite socio-religious material from RPGs?