D&D General Religion in D&D: Your Take

James Gasik said:

I was just watching a video discussing the Assyrians, whose religion basically said you should always be at war, and this drove their culture to the point that by constantly attacking, even when you shouldn't, it caused their civilization to crumble.

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The problem is that religion is a tool of power. "The Assyrians" did not believe that -- the ruling class, through the priests, said that to compel the people to fight on behalf of the kings etc. Because fighting is how you got loot.

I rarely think much about it, unless it makes sense as part of a campaign or adventure. The Realms'; Greyhawk's and Krynn's pantheons work just fine for us.

I was personally very irritated by the earth shattering cataclysms that hit the Realms EVERY NEW Edition... Nope. When we play in the realms, it's half a generation or so past the Time of troubles- or even 2e. I'm not writing novels for an insatiable crowd- just trying to play a game, lol. So, no spell plague, Cormyr wasn't rent by an invasion of monsters, etc.

I own both the FR boxed set, and the 3e Campaign setting, and love both- there's plenty to do in both to keep us adventuring for decades, lol. I do love what the FRCS and Faiths and Pantheons did- adding lots more lore about the deities to really bring them to life, and flavor the game! However, I keep their machinations to the godly realms- Faerun is for mortals! With some exceptions, like Lurue, and Meilikki- who live there, and chosen, such as Elminster and the Seven Sisters- but they remain in the background unless absolutely needed. Their stats are irrelevant-Deicide has yet to come up in a campaign in all these years.

As for divine classes, we stick with the Lawful Good - period- Paladins. I'm leaning towards making Oathbreaker's an (anti-)prestige class kinda thing. You don't get to choose it as your subclass, or multi-class into it- you eff up your way into it. I don't know the other DM's take on it- other than that he was not happy they dropped the LG requirement. It just hasn't come up, so far. (and it would likely be ME that wants to play one- and I'm old school, lol)

Individual PC Clerics can decide how much they want to play it up. Temples and shrines, are fairly common, though- and often feature as places to go for help, rest, support, or sources of adventure. And, of course, evil shrines make for great, atmospheric places to adventure IN, and provide plenty of fodder for bad guys!

So, I guess our take is essentially the established D&D norm?

Reynard said:

Religion and culture aren't synonymous. Religion is a part of a culture -- maybe.

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While they may not be synonymous, they are certainly continuous - it is not readily apparent where culture ends and religion begins. Both terms have very fluid boundaries.

They might best be viewed as overlapping fields; neither can be defined satisfactorily, and each informs the understanding of the other.

In some cases - for example Judaism - the identity of religion and culture can be much closer. Except when it's not. :/

Edit: Moreover, I think that @Yaarel was making an observation about how religion works in their game, not making a definitive statement.

Reynard said:

Religion and culture aren't synonymous. Religion is a part of a culture -- maybe.

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A religion is like the dream of a culture. All the random events of its history conflate into a singular holistic experience that organizes according to its sociological structures. Participation in this liminal holism helps the rest of daily experiences within the culture 'make sense'.

James Gasik said:

I was just watching a video discussing the Assyrians, whose religion basically said you should always be at war, and this drove their culture to the point that by constantly attacking, even when you shouldn't, it caused their civilization to crumble.

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One cant engineer a religion, just like one cant engineer a dream. The dream is what it is.

Regarding the Assyrians, there was an emergence of ancient predatory economies. The food and other resources to sustain its own population required seizing it from other populations. Moreover the loop of violence would conquer new populations then force those populations into militaries which in turn needed to conquer yet more populations in order for the economy to perpetuate.

Predatory economies began emerging during the Bronze Age, but it is the Classical Age (Persia, Greece, Rome) that became truly extreme. Analogous predatory economies emerged in other regions of the planet as well.

The culture required war to persist, so the dreamlike religion results in a holistic synthesis of this, making war a spiritual imperative.


(Where a religion is a dream of a culture, it occurs to me 'lucid dreaming' may somehow relate to 'enlightenment' experiences.)

I find faith and religion and philosophy far more interesting than deities, and although D&D has taken some (in my opinion awkward) steps to separate clerics and paladins from the assumption of gods, I'm not sold on how they've done it. It very much still feels, in my opinion, that there is an almost explicit assumption that gods, associated planes, and divine energy are all things that must categorically exist. It sucks any mystery or uncertainty from it all.

It's why I stripped that assumption from Against Darkness Triumphant completely. There is no Arcane/Divine split: magic is magic. The presence of the divine and how it presents is entirely in the hands of the GM. There is no cleric or paladin, but rather there's a Spellsword class that can be easily flavoured as a literal spellsword, ranger, cleric, druid, or paladin by selecting appropriate spells, arcane foci (could be a ritual sickle for the druid, a holy symbol for a cleric, a wand for a literal spellsword), armour and weapons, and a special ability or two (such as Banish Undead for a cleric-alike).

Yaarel said:

One cant engineer a religion, just like one cant engineer a dream. The dream is what it is.

Regarding the Assyrians, there was an emergence of ancient predatory economies. The food and other resources to sustain its own population required seizing it from other populations. Moreover the loop of violence would conquer new populations then force those populations into militaries which in turn needed to conquer yet more populations in order for the economy to perpetuate.

Predatory economies began emerging during the Bronze Age, but it is the Classical Age (Persia, Greece, Rome) that became truly extreme. Analogous predatory economies emerged in other regions of the planet as well.

The culture required war to persist, so the dreamlike religion results in a holistic synthesis of this, making war a spiritual imperative.


(Where a religion is a dream of a culture, it occurs to me 'lucid dreaming' may somehow relate to 'enlightenment' experiences.)

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A few observations, FWIW:

I think economic predation and imperial aspirations go hand-in-hand; the Assyrians were particularly good at it, of course - which is why they were such successful empire-builders. In its defense, during its archaic/Middle Bronze period, Assur was the first polity to experiment with true, unfettered free trade - leaving wealth generation to the mercantile class, and establishing the city as a trade capital.

I think it's very hard to situate our perspective in a Bronze/Iron Age mindset with any degree of certainty. That said, I think your description of holism has merit. The separation of ethnos, language, religion and culture into discrete categories are later developments; when we consider the question "what does it mean to be an Assyrian?" contemporaneously, I imagine it would have encompassed all of these things as a matter of identity.

Stalker0 said:

If you take the standard assumptions of dnd:

1) The gods are real and we have actual people that wield their power, talk to them, etc.
2) Humans in most dnd settings are "similar to us", sure they live different lives but they are still generally human in thought.

Then honestly I would argue that the vast majority of settings and likely most homebrews VASTLY underscore the impact religion would have on the world (and that's mine included). Think about how strong religion can be in our world or has been in the past, and that's based on just pure belief that god and the afterlife might be real.

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John R Davis said:

It must be quite hard to imagine. The Gods have real power. Miracles abound. Even your average priest can purify food, create water etc.

Given this religion in my games is nearly always very important. It is in the real world where the gods do nowt, so ultra important when the gods can actually do visible real stuff.

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I think these posts understate the extent to which many humans, across many times and places, have seen the reality of the power of the divine as active in many, often all, facets of life.

MGibster said:

I've always found D&D to be rather secular

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In my view, this is because most narration does not treat divine forces as playing a significant role in everyday events.

A special but frequent case of this is that rolls of the dice seem most often to be treated as impersonal luck, rather than as the workings of providence.

Generally the ethos of D&D play seems to be unlike that of actual human beings from the sorts of times and places that D&D settings are supposed to emulate.

Voadam said:

D&D started out very Conan

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Like D&D, REH's Conan is at heart "secular", even nihilistic, in the sense that (with one exception I can think of, namely, Hour of the Dragon) it portrays a world without providence. Priests in REH's Conan are more like Warlocks in D&D terms.

Yaarel said:

A religion is like the dream of a culture. All the random events of its history conflate into a singular holistic experience that organizes according to its sociological structures. Participation in this liminal holism helps the rest of daily experiences within the culture 'make sense'.

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Or perhaps culture is the dream of an Amaranth, wherin the truly lucid may awaken into new realities? It's Godheads all the way down