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Keyword Magic Conversions for Shadow World

Started by Mike Holmes, September 19, 2003, 07:17:19 PM

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Brand_Robins

Quote from: Mike HolmesThese "partial" and varying interpretations will be the source of some of the conflicts between cultures.

Good point. After all, it works in the real world that the worst religious wars aren't (often) between those of fully different religions, but between those who are arguing about fine points of whose god is god. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Cathars, Chrisitian gnostics, etc all worship a god that they even occasionally admit is the same god, but it doesn't stop the badness.
- Brand Robins

Mike Holmes

Right. Herin lies the illogical part. That is, why would objective gods allow differing interpretations to cause their worshippers to fight amongst themselves? Wouldn't the god correct the situation? It seems that the only conclusion is that the gods can't help themselves. That is, it must be part of their nature that they can only appear to people as the people expect them to appear, to an extent. To the extent that multiple cultures have different opinions of the gods, the gods have multiple personalities and appearances all that have to be maintained by the god as though each were some absolute truth. This works for the gods of SW, I think, because we know they aren't actually omnipotent (in fact they have no power - would likely cease to exist - outside of the moon/planet pair).

Again, the text supports this with notes about things like how the gods have only pantomimes of real thought processes, explaining their sometimes irrational behavior.

So, this is how I'm going to approach it for the conversion. Basically, I'll have an overall religion that deals with the pantheon as a whole. Then I'll give religions for cases where it seems that single Lords of Orhan are worshipped to the exclusion of the other gods. Then each god will be addressed in it's "typical" presentation in terms of Affinities, etc. Players can adjust this as they see fit to represent how they think the god would be worshipped locally. For those cases where there are specifically mentioned differences, I'll put in specific notes on the god to match those.

Make sense?

Mike
Member of Indie Netgaming
-Get your indie game fix online.

Brand_Robins

- Brand Robins

Mike Holmes

Interestingly, I've not had anyone take the Lords of Orhan yet as a religious choice. I like that, for universal gods, they're actually not worshipped much in half the world. :-)

Mike
Member of Indie Netgaming
-Get your indie game fix online.