[Gideon] Power 19 (and a setting question)

[monsterboy]

The Power 19 is here:

http://mysite.verizon.net/erin.miner/GideonPower19.doc

My setting question is:

I wanted the whole fire & brimstone preacher thing, but didn't feel I could do Christianity properly, not being familiar enough with the various denominations therein and, frankly, not wanting to give offense (or deal with the repercussions thereof) when people thought they'd been treated unfairly or inaccurately (which I'd certainly have done somewhere). Thus, the primary newcomer religion is my take on Mithraism, which bears a strong superficial similarity to a gnostic Christianity. So far, it seems to work pretrty well, the differences have only (IMO) made the place more interesting (the buffalo, for example, has been associated with the cosmic bull, and the rodeo is partly a religious spectacle).

BUT. I can't have an Old west without people named Zeke and Jedediah. So. Why would gnostic worshippers of Mithra be running around with all these names from a Jewish holy book? Anybody?

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Vincent Baker might have some good insight on this.  He wrote a game called, Dogs in the Vineyard.  You might want to ask him directly (email or PM to see how he handled a situation very similar to yours.

Peace,

-Troy

[J Tolson]

I must say, that is quite a bit to wrap one's head around. The cult of Mithras in the Old West? Curiosity, but do you still have the Tarabullium?

But I do have a question: Since you are placing a religion that hasn't existed for near onta a year a’ Sundays, as they say, why do you need to follow any inconvenient tradition of the Old West? That is, are these names truly important or are you just making more work for yourself than you need? I am not sure what version of the Cult of Mithras that you are using (thought I am guessing Latin from the particular spelling you use), but what about combining old west names with ancient declensions? Since all Latin singular masculine nouns (including names) began with -us (if I recall correctly) why not just tell players to add that to everything? Jedediah becomes Jededius, Zeke to Zekius. Might preserve enough of the old west feel while indicating that this is not the old west.

Additionally, perhaps you might have each character have a normal name (Zeke) but also a cult name that is decidedly not Old Western.

But as for why worshippers of Mithras would have Jewish names, I would suspect for the same reason that Athiests might have Jewish names (Aaron, Jacob, etc) or Americans might have Nordic last names (Olson), or names that were originally tied to a certain profession (Smith, Taylor, Miller, etc)

Just a thought.

~Joel