10
Aug

Fantasy World Building, part 12

   Posted by: C Scott Morris   in Blog

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Thanks to PsyFi Girl, we now have a recurring character, in the form a wise opossum who spouts wisdom. This is gona be difficult to work into the storry, but it has to be done. I promised to use what you contribute, and I will.

Now we move on to another important aspect of Fantasy World Building.

Religion.

We simply cannot leave religion out of a fantasy world. It is easy to say that if magic exists in a world, then so to must the gods.

All of the best fantasy stories have religion. In Lord of the Rings, the Wizards serve a Higher Power, though it is hardly mentioned, the same power from which the elves come from.

In Sword of Truth, Richard’s father Darken Rahl serves as head of his own religion, and then there is the Imperial Order.

David Edding’s Belgariad and Malorian both postulate that the gods are a source of magic.

Even in Watership Down, the rabbits have their own religion, telling of the Dark Rabbit who takes you after you die.

So how does religion fit into our world? The easiest answer(and following two of my Rules of Fantasy World Building) is to go with the Easter European feel we have, and use the Eastern Orthodox Church, or a similar one, and exaggerate its baroque rituals to the frightening extreme.

We can even have Radoslov, our evil sorcerer, be the self appointed head of this church. This allows him to use not only military might, but religion as well, to control the populace. And we have a nice excuse to use some kind of religious bad guy as in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn. You know what Im talking about, guys with spikes for eyes? Sorry, I don’t have my copy of Mistborn nearby(on loan to a friend), and I cannot remember what they were called. Creepy bastards.

Lets create some of those.

You lot are pretty darn creative, so lets hear some ideas.

Also, I want the most wacky religious ideas you can come up with for out newly born Cult of Personality.

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15 comments so far

zomnkerNo Gravatar
 1 

I think the main religion should be a combination of the religion from WoT/Sword Truth and the Catholic church at the height of its power.

The element I would take from Wot/Sword would be that there is a Creator from whom magic comes from. There would also have to be some kind of Destroyer, similar to Shaitan from WoT and the Keeper from Sword. This Destroyer could be the source of dark magic. Th Creator and Destroyer form a symbiont circle, without one, everything ceases to exist.

From the Catholic church I would take the position of Pope, Radoslav would fill this post. His word is law. He would have a group that is completely loyal to him, I’m thinking Children of the Light, Blood of the Fold, and Imperial Order here. A majority of the population would belong to this church and would cower in fear of being brought to the attention of Radoslav and his group. Religious texts are held by the priests and are banned from the population at large.

There would of course have to be some dissident factions like the Gnostics from early Christianity and today’s Kurds in Iraq and Turkey.

That’s all I got for now, might have more later.

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August 11th, 2010 at 10:59 am
zomnkerNo Gravatar
 2 

One more thing. There should be a covert group within the main religion that actually worships the Destroyer. Similar to the Dark Friends/Chosen/Forsaken in WoT and the Sisters of the Dark/Agents in Sword.

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August 11th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
zomnkerNo Gravatar
 3 

And of course now that I have gone and read the last few posts, I see that my idea for the origins of magic don’t really work.

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August 11th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
C Scott MorrisNo Gravatar
 4 

Well, the creator/destroyer dont really need to be the source of magic in the world, I actually get kinda tired of that.
But perhaps the could be source of life/death. that way, the Church(by Radoslav twisting creation and magic) could have all kinds of created creatures at its disposal. Chimeras, basically, or deamons, etc.

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August 12th, 2010 at 9:57 am
PsyfyGirlNo Gravatar
 5 

Bwahahahaha *evil grin*

But onto important things:

I’m getting a feeling that Radoslav is kind of like Henry the 8th, in that he formed the Church of England. Then my mind wanders to a woman with 6 fingers…so I’m at a loss after that. O.o

Is there only one religion in the world?

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August 15th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
C Scott MorrisNo Gravatar
 6 

There may be more religions, but we are concentrating on the prevailing beliefs in the human lands.
I had an idea on how to include some of the things Zomnker wanted to see in the religion and especially in the magic system.
Let us suppose that the Creator, in the process of Creation, broke itself up into 13 pieces(earth, air, fire, water, life, light, death, movement, magic, etc). Everything in the world is made up of some mix of one or more of these Spirits. Sorcery, like Radoslav uses, commands these Spirits of Creation, warping and twisting them to their own ends.
Perhaps these Chimeras of Radoslavs, as well as the Cultists we discussed, are also shaped by these warping the Spirits inside.
Thoughts?

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August 16th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Kurt KyreNo Gravatar
 7 

So, the Shattered God is born… each of the Facets, being part of the whole… various groups of people have found a piece, or pieces of the Shattered God, and have formed a religion around them. They each are truth, but not all of it… there are skirmishes and great wars over the Facets… Does Radoslov seek to unite all of the Facets, and if he does… what happens then?

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August 16th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
C Scott MorrisNo Gravatar
 8 

Oh, local people will certainly worship aspects of the Shattered God(great name, btw), but pieces cant be found, they exist everywhere. In every rock, every tree, every stone or wolf or sword.
No, it might be possible to find pieces of Pure Facet/Spirit, and those would become artifacts and be worshiped.
I think Radoslav instead worships the Destroyer. He twists the Spirit of the Shattered God for his own twisted ends, but worships destruction. Maybe he has found a way to bring Creation and Destruction out of balance.

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August 16th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
zomnkerNo Gravatar
 9 

Radoslav is seeking the Tri-Force!

Seriously, unite all the pieces and wham! super-being under your command.

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August 16th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
JeniferNo Gravatar
 10 

I like Kurt’s name. Shattered God sounds interesting and creepy at the same time. I agree that Radislav shoud definitely be a follower of Destruction. For balance, obviously, the item Wesley seeks could possibly be an item of pure Creation or Life. This item would give him the edge needed to take down our big bad.

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August 19th, 2010 at 9:23 am
PinderNo Gravatar
 11 

Cult of Personality, eh? I dig.

So what if one of these thirteen facets of the Shattered God is, in fact, Personality? Meaning: Subconscious behavior. The voice of the mind. The nature of individual beings. The underlying foundation of action.

Obsessed with this aspect of the Shattered God, the Cult of Personality has developed a religion hybridized with psychology. They believe that among all the elements combined to construct a being, personality is the truest manifestation of the God’s complete self. But being shattered, it is impossible to see God’s actual personality in one being, only particular parts along the gamut. To this end, they seek out people who display the most acute personality profiles: anger, joy, sanity, neroticism, courage, cowardice, etc. The cultists assume that those best defined by a singular personality type were created with a more pure spirit of Personality, and therefore are closer to God.

These specimens then sometimes get kidnapped by the cult and taken to their house of worship — which functions more or less like an insane asylum — and kept in separate cells as a display of that personality type. For, although the true personality of God is not displayed entirely through an individual, a collection of the most pure personality types under a single roof feels much more complete.

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August 23rd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
C Scott MorrisNo Gravatar
 12 

Good idea. I like it.
Into our story it goes.
I would use the world ‘will’ instead of ‘personality’, though it would represent the same thing: the underlying foundation of action. The will to move, to be, to think. What makes us us.

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August 23rd, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Kurt KyreNo Gravatar
 13 

So, this Cult of Will… it sounds like WILL is being described as a GREATER FACET, with the various ‘types’ as per Pinder’s post, being lesser facets…? also, great reference to the Gospel of St. Thomas, Chris, being in every tree rock, etc… the mythos of this world is reflected in the mythos of our own.

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August 30th, 2010 at 2:50 am
Kurt KyreNo Gravatar
 14 

In response to zomnker: I’m not so sure about the whole super-being under Radislav’s command… there was a certain race who tried to do that in one of Chris’ worlds… and that didn’t work out so well… but more to the point, if Radislav were seeking to control Life/Death, wouldn’t that be scary enough? and it fits in with Wesley seeking what he needs… neh?

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August 30th, 2010 at 2:59 am
C Scott MorrisNo Gravatar
 15 

I think Will will be just one of the 13 facets. People give it more meaning than it actually has. We inflate its import.

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August 30th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
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