Nothing wrong with a monotheistic setting. The one thing that you'll have to figure out is how all cultures came to know and believe in this one deity, since, historically, different people across the world have made up their own mythologies based on their social histories, perceived spiritual needs, etc.. Of course, they could all just have different names for it, and worship it in different ways, so it just seems like a different religion. Or some might worship something else which they think it the deity, but is in actuality a demon or other entity. Or worship something else which doesn't even exist and is really mythological, and they get no divine power from it.

Quote from: EOTB;1057326You're extrapolating from the POV of the least-powerful entity in the equation in a bottom-up sort of thinking.  Not every culture has to be follow a god, and even if every culture either worshiped or merely acknowledged a monotheistic god, why would that preclude samurai?  From a top-down perspective (i.e., the god's POV) this doesn't have to matter all that much.

Every human culture in history incorporated religion as part of their fabric. Note I specifically stated religion not a god. The culture that surround the worship of the divine. I am not saying it would preclude a samauri however it would raise questions about the religion of the culture that produce the samurai which was very different than the monotheism of a singular God.

Nor I stating any particular outcome. One choice could be that only the cultures that adopted religion of God is worshiping a divine deity that is real. The rest are just made up myths. Just as another choices is that only God exists but he appear in many forms to different cultures and speaks in many voices. Or that the "gods" of other religions are in reality either demons or powerful magical spirits but none of them have the power of God.

Hence

So what happens if a players wants to play a character who is a samauri?

Quote from: EOTB;1057326Why would a D&D monotheism be different from every other historical monotheism?

Divine spells that are not miraculous but a regular manifestation of God's power that other religions can only fake by disguising arcane spells as divine. Your main point, a monotheistic religion having priest and adherents of varying alignments, is fine. However the overall situation would have differences than historical monotheism. Especially as they edge towards their version of the Renaissance or better yet the 5th Century BC of Greece. Philosophers, mundane and religious, would reason out that there a quantifiable difference between one religion in particular and others.

Ignore alignment.  It was always one of D&Ds dumbest ideas.

If you don't want an interventionist god make clerical magic just a type of magic practiced by the church - Theurgy - powered by faith.  It's fundamentally just a different magical tradition to arcane magic or druidic magic.  Obviously the priests believe it is powered by their god - but members of other traditions don't have to see it that way.

Quote from: estar;1057353Every human culture in history incorporated religion as part of their fabric. Note I specifically stated religion not a god. The culture that surround the worship of the divine. I am not saying it would preclude a samauri however it would raise questions about the religion of the culture that produce the samurai which was very different than the monotheism of a singular God.

Nor I stating any particular outcome. One choice could be that only the cultures that adopted religion of God is worshiping a divine deity that is real. The rest are just made up myths. Just as another choices is that only God exists but he appear in many forms to different cultures and speaks in many voices. Or that the "gods" of other religions are in reality either demons or powerful magical spirits but none of them have the power of God.

Hence

So what happens if a players wants to play a character who is a samauri?

For my homebrew, they would play a samurai.  It has nothing to do with monotheism - samurai weren't religious warriors.  

To your larger question (I believe) of "how do the cultures whose religion(s) are different, and likely false, handle it when confronted with divine power?" the answer is: they either fight it, convert, or ignore unless compelled otherwise.  As you noted, a single deity doesn't mean there's global conformity, or even acknowledgement.  But there's only one cleric; others glorifying lesser supernatural entities are witch doctors or shaman (mechanically) with magic of an inferior sort.  

So the samurai might worship what they believe are ancestor spirits, as professed by their cultural priesthood (who have shaman powers).  They've likely never encountered a cleric in their lives.

This is a conflict seed.

Quote from: estar;1057354Divine spells that are not miraculous but a regular manifestation of God's power that other religions can only fake by disguising arcane spells as divine. Your main point, a monotheistic religion having priest and adherents of varying alignments, is fine. However the overall situation would have differences than historical monotheism. Especially as they edge towards their version of the Renaissance or better yet the 5th Century BC of Greece. Philosophers, mundane and religious, would reason out that there a quantifiable difference between one religion in particular and others.

First, you presume geographical overlap that allows wise philosophers to compare alternatives.  Second - you are aware of Paul's discussions with the philosophers at Athens, correct?  It didn't result in a new monotheism sweeping aside their ancient beliefs, and this is (according to the materials) with miracles performed throughout the ancient world at the same time.

Last, I think you overestimate how willing people are to turn aside from the traditions of their ancestors (and the entire structure their existing society is built upon), even to gain a new magic accomplishing wonders your own objectively can not.  Again, look at the Broken Sword and similar books.  The conflict is archetypal - "go out unto all the world, etc.".  I'm not breaking new ground here...unlike TSR, I simply chose not to turn away from source material to duct-tape ancient Greece's religious structure on to an old testament emulator.   It's more cohesive to keep the latter than the former, and I don't care if an old lady in the midwest will tut-tut me for it - which is the real reason for polytheism in D&D.

Quote from: estar;1057354Divine spells that are not miraculous but a regular manifestation of God's power that other religions can only fake by disguising arcane spells as divine. Your main point, a monotheistic religion having priest and adherents of varying alignments, is fine. However the overall situation would have differences than historical monotheism. Especially as they edge towards their version of the Renaissance or better yet the 5th Century BC of Greece. Philosophers, mundane and religious, would reason out that there a quantifiable difference between one religion in particular and others.

That depends on whether you see individuals with divine character classes as being village priests (i.e. one in every village) or once-in-a-lifetime miracle workers (i.e. only a handful in the world at any one time with most church officials being as devoid of miracle working ability as they are in the real world (i.e. at best so subtle it'd be written off as coincidence/taken on faith).

For that matter, maybe clerics aren't even 'divine' in the setting being created, but just a specialized type of arcane caster, so the only signs of any God or gods one way or the other are events that might be attributed to wild coincidences by unbelievers.

Quote from: estar;1057353So what happens if a players wants to play a character who is a samauri?

Well I would say:

"This setting is based on medieval Europe. No Samurai. You can play a Nerian (LG African Monotheist culture) if you want to get exotic."

Quote from: Razor 007;1057139Hey, I like it.  Why?  If all Clerics have access to all the Divine Spells anyway, then why not?


Doesn't bother me a bit.  It simplifies the game.  Some people believe in the Divine, while others do not.  Really devout believers may receive some perks in return for their devotion.  It doesn't hurt the game from my perspective to go Monotheistic, as opposed to having a diverse pantheon to choose from.  It's all still a Divine caster at work, doing what they do.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.  I'm a big boy.

In Dark Albion/Lion & Dragon, Monotheism is a given.

You can't call any fantasy setting a real "Medieval European fantasy setting" if isn't monotheistic.

I've come around on this and now see monotheism as the way forward for my campaign.  I didn't want to do any retconning or a hard reset, so I've been having the existing "gods" be exposed as demons, killed or otherwise removed from power.  With the miracles of those who serve the one god and follow the teachings of that beings avatars being the only real divine magic.

Clerics are not popular at all in my gaming group so it hasn't been an issue with any character.  There's one monk who's very religious, but his ascended master was an avatar of the one, so that player is already totally on board.

Quote from: NathanIW;1057776I've come around on this and now see monotheism as the way forward for my campaign.  I didn't want to do any retconning or a hard reset, so I've been having the existing "gods" be exposed as demons, killed or otherwise removed from power.  With the miracles of those who serve the one god and follow the teachings of that beings avatars being the only real divine magic.

Clerics are not popular at all in my gaming group so it hasn't been an issue with any character.  There's one monk who's very religious, but his ascended master was an avatar of the one, so that player is already totally on board.

Very deep down in my Wilderlands there is a creeping sense that "The One God Comes, to Chase Out the Many Gods" - that Mycr is more real and has greater power than all the other 'gods'. I like the Late Antiquity feel. But it seems unlikely to come to fruition within the scope of the campaign, even if that's the rest of my life.

Quote from: S'mon;1057778Very deep down in my Wilderlands there is a creeping sense that "The One God Comes, to Chase Out the Many Gods" - that Mycr is more real and has greater power than all the other 'gods'. I like the Late Antiquity feel. But it seems unlikely to come to fruition within the scope of the campaign, even if that's the rest of my life.

I like your idea of Mycr going from a polytheistic god through henotheism to total monotheism.  Even if it's in the background or happening very slowly.

I'm not as patient as you  I'm making it happen very rapidly.  The player characters just happen to be living in interesting times.

I asked this in the Lion & Dragon thread, but it hasn't generated any response.

I'm curious how people would suggest handling splits within a monotheistic religion. If you look at only Catholicism you have two major branches the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. These worked in relative cooperation for centuries with subtle differences in interpretation. A major split occurred in 1054 eventually leading to crusades in the 1200s by the west against the east.

In the later middle ages you see this again with the protestant reformations, Church of England etc as new religions form from the same basic sources.  

They worship the same god, yet feel the other "is doing it wrong".  


There are similar splits among other religions, it is certainly not limited to Christendom. Nobody hates the First Reformed Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster more than the followers of the Holy Orthodox Order of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1057958They worship the same god, yet feel the other "is doing it wrong".  

So Red Team/Blue Team stuff? It gets messy whether your god is a deity or a nation, but that's only because the other side is totally wrong about everything. Now, if the god directly communicates its true feelings/intentions in an unambiguous manner then one side really is going to be correct (or at least more correct), so that changes things.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1057958I asked this in the Lion & Dragon thread, but it hasn't generated any response.

I'm curious how people would suggest handling splits within a monotheistic religion. If you look at only Catholicism you have two major branches the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. These worked in relative cooperation for centuries with subtle differences in interpretation. A major split occurred in 1054 eventually leading to crusades in the 1200s by the west against the east.

In the later middle ages you see this again with the protestant reformations, Church of England etc as new religions form from the same basic sources.  

They worship the same god, yet feel the other "is doing it wrong".  


There are similar splits among other religions, it is certainly not limited to Christendom. Nobody hates the First Reformed Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster more than the followers of the Holy Orthodox Order of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Yes, this is all good to include.  The one thing monotheism shouldn't include in an RPG game, is monotheism as a cloud oracle micromanaging things and clearly separating truth from fiction.  RPG Monotheism shouldn't be finally having the perfect sky-parent who helicopters in and makes everything right whenever the kids can't arrive at the same truth/solution.

The deity might require the faithful to accomplish something X so that a new era can commence.  If the faithful can't achieve X, the new promised era can't work because they're not ready.  Everyone agrees that X hasn't happened yet, but argue if that means that the traditional church is being kneecapped by the splinters, or if the splinters are correct and the corruption of the traditional church is what's holding up the future.  Everyone gets spells so no clear divine (dis)favor is established.  One conceptual anchor of most monotheisms is the striving required by its adherents - it's what separates them from simple mystery cults, and the more transactional approach of polytheists.  

It can all be a opaque to the players.  I know many DMs like to have this all buttoned up in advance, but it doesn't need to be conceptually tucked in.  As DM, you're trying to create explosive status quos that the PCs can take over the edge into a resolution of one type or another.  RPG monotheism should offer no more solutions or certainties than polytheism or it's less useful as an RPG conceit.

Quote from: EOTB;1057962Yes, this is all good to include.  The one thing monotheism shouldn't include in an RPG game, is monotheism as a cloud oracle micromanaging things and clearly separating truth from fiction.  RPG Monotheism shouldn't be finally having the perfect sky-parent who helicopters in and makes everything right whenever the kids can't arrive at the same truth/solution.

The deity might require the faithful to accomplish something X so that a new era can commence.  If the faithful can't achieve X, the new promised era can't work because they're not ready.  Everyone agrees that X hasn't happened yet, but argue if that means that the traditional church is being kneecapped by the splinters, or if the splinters are correct and the corruption of the traditional church is what's holding up the future.  Everyone gets spells so no clear divine (dis)favor is established.  One conceptual anchor of most monotheisms is the striving required by its adherents - it's what separates them from simple mystery cults, and the more transactional approach of polytheists.  

It can all be a opaque to the players.  I know many DMs like to have this all buttoned up in advance, but it doesn't need to be conceptually tucked in.  As DM, you're trying to create explosive status quos that the PCs can take over the edge into a resolution of one type or another.  RPG monotheism should offer no more solutions or certainties than polytheism or it's less useful as an RPG conceit.

This reminds me of the Star Trek episode Who Mourns for Adonais? where they meet the Greek god Apollo (or at least an alien claiming to be). Apollo really just needed worshipers, so he probably wouldn't get too hung up on how various splinter factions honored him, so long as it means more worship (and power) for him. This of course assumes some actual conscious divine power transfer rather than it being incidental.