I've had an idea in the back of my mind for years.

As some of you know, I have a 'thing' for historically-based games.  I also rate RuneQuest as one of my favourite systems ever...I cut my teeth on RQII, back in the day, and even like RQIII!

I've also been looking for an age for a 'realistic' medieval game for, like, ever and the one thing that's kept me away from using RQ is the cult aspect.  So I've had in the back of my mind to write up the 'big 4' as RuneQuest cults (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism and Islam), but it would be a shedload of work - especially if I got into the whole 'patron-saints-as-Catholic-subcults' schtick.

HOWEVER, I'm going to be coming into a few months of free-time-on-full-pay, so if I'm ever going to do it, now's the time.  So I have a few questions:

• Has anyone already done it?
• Would anyone else be interested in using the results?
• Would anyone with webspace care to host it, should it ever get finished?
• Can anyone recommend any good sources (not necessarily gaming-related) for any of the four faiths?
• Am I utterly mad for even considering it???

Well, it sounds pretty cool, but there are so many ways of dealing with the idea of "real-world religion as cult"--mostly along high magic vs. low magic lines. And then I'm pretty sure you'll find that if you approach it from a "subjective historical perspective" (i.e., making the religions work the way that the people of the time thought of them as working), balancing them will be very difficult. E.g. while Roman Catholicism is rich in stories of saints who performed overt miracles quite similar to FRP "divine magic", I don't think Islam has nearly as strong a tradition along those lines. I may be mistaken, but if not, it will take a subtle touch. On the positive side, if you do it right you might be able to build the "feel" of each religion/culture into the system itself.

As for sources, I can recommend for Christianity, as primary sources, the lesser works of Gregory of Tours, which tend to highlight saints-as-miracle-workers interacting with the secular world. (There are anecdotes throughout his major work, the History of the Franks, but you have to search for them.) Just looking at the wikipedia entry for Gregory, I strongly suspect that Peter Brown's The Cult of the Saints and especially Raymond Van Dam's Saints and their miracles in late antique Gaul would be excellent secondary works on the same subject.

You could also look at Lester Little's Benedictine Maledictions, which is about the use of curses or "divine sanctions" by monasteries, in defense of their lands against greedy nobles.

I'm not aware of anyone having done it already, but it seems fraught with certain difficulties -- namely making the intangible, spiritual/mystical aspects of real-world religions overtly manifest in the form of tangible, virtually quantifiable magical effects.  Pendragon managed a feat similar to this with religious bonuses, but those can still be chalked up as, effectively, morale bonuses, a psychosomatic effect of the individual feeling empowered by his or her devotion.  I followed a similar avenue when developing Catholic and Protestant "magic" keywords for HeroQuest -- the effects of faith have a very real impact on the game, but can still be attributed to mundane causes.

With RQ, this would be a difficult path to follow, but I think it could be done, depending on how dramatic you want the effects of spells to be.  If all spells or invocations take the form of blessings to the individual or the congregation, and you avoid smiting in the form of holy pillars of fire, then I think it could be interesting.

As for the plentitude of saints, perhaps you could leave that up to individual players to work out for themselves, allowing them the chance to personalise their characters just that much more.  Give them some guidelines on power level and expected effects, and let them have their day.

!i!

(P.S. Having just taken a quick gander at the Cults of Glorantha supplement for RQIII, I'm reminded that they used a very brief form of cult write-up, and this could serve as a quick & dirty model for casting up the Big Four desert cults.  Use the format as an outline, bash them out without trying to get them "right" the first time out, and see where it takes you.  I may give it a go later this evening myself.)

Quote from: Ian Absentia(P.S. Having just taken a quick gander at the Cults of Glorantha supplement for RQIII, I'm reminded that they used a very brief form of cult write-up, and this could serve as a quick & dirty model for casting up the Big Four desert cults.  Use the format as an outline, bash them out without trying to get them "right" the first time out, and see where it takes you.  I may give it a go later this evening myself.)

I could, but the Grand Idea has always been to do it Cults of Prax style!

However, if you do give it a go, I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with!

Quote from: FighterboyI could, but the Grand Idea has always been to do it Cults of Prax style!

Oh.  Well, then, you are a mad little monkey, aren't you?  That's where I start running scared.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaOh.  Well, then, you are a mad little monkey, aren't you?

That's ben said before mate...