Religion is one of those black holes of RPGs. Many incarnations of religion are simplistic and lacking in cultural flavor, at the benefit of being easily understood and gameable. Going too complex and adding in culture-specific or historically inspired flavor can spice things up and provide fun things to think and talk about, but too much, and you’ll alienate your players who have no idea what an Annunaki is or what kind of salad it goes best on. As an unapologetic History and Anthropology Dweeb, I have elected to try and err on the side of flavor and complexity while also serving up something gameable. Each God is not static. Each has numerous interpretations, incarnations, stories, etc. This selection of just a few deities exist largely to provide flavor and hooks into the world, factions and cults to bounce off of each other and of the players. As time goes on, I’d like to incorporate some actual gameplay elements in the vein of Shrines, but for now I’d just like to get my ideas out there. Much of this is heavily inspired by the writings on Poytheism over at A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, an excellent read.

First and most important to note is that as far as (mostly) anyone is concerned, the gods are very much real. Prayer is answered. The gods speak through augury, vision, or even by idols standing up and talking. This is true for all gods, even the same god worshiped in different ways, or a god derived from another god. Explanations for why this is abound. The gods may be hungry for sacrifice and reverence and be willing to take it even from heretics, some argue. Others contend that the seemingly numerous gods are reflections of a single cosmic entity or truth. A sizable philosophical faction believes that devotion itself creates the god, or at least greatly powerful spirits that can be mistaken as gods. The Psionists say that it is this mortal devotion that holds true power, and that sufficient faith and reverence is enough to manifest anything with no gods entering the picture at all, but people tend to start shouting angrily when Psionists start talking about these things and so they don’t usually get much further in the conversation. 

Religions on the Lugal’s Planet (my placeholder name because I cannot come up with a Fantasy Planet Name that I don’t despise) are shaped by direct knowledge of the planet’s place in the universe. The basics of cosmology are well understood and widely distributed, even if half-understood or viewed through a lens of myth. The planet is a sphere, orbiting around a great ball of flames along with several other spheres. The lights in the sky are distant balls of flame around which other spheres orbit, many of them with their own people. Sometimes, the sun is the great ball of celestial brilliance in which the gods dwell. Sometimes the Sun God is a king dwelling in a palace on the fiery surface, sometimes the great ball of fire is itself alive and divine in its own ways. Gods dwell on distant planets, or on flying ships higher than any can see, or even alongside mortals in a realm distinct from yet adjacent to our own, but they do not live atop a great sky enclosure or on the other side of great crystal spheres. Whatever the specifics, astronomy dictates the shape of the gods much more strongly than in our own world’s history. The gods do not pull the sun in a chariot. The chariot instead pulls the planet along.

Also of great influence is the great priesthood of the Lugal. As mentioned in my previous post on the Lugal’s household, there is little royal desire to convert the multitudes to worship of his ancient deities. Individual priests and temples try to promote worship of one god or another, or pen elaborate theological works and mythologies weaving the world’s gods and philosophies into one great family tree, but no institutional urgency to convert exists. However, the exposure of a singular pantheon to nearly the whole world’s population inevitably results in influence and syncretism. The chief deities of the Lugal, the Sky King, the Water Mother, the Underworld Queen, the Earth Father, the Keeper of Knowledge, the Woman of Love and War, and others show up in the backgrounds of or in deeply altered guise within many religious systems. They can be a past generation of gods who have passed on rule to the more prominent deities, or distant cosmic beings who govern greater cosmic truths than mortals interact with, or even simply strong spirits who watched over and guided benevolent sages on their way to enlightenment. So long as offerings are collected as part of the Lugal’s tribute and the official royal versions of these deities do not have their temples interfered with, all is well. 

I have elected to not outline these very static and distant deities very much. They’re very much close historical parallels to Sumerian myth, and I prefer to focus on interesting crossovers and twists on historical parallels. If detail on them is needed, the real deities can be inserted easily with appropriately altered names.

The Common Gods, the religions practiced by the vast majority of people, are just as much influenced by one another as they are by the Lugal’s gods. The worldwide communication afforded by the Lugal’s household, slow and awkward as it is, has allowed religions and philosophies to spread and intermingle and blend on an immense scale. The Camask region of the Inner Sea alone has worshipers of hundreds or even thousands of gods, not even including the uncountable minor gods of springs, crossroads, and households who involve themselves in the daily religious life of the multitudes. Rarely is a god worshiped solely. More commonly people provide offerings and worship to gods depending on need, moving fluidly between ritual circles over time rather than devoting themselves to a singular deity. This list is a mere sample of some prominent or interesting deities and philosophical leaders in the region.

Carus, Lord of Truth 

Originally the Tutelary God of a great city-state now lost to time and obliteration, Carus sits upon a throne in heaven and watches over the words of mortals. His army of divine scribes take careful note of all that is said and done, carefully noting falsity and deception. In His hand is a stylus used to inscribe a list of such breaches into the clay of a person’s soul. All gods will know what sort of person a soul was in life even when stripped from the mortal flesh and trappings of life. Priesthoods of Carus form an important societal role in many city-states. Priests are elected or appointed by autarchs and senates as a matter of politics. Priests serve out a term, generally between five and ten years, in which they serve as solicitors and solemn legal witnesses. Legal contracts, including compensation for the breaking of such contracts, laws, and some marriages are dutifully recorded by an enthroned priest acting as a surrogate for his or her god. An oath is a powerful thing, but an oath sworn before a Priest of Carus is ironbound. 

Valiten, Valitor, Valiti, the Walker of Roads

Valiten is a deity shared by most of the speakers of Pherai, a language from the southern shores of the Inner Sea. Pheraian cities are famous for their olive groves, their great necropolises, gladiatorial games, and for the suspiciously friendly welcome that every visitor gets, no matter their place of origin. This is because any visitor may be Valiten. No statues of the god exist, for They have no singular form, instead walking among mortals in the guise of anyone and anything. A passing beggar, a powerful noblewoman, a wounded dog, any of these things can be the incarnation of the deity. In disguise, They pass on knowledge to other gods and distribute blessings and luck to those deserving. Many stories exist of acts of kindness to strangers rewarded or of random cruelty revisited by an incarnation. Valiti (feminine), Valitor (masculine), or Valiten (neuter) are applied based on the situation, but most simply refer to Them by their epithet, the Walker of Roads. No formal public priesthood for Valiten exists, with worship instead taking the form of roadside offerings, ritual charity, and strict observance of the Laws of Hospitality. Some priesthoods are said to exist, their memberships secret, and their members from all walks of life. If such institutions do exist, their value lies less in ministering to the people and more in their utility as spies and information brokers.

The Insatiable, He Who Gnaws Bones

It is said by the Lugal’s priests that the gods once did battle against a great many demons and spirits who preyed on humankind. No matter how many the gods vanquished, more would emerge and spread fear and misery among the land. The solution came not by destroying the demons, but by exalting one of them. The Insatiable was a great demon lord, and in return for his services in combating his own kind, the gods promised him that he could devour the bodies and souls of any human not given proper burial rituals. Fat and powerful on these sacrifices, the Insatiable frightened all the demons back to their holes, where they only occasionally creep up to try and snatch away a child or wreck a harvest. Now, the Insatiable is a subject of fear and propitiation. His power is undeniable; displaying an icon of him has been known to drive away even powerful undead in fear of being devoured, and such icons are frequently displayed to frighten away evil. Some people even make clay icons to be eaten, granting themselves the power to frighten undead at the cost of granting the icon a portion of all of their meals. Most people also fear their own bodies being devoured after death, and so offer food to distract the Insatiable in the event that their own bodies or those of family members are not cared for after death, or to bribe him into not taking a bite from a properly buried corpse. After all, even a demon empowered by the gods is still a demon and not to be trusted.

Kasumi, the Benevolent

The Lugal’s Priesthood cares very little for theological matters among the general populace, and thus their concern for the Kasumi cult speaks to its disruptive nature. Far, far in the west, there once was a great tribe that lived in peace and plenty. Through mistaken identity, or malice, the daughter of the chieftain was cast out of the tribe and sent to wander the cruel world for a full thirty years, where she learned much of sorcery and the devious ways of the outside lands. In adulthood she returned, and found that her peaceful homeland was threatened by a great dragon. The daughter slew the dragon and was accepted back to her people as the new ruler, where she reigned with justice and wisdom for many years until her death, and was deified by her descendants. One sect of worshipers, however, proclaimed that on her deathbed, Lady Kasumi had left the whole of her realm to its people and had pledged to live on in the next life as their eternal protector. Her successor did not take kindly to such a story, and the sect was driven from the country. Centuries later they have migrated across the world and have settled on a set of islands in the Inner Sea in small self-ruled communities. Their devotion to their Lady Kasumi as a font of infinite compassion and justice and allergy to direct rule makes them the subject of suspicion from the Lugal’s household, who fear that their theology usurps the Lugal’s position as rightful king. So far they have escaped destruction by loudly proclaiming the Lugal’s rulership of earthly matters as the regent of Kasumi and leaving the more radical positions of human equality and throwing rulers into volcanos unspoken. In addition, their belief that a person who proclaims the name of Lady Kasumi in worship even once will be reborn in her paradise after death has given them the reputation of soul snatchers among the worshippers of other gods. The appeal of their doctrine is undeniable, however, and there has been a steady growth of converts throughout the Inner Sea as people are attracted to the faith for reasons of its general egalitarianism or for its radical anti-monarchism. 

Next time, I’ll have some more gods to share. I hope these at least spark a tiny bit of imagination.