Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 10 Dec 2005 to 11 Dec 2005 (#2005-229) From: MYSTARA-L automatic digest system Date: 12/12/2005, 19:00 To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There is 1 message totalling 155 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Mystaran Churches ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 19:07:56 -0400 From: Steven Carter Subject: Re: Mystaran Churches On 12/10/05, Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > Or maybe they needed some more control on clergy, to avoid new Nithian > crises. Good point. > You mean these as different branches of that same unified cult? Yes. At first many of the Immortals designed to create the One Great Church, thereby eliminating the thousands and thousands of cults, putting orthodoxy into the hands of a bureaucracy that could be governed by mortals and watched by the Immortals. Even though the One Church didn't create a monopoly on religion the Immortals' plan is still a success in that they have cut down the "chaos" of religion to a more managable level. And Entropics always love to corrupt big ordered systems. > BTW, Birthright has a similar setup, though there it is required by the Always meant to look into that.... > > Immortals are fickle. This we know. They aren't omniscient or > > omni-present (are they? I don't think so) > > No, they have significant limits to their abilities. For example, even > the most intelligent Hierarch cannot keep more than 20 plots running at > the same time. They need spells such as Immortal Eye to see what's going > on in the Prime, and so on. Riiiight. Forgot the plot limitation. Never did run an Immortals level campaign. > Definitely: how would this church keep the different beliefs (Entropy > vs. everyone else, but also Time vs. Energy, etc) together? > Some Immortals may feel less represented than others -- e.g., True Well, even within the churches the lower-tier Immortals will find that there are clerics happy to promote them. I look at it this way, lots of real community churches are dedicated to particular saints. Lots of priests/ministers have agendas of their own and patron saints.=20 There are cults within the Christian churches, organizations within each of the great religions. Look at liberation theology within the Catholic Church as expressed in Latin America - surely to some priests Karl Marx is as much a saint as Benedict or Constantine. Father Moses Coady is a revered priest in Nova Scotia for founding co-operatives during the Great Depression. I doubt there are many who know of him outside the province. Few enough in this province know about him any longer. > Neutrals may like the unified church doctrines more than Immortals of > extreme alignments, due to the amount of compromises that such doctrines > would include. > Followers of LG (or CE, etc) Immortals will tend to branch off, form > specialized orders within the church or simply go rogue. I'd be more tempted to say that LG clerics will be your hardliners within an organization rather than revivalists. But it can work both ways. All Immortals will have some agents within the Big Churches and all Immortals will have some lone wolf, rogue agents . > > 2) It is possible for all mortals to transcend the mortal coil and > > become Immortal. > > This means that Immortalism is actually clearly recognized as such, thoug= h. Yeah. But again, does the common person know of anyone who became an Immortal? And Immortalism is not exclusive. It's little different from attaining Buddhist Nirvana, Daoist Immortality, becoming a Christian Saint or being spotted driving your pink Cadillac down a Montana freeway thirty years after your supposed death by drug overdose. In fact it's so difficult the smart wizard's money is on becoming a lich. ;) > Now, my personal opinion. > IMO, this kind of church doesn't fit well with many gazetteer lands: how > would a church modeled on european middle ages fit with, say, Ylaruam, > Ethengar, Atruaghin or even Glantri? Nope, it doesn't work for Ethengar. And it's totally ignored by Glantri because they know the Truth, right? ;) I don't have either GAZ for Atruaghin or Ylaruam but I doubt this idea is useful in either culture. But that's okay too. > OTOH, a unified origin could be conceived for the churches in Thyatis > (including the HK and the Thyatian dominions, with the exception of > Ochalea), Darokin, Karameikos and maybe Ierendi and/or Minrothad. Ochalea's case shouldn't be too different from Minrothad's. Ochalea might be a lot more mystical but that can fit in as well. > In this case, probably this church does not need to include all > Immortals, but simply those Immortals who are popular in the "core" > Known World regions. This would make for a more stable church. Or those Immortals that were signatories to the treaty. > Alphatia is a different matter, though. Alphatians have a different > approach to religion: originally, they had no priests (they were all > wizards), so their churches were formed later, when non-wizards appealed > to Alphatian Immortals (and later also non-Alphatian Immortals) to gain > magical powers. > So, they should have a different origin and organization. Alphatia's church _would_ be different from that in Brun but still recognizes the community of Immortals - even though it's a community of factions and interests. I think examining how a set of doctrines about the use of magic would be constructed for all societies. In the case of Glantri mages become the source of all wisdom and enlightenment. In Alphatia the interpretation says the only those who are blessed by magic are fit for rule. In Ochalea arcane magic is too dangerous and corrupting for anyone. Given the number of opinions in the modern world over such things as women's rights, race, abortion, stem cell research, inter-faith marriage I don't think it's a big leap to suppose Mystara could have a similar situation. > I could envision two different setups for Alphatia: > 1) Most Alphatian priests follow the Alphatian Immortals (Razud, > Alphatia and Koryis), and there are organized churches of these > Immortals; sometimes, though, a power-hungry Alphatian makes a deal with > a foreign Immortal, becoming a "rogue" priest. > 2) Alphatians have accepted as many Immortals as they could find in > their pantheon, in order to maximize the number of priests: in this > case, there are dozens of different churches, both monotheistic or > pantheistic. WotI would certainly cause a lot of division within each of these different churches. I'd have to re-read the set to see who was part of which faction and who wasn't included. It's more a loose framework that, as I said, tries to reconcile the existing similarities between Mystara's churches and Mediaeval Christendom. But please, poke as many holes in it as possible. ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 10 Dec 2005 to 11 Dec 2005 (#2005-229) ****************************************************************