#Fantasy religions

[nateconnolly]

The whole universe spoke the same language

For the empire stretched from the Moon to each of the nine worlds.

But the edge of the universe remained untouched. 

And the men of the Moon said, “Come, let us go to the edge of the universe.”

They made starships with thicker hulls, and mightier engines.

The slaves of the Moon mined materials, and crafted sturdy walls.

But the One came down to see the empire and the ships that they were building.

The One said, “These ships are not built to travel from world to world, or from moon to moon.

“These ships are built to travel to the edge of the universe, where mortal men should not go.

“They did this in the same language, as the same tribe.

“But the slaves of the empire will no longer speak the language of the Moon.

“The other worlds will no longer be the same tribe as the men of the Moon.

“Let us confound their languages, so they cannot go where mortal men should not go.”

And the One said, “Let us confound their technologies, which they presumed to use against us.”

So the One hid the meanings of words, and the One struck the empire down from his holy sky.

[empyrean-thrones]

Religions/deities in Empyrean Thrones

Navarrian gods

Poromish gods

Ildros

Dracerath

???

[limbobilbo]

Tell about religion in your fantasy, sci fi or any sort of fictional world and I’ll tell you about mine.

[ivynightshade]

fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s ‘i am tired of making a religion out of my suffering’.

[text id: i am too little, and too much, and never enough.]

[comikbook]

Violent Dog, 2023, Digital Painting by myself, Liz Pence

[phosilli]

eye of the vulture king

[prokopetz]

i've been trying to find a post you made a while ago about like. hearth-spirits for spaceships? and i have failed utterly. if you could provide any assistance, it would be greatly appreciated

I've posted on the topic a few times, but based on relative note counts you're probably thinking of this one.

[shellyscribbles]

Introduction to the world of Hallendrest

This story and world building, despite being a project I have worked on for years now, is still in the early stages and subject to change.

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What is Hallendrest?

Hallendrest is a dying world where a central kingdom, the only one to successfully keep the ground from dying and turning grey, is slowly taking over control of the entire world.

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Races of Hallendrest (with their magics)

Mages

Mages are beings who posses elemental magics as well as some ability to manipulate the inherit magic of the world through spells and totems. A mage can inherit magic from one or both parents though it is rare for a mage to inherit from both as it is less common for women to carry the magic. They sometimes carry the magic without having access to it.

Druids

Druids are beings who posses earth based magics. Their main abilities relate to the ability to transform themselves into the form of animals usually having a particular animal such as a wolf or lion that they are best at switching between.

They are also able to manipulate earth, water, and plant life.

The least used ability is the manipulation of small animals such as birds, ferrets and mice.

As with mages, their magic can be inherited from one or both parents with women being less likely to express it.

Humans

Humans are well, humans. They lack magic of any kind though they can sometimes, especially women, carry the magic in their bloodline without having access to or any expression of their magic.

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Politics/Government

Vonterre is ostensibly ruled by a king who works in conjunction with a council of seven men who are overseen by a head. The council was established by the original government as a check on the king.

In reality, the king has no true power and is used as a scapegoat to take the blame for the unpopular actions of the council.

Most political maneuvering is related to taking control of new kingdoms as they join the expanding Vonterre. An emissary is sent from Kalt to assist with the transition usually resulting in a new government being established due to the rulers failure conform to the new order quickly enough.

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Religions

Drestin (Drestinites) Worship of Drest. Original faith of the Druids but since the use of magic is forbidden, and the distinction between druid, mage, and human, is erased, it is followed by anyone. More common in rural areas though there are strong pockets of it in Kalt and Vonterre.

Drest: Druid God. Masculine. Interact with nature by force. Control nature. Command growth and development. Dominance over animals. Using animal forms and power gift given to Druids. Related to Drest’s drive to embody himself and live among the people of Hallendrest.

Core Ideals: Strength. Protection. Control.

Volar (Volarians) Worship of Vontis. Original faith of the Mages but since the use of magic is forbidden, it is followed by anyone. More common in rural areas, particularly the farthest points from Kalt.

Vontis: Mage Goddess. Soft interaction with Nature through magic. Manipulation of power. Largely impersonal.

Core Ideals: Humility. Responsibility. Stewardship.

Terr El Dur – Ancient religion worshiping both Drest and Vontis as a sacred couple. Largely out of practice though some remote villages still have fanes. Drest and Vontis were personal Gods with whom the people interacted and served.

Core Ideals: Love. Community. Service. Unity.

Hallenism (Hallenist) Worship of Hallen, Almighty silent God of Hallendrest. Gave magic to the world as a test. Full persons have no magic, having both neutralizes magic therefore humans are highest beings. Magic is a poison to the world. It is a test to see that men will reject power for the good of others and the world. False religion created by the first council of Kalt/Vonterre.

In accordance with his nature, he also withholds his power leaving it to men to redeem themselves and become worthy of entering the halls of Hallen. People receive multiple lives to try until they are worthy.

Dominate faith of Kalt and central Vonterre.

Core Ideals: Sacrifice. Obedience.

---

Important people (current and historic)

Torral - first King of Vonterre

Kallias Adlay - Present King of Vonterre

The Council of Kalt - Head of Council: Travastol. Operations half of council (day to day functions of the kingdom, logistics) : Berquist (Operations chair), Damek, and Halston. Executive half of council (maintaining law and order, preventing further death of Hallendrest through force):Khalid (Executive Chair), Kedar, and Rai.

Reena Adlay (Maiden: Zevach) - Third Princess of Adullam (new acquisition of Vonterre) married to Kallias as part of agreement that made Adullam a kingdom of Vonterre.

Kaisair Adlay - Kallias' father, previous king of Vonterre.

---

Other notable features:

As the death of Hallendrest spreads, Kalt at the heart of Vonterre is seen as remarkably alive and opulent. Its the only place where electricity, in door plumbing, and plant life are all ubiquitous.

The success of Kalt is attributed to the brutal measures King Kallias takes to keep the people from using magic including brutal public executions and the destruction of entire cities, with the people banished to the grey lands for disobeying the laws of Vonterre, usually by failing to surrender a fugitive.

[gockruler]

If a transfem rapes you, you should thank her. She could have raped any cunt she wanted, but she chose yours. You should be honored she blessed you.

[descendinight]

study of picture 学习

[nateconnolly]

Azazel’s teeth have wound up in the tombs of kings, buried in their dead hands. Her teeth have also been found washed up with the trash and seaweed on every beach. A molar was brought up from the bottom of the world’s deepest pit. A canine was found in the nest of a crow. Azazel’s teeth are almost always misidentified—as human, or elephant, or dragon. Once, miners discovered a fang of Azazel and mistook it for a vein of gold. They dug and they dug, breaking off chunk after chunk, but their entire civilization came and went before they realized what they had uncovered: an angel’s colossal tooth. 

Each tooth is a different shape, size, color, density, and weight. Her throat is bottomless, and there are teeth all the way down. Infinitely many teeth glistened in the moonlight as we talked. 

I asked Azazel why her teeth are found on Earth.

“I spit them out when they begin to decay,” Azazel told me, with a voice so loud it rivaled hurricanes. “Entire species have evolved to feed off the pulp in my teeth. Parasites, scavengers, decomposers. It is an ecosystem that draws no energy from the Sun—for the light of the Sun cannot reach deep into my throat. No, I am the primary source of energy to the creatures who know only the dark. They are always hungry, always feeding. It is necessary, now and then, to spit out the rotten teeth.” 

“Do you replace them?”

“I have no need to replace them.”

“So, their number grows smaller as time passes.” I deduced. “One day you’ll run out.” 

Her eyes blinked in confusion. (They are not infinitely many, and number only somewhere in the millions.) Then they narrowed in amusement.

“The number of my teeth has never and will never grow smaller,” Azazel replied. “The Lord saw fit to give me infinitely many teeth. I lost my first tooth a thousand years after that. But infinity without one is still infinity. Another thousand years passed, and I lost another tooth. But infinity without two is still infinity. And infinity without one million is still infinity. Loosing my teeth is a process without end, subtraction without reduction.”

“So there is no end?”

“No end at all.”

“Is there a middle?”

Azazel smiled at my question. It was clear to me that she thought I was finally catching on, and that I had finally posed a question worth asking.

“It isn’t necessarily wrong to say there is a middle,” said Azazel, “but that is not how I think of it. Rather, I would say that it is all beginning.”

[cosmopoliturtle]

Chalkydri - Bringer of Dawn

Created for @13daysadvent

[limbobilbo]

Not memes but instead sharing some world building ive been doing:

A prayer to the god sons:

Javen lord Javen king on high, grant me your power and your wisdom

Sulgan lady Sulgan mother of all, grant your children safety

Lance lord Lancs hidden thunderer, may your rumble strike fear into the hearts of the non righteous

Adwe lord Adwe stalwart defender, grant me your prowess grant me your blade

Marthem fallen Marthem, my your death be not in vain

Osgrey great Osgrey the unknowable one, grant me your cunning grant me your wit

Maela lady Maela bringer of all, grant me my success and bring me my joys

Ael great Rel giver and taker, sister and brother, take what is owed and give what is granted

Lemea lady Lemea granter of prayer, hear my words and flow them to all

Ile of Ile triumph of all, all that was and all that will

May it be.

[ivynightshade]

fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s ‘i am tired of making a religion out of my suffering’.

[text id: my bones whimper at the thought of what could have been. / what could have been if i was not born in a grave?]

[comikbook]

No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross, 2023, Digital Painting by myself, Liz Pence

[alpaca-clouds]

Worldbuild Differently: Unthink Religion

This week I want to talk a bit about one thing I see in both fantasy and scifi worldbuilding: Certain things about our world that we live in right now are assumed to be natural, and hence just adapted in the fantasy world. With just one tiny problem: They are not natural, and there were more than enough societies historically that avoided those pitfalls.

Tell me, if you have heard this one before: You have this fantasy world with so many differnet gods that are venerated. So what do you do to venerate those gods? Easy! You go into those big temple structures with the stained glass in their windows, that for some reason also use incense in their rituals. DUH!

Or: Please, writers, please just think one moment on why the fuck you always just want to write Christianity. Because literally no other religion than Christianity has buildings like that! And that has to do a lot with medieval and early post-medieval culture. I am not even asking you to look into very distant cultures. Just... Look of mosques and synagogues differ from churches. And then maybe look at Roman and Greek temples. That is all I am asking.

Let's make one thing clear: No matter what kind of world you are building, there is gonna be religion. It does not matter if you are writing medieval fantasy, stoneage fantasy, or some sort of science fiction. I know that a lot of atheists hate the idea that a scifi world has religion, but... Look, human brains are wired to believe in the paranormal. That is simply how we are. And even those atheists, that believe themselves super rational, do believe in some weird stuff that is about as scientific as any religions. (Evolutionary Psychology would be such an example.)

What the people will believe in will differ from their circumstance and the world they life in, but there is gonna be religion of some sort. Because we do need some higher power to blame, we need the rituals of it, and we need the community aspect of it.

Ironically I personally am still very much convinced that IRL even in a world like the Forgotten Realms, people would still make up new gods they would pray to, even with a whole pantheon of very, very real gods that exist. (Which is really sad, that this gets so rarely explored.)

However, how this worship looks like is very different. Yes, the Abrahamitic religions in general do at least have in common that they semi-regularily meet in some sort of big building to pray to their god together. Though how much the people are expected to go into that temple to pray is actually quite different between those religions and the subgroups of those religions.

Other religions do not have this though. Some do not have those really big buildings, and often enough only a select few are even allowed into the big buildings - or those might only be accessible during some holidays.

Instead a lot of polytheistic religions make a big deal of having smaller shrines dedicated to some of the gods. Often folks will have their own little shrine at home where they will pray daily. Alternatively there are some religions where there might be a tiny shrine outside that people will go to to pray to.

Funnily enough that is also something I have realized Americans often don't quite get: Yeah, this was a thing in Christianity, too. In Europe you will still find those tiny shrines to certain saints (because technically speaking Christianity still works as a polytheistic religion, only that we have only one god, but a lot of saints that take over the portfolios of the polytheistic gods). I am disabled, and even in the area I can reach on foot I know of two hidden shrines. One of them is to Mary, and one... I am honestly not sure, as the masonry is too withered to say who was venerated there. Usually those shrines are bieng kept in a somewhat okay condition by old people, but yeah...

Of course, while with historically inspired fantasy settings make this easy (even though people still hate their research), things get a bit harder with science fiction.

Again, the atheist idea is often: "When we develop further scientifically, we will no longer need religion!" But I am sorry, folks. This is not how the human brain works. We see weird coincidences and will go: "What paranormal power was responsible for it?" We can now talk about why the human brain has developed this way. We are evolved to find patterns, and we are evolved (because social animal and such) to try and understand the will others have - so far that we will read will in nature. It is simply how our brains work.

So, what will scifi cultures believe in? I don't know. Depends on your worldbuilding. Maybe they believe in the ghost in the machine, maybe there si some other religions there. You can actually go very wild with it. But you need to unthink the normativity of Christianity to do that. And that is... what I see too little off.