@LoreGeist i liked most of the ones mentioned in Branden sandersons mistborn. They're more hinted at than practiced but the whole trilogy had a very interesting take on religion and faith as a whole.
A notable example of a series that handled religion in a fantasy world is The Deryni Chronicles by Katherine Kurtz. Both the magic and religion are consistent and balanced, and the political intrigue seems genuine.
In my series there's the reality of the gods, and then there's mythology. All the gods are real, but different cultures interpret them differently. Some cultures merge two or more gods into one. Some misinterpret their gods. One idea I have for a religion is one that combines Buddhism and Catholicism. They revere a Buddha-esque prophet who managed to shed his physical body and ascend to godhood. The element from Catholicism is that they also revere a bunch of holy people that they believe ascended after death. They call them paragons. They also have monks that's sort of a cross between early medieval Christian monks and Buddhist monks.
In the piece I am working currently, ancestor worship plays a pivotal role in the government of my equivalent to the Roman Empire. Emperor's aren't permitted to die of old age and every effort is made to prevent them from being killed too far from the imperial capital, so that they can be transported to City of the Ancestors, where they are transformed into a Lich like undead creature. These undead Emperor's form a ruling council that is responsible for the actual governance of the empire. However, their existence is only known to the current emperor and the highest ranking members of their clergy. The populous as a whole is taught to believe that all their ancestors look out for them from beyond the grave and acts of ancestor worship are part of daily life
I like that you can explore the fact that, the longer an ancestor stays in this isolated city, the most out of touch with the realities of the empire than can become.
@@LoreGeist not just out of touch, but less human. My idea here isn't that they are "evil" exactly, no more or less than anyone who is still alive, but that the oldest of them have existed here for centuries and they no longer see things in the same way a living person does. They don't feel the urgency of impending death and as time goes on they lose the emotional connections that allow them to see people in a concrete way. For them, humans and humanity exist in an abstract and idealized, conceptual way. The decisions they make are driven by a desire to see their people and empire grow, prosper and generally have the best lives they can, but they think in terms of generations, not today.
Great exploration! A cool series of fantasy novels, although older, that looks at this idea is the Hound and the Falcon series by Judith Tarr. They're fairly short historical fantasy books where, in the first one, an elf (basically) is raised in an Abbey, and grows up to have all sorts of conflicts between what he is and what he believes. The whole series is excellent, but that one (Isle of Glass) is my favorite.
A huge factor in writing realistic religious characters is to actually talk to religious people. If you are not religious, or have only ever spoken to one variety of religious people, its very hard to understand the viewpoint of those with strong faith.
People who are not religious write religion from a very cynical point of view sometimes. I agree that doing research by talking to religious people should be pretty helpful
Ragnarök Rising: Hugr by Sarah B. Wood may not create its own religion, but it DOES take a fascinating fresh look at the Norse pantheon and the earlier stages of the Viking religion, when reincarnation was the dominant belief. It incorporates history and religion of the time period and culture in an way that makes me interested to see where the next book goes with it.
I made the dominate religion in my world monotheistic and based on all the Abrahamic religions, but its structutre was loosely based on catholic church. It absorbed all the old religions and they worshiped Starlinfore a star bound god who was said to have many faces to incorperate all the old gods. It ended up collapsing due to a truth they had hidden about their god. So they devolved into a sun worshiping cult that wants to purge all the Xeno species from the land. Which cause three other factions ti apear that worship primordials long forgotten
So your setting is a good example of how religion actively impacts the plot and how conflict are created from different denominations interpreting religion in different ways
Small gods by Terry Pratchett. The rest of the Discworld on occasion but it seems that just because gods exist people don't go around believing in them. I guess the oh god of hangovers is one of the weirdest.
Why why. Why does every video on writing religion take this same old approach. Religion isn't all hersey. It isn't formed by random stories. If you can't respect religion enough to study it properly then just don't write it at all.
@LoreGeist first and foremost religion comes from belief. Second things second our ancestors weren't dumb. They didn't see a bolt of lightning hit a building and panick about that gods like so many people portray today. It depends on if the religion in your world is true or not. If the religion is real in your story you will need to make your god a character and derive the religious tenants from that character. If your religion is wrong then you need to know what the truth of the world is and explain how things got so confused, but without the excuse that everyone is stupid. For example the Bible doesn't just say God exists but has stories about him comming and speaking to people. Then angelic messengers roam all over the place telling people about him. Why wouldn't they believe he's real if they've spoken to him first or second hand? The pagan gods of Greece and Norse mythologies have dozens of stories about the adventures of their gods. So of course they believe in them. For example we believe wwii happened. We belive the American revolution occurred. Why? Because we can see the results. Your people won't just believe in a god but need a reason for it. Did ge come down and say I am your god? Or did they see a crater in the earth and maje up a story about a god? Or did a mean have a vision and think he spoke to god? Many groups who split from Christianity over the past 2000 years had leaders who claimed to see visions. The leader of the quakers in America for example that she was Jesus reborn. The Mormons were another group who began with their leader claiming he saw visions and wrote down what was true about religion to him. If your religion is true then maybe any of these things occurred or even all of them. If not hallucinogenic were likely involved in the visions and heavenly visits. Or cons. But conunof that nature are hard to pull off because they'd only work on already superstitious people. Religion starts as people precisely leanring the truth about the world and trying to share it with others. Often if others won't accept that truth it leads to conflict. (As a catholic and religious person i lean towards religion being true but this is your story so write it your way. Even if you're a devout Buddhist you can write a story that doesn't have Buddha in it. If you do you have to make up the religions that would evolve in your world and explain where they come from) Religion vs cults. A religion will have its members focused on their god or gods. A cult will use the gods as an excuse to gain fame for its leaders. A cult has a lot of softer rules that often don't apply to its leaders. A religions laws will in most cases apply to all of its members even it's leaders. For example in the catholic church everyone is bound by the same ten commandments. Even the Pope doesn't get to ignore them. But a cult leader applying the same laws will almost always insist he is above them because he's holier than the rest. A religion answers questions about the world. Where do we come from? Where do we go? How should we behave? The religion doesn't always have to have the clearest picture of these but it should at least mention them. Where do we come from may be applicable to the people or the world as a whole. Maybe they belive they all live on the back of a turtle and didn't bother answering the question further. Or perhaps they were born of the blood of the gods at war and are nothing more than an accident like in some Myan beliefs. In that case there isn't going to be a lot of religious beliefs about how people should treat eachother because they come from violence and can therefore be violent by their nature. Or one group could say because they are born of blood it is their nature to act like blood keeping things alive and never killing, being acabs that help wounds recover rather than the blade that opens wounds. Where do we go? Is always a fun question because you can do reincarnation, heaven/hell, or just ghosts. It's a playground. You can even have more than one heaven/hell like in the forgotten realms setting of dnd. Maybe people are either reincarnated or else their soul is obliterated taking Egyptian inspiration for that last. Can you trick death into believing you aren't supposed to be dead? Can the gods make mistakes and kill you by accident, then have to apologize? There are infinite ways to write this you just need to pick the one you bwana for your story. But a time after death implies that there are rules for life. If there is a heaven/hell then there will be rules for getting into them. Typically rules for getting into heaven and failing to follow them lands you in hell. This can be applied to reincarnation or any other system aswell. Good people get to have better lives next time around while bad people have worse lives next time. In any case these rules about going to heaven/hell will greatly impact your religions behavioral teachings. These will be laws like don't kill, or don't steal. But what about soldiers killing or self defense situations? Does the religion have an answer for those? Or does it believe that all killing is wrong no matter what? If that's the case how do the poeple eat? Consuming fruits and vegetables may be considered killing the plant. The point here is that if your people belive in a life after this one then there will likely be rules about getting a good result. On the other hand they might just belive that people don't go anywhere when they die and this means there aren't any rules for behavior derived from this. It is important to make sure your religion's pieces fit togethYourthe beliefs around where we came from? And where we go? Inform how we should behave? In a relgoen that isn't true though you might have a certain behavior its founders wanted so they made up the answers to those other two questions and used them to explain he behavior they wanted. Dor example the Greeks had laws of hospitality and to support those laws there were stories aboutbthebgods roaming in disguise. If you mistreated a guest you might accidentally offend a god. These could be true in your world or false. Example religion. The god Vernier worked with a group of other gods to make the world. Over time he eventually made man. He made them to be humble because he was the strongest of the gods and knew his children would inherit his strength. So he made it so they must first live a fragile human life before claiming that inheritance. Vernier's wife is Owithara the lady of humility. She counceld Vernier when be made man that they must learn to be humble and to serve others before they can inherit a share of his power. So men come from Vernier. And they inherit some of his power after living lives of virtue. This means they have to serve others and learn to be humble. A very basic idea that answers all three questions by conceding them to one another. Vernier wanted humans to be good in his eyes so he didn't want them to be super powerful and let that go to their heads. His wife gave him advise and he made them in a certain way so they'd learn virtue before being strong. Notice there are mentions of other gods but they weren't important for humanity in this part of the religion. Perhaos other stories for these people would include legends about them. But for now we have the answers to our questions and can write about a people who believe them. Doent matter if their true or not you can answer that part later. For now the most important part is to figure out what your people believe and how it effects their behavior. The believers of the religion above might make a society in which everyone is forced to be a servant for the first ten years of life if they want to hold a government position afterwords or to be a soldier. Perhaos they develop a nation in which they have knights and those knights are meant to be the embodiment of service to others while also being defenders of the people. The behavior of your people and their culture will be heavily informed by the beliefs of your people. The most important thing to take from this is that it doesn't typically matter if the realigned is true or a hox or a hallucination from a crazy person. What matters is what the people believe and how it informs their behavior and culture.
This was extremely well put. Also I think people don’t realize that atheism itself is also a sort of religion. The firm belief in currently known sciences and theories is not much different than a firm belief in higher powers.
@raptorRI0T actualy there is less evidence supporting evolution than most religions. Just a bit of irony that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in God
Which examples of good religious writing in Fantasy do you have?
@LoreGeist i liked most of the ones mentioned in Branden sandersons mistborn. They're more hinted at than practiced but the whole trilogy had a very interesting take on religion and faith as a whole.
A notable example of a series that handled religion in a fantasy world is The Deryni Chronicles by Katherine Kurtz. Both the magic and religion are consistent and balanced, and the political intrigue seems genuine.
In my series there's the reality of the gods, and then there's mythology. All the gods are real, but different cultures interpret them differently. Some cultures merge two or more gods into one. Some misinterpret their gods.
One idea I have for a religion is one that combines Buddhism and Catholicism. They revere a Buddha-esque prophet who managed to shed his physical body and ascend to godhood. The element from Catholicism is that they also revere a bunch of holy people that they believe ascended after death. They call them paragons. They also have monks that's sort of a cross between early medieval Christian monks and Buddhist monks.
That seems awesome👌
In the piece I am working currently, ancestor worship plays a pivotal role in the government of my equivalent to the Roman Empire. Emperor's aren't permitted to die of old age and every effort is made to prevent them from being killed too far from the imperial capital, so that they can be transported to City of the Ancestors, where they are transformed into a Lich like undead creature. These undead Emperor's form a ruling council that is responsible for the actual governance of the empire. However, their existence is only known to the current emperor and the highest ranking members of their clergy. The populous as a whole is taught to believe that all their ancestors look out for them from beyond the grave and acts of ancestor worship are part of daily life
I like that you can explore the fact that, the longer an ancestor stays in this isolated city, the most out of touch with the realities of the empire than can become.
@@LoreGeist not just out of touch, but less human. My idea here isn't that they are "evil" exactly, no more or less than anyone who is still alive, but that the oldest of them have existed here for centuries and they no longer see things in the same way a living person does. They don't feel the urgency of impending death and as time goes on they lose the emotional connections that allow them to see people in a concrete way. For them, humans and humanity exist in an abstract and idealized, conceptual way. The decisions they make are driven by a desire to see their people and empire grow, prosper and generally have the best lives they can, but they think in terms of generations, not today.
Ohhh just in time, ive been having to redo the whole faith of a certain religous faction in my world im crafting and this is gonna really help
Great exploration! A cool series of fantasy novels, although older, that looks at this idea is the Hound and the Falcon series by Judith Tarr. They're fairly short historical fantasy books where, in the first one, an elf (basically) is raised in an Abbey, and grows up to have all sorts of conflicts between what he is and what he believes. The whole series is excellent, but that one (Isle of Glass) is my favorite.
A huge factor in writing realistic religious characters is to actually talk to religious people. If you are not religious, or have only ever spoken to one variety of religious people, its very hard to understand the viewpoint of those with strong faith.
People who are not religious write religion from a very cynical point of view sometimes. I agree that doing research by talking to religious people should be pretty helpful
Ragnarök Rising: Hugr by Sarah B. Wood may not create its own religion, but it DOES take a fascinating fresh look at the Norse pantheon and the earlier stages of the Viking religion, when reincarnation was the dominant belief. It incorporates history and religion of the time period and culture in an way that makes me interested to see where the next book goes with it.
Norse mythology is really interesting. Good to know there are some stories out there tackling it well
I made the dominate religion in my world monotheistic and based on all the Abrahamic religions, but its structutre was loosely based on catholic church. It absorbed all the old religions and they worshiped Starlinfore a star bound god who was said to have many faces to incorperate all the old gods. It ended up collapsing due to a truth they had hidden about their god. So they devolved into a sun worshiping cult that wants to purge all the Xeno species from the land. Which cause three other factions ti apear that worship primordials long forgotten
So your setting is a good example of how religion actively impacts the plot and how conflict are created from different denominations interpreting religion in different ways
Small gods by Terry Pratchett. The rest of the Discworld on occasion but it seems that just because gods exist people don't go around believing in them. I guess the oh god of hangovers is one of the weirdest.
In Good Omens he also writes his take on Christianity
Why why. Why does every video on writing religion take this same old approach. Religion isn't all hersey. It isn't formed by random stories. If you can't respect religion enough to study it properly then just don't write it at all.
How would you write religion in a respectful way?
@LoreGeist first and foremost religion comes from belief. Second things second our ancestors weren't dumb. They didn't see a bolt of lightning hit a building and panick about that gods like so many people portray today. It depends on if the religion in your world is true or not. If the religion is real in your story you will need to make your god a character and derive the religious tenants from that character. If your religion is wrong then you need to know what the truth of the world is and explain how things got so confused, but without the excuse that everyone is stupid. For example the Bible doesn't just say God exists but has stories about him comming and speaking to people. Then angelic messengers roam all over the place telling people about him. Why wouldn't they believe he's real if they've spoken to him first or second hand? The pagan gods of Greece and Norse mythologies have dozens of stories about the adventures of their gods. So of course they believe in them. For example we believe wwii happened. We belive the American revolution occurred. Why? Because we can see the results. Your people won't just believe in a god but need a reason for it. Did ge come down and say I am your god? Or did they see a crater in the earth and maje up a story about a god? Or did a mean have a vision and think he spoke to god? Many groups who split from Christianity over the past 2000 years had leaders who claimed to see visions. The leader of the quakers in America for example that she was Jesus reborn. The Mormons were another group who began with their leader claiming he saw visions and wrote down what was true about religion to him. If your religion is true then maybe any of these things occurred or even all of them. If not hallucinogenic were likely involved in the visions and heavenly visits. Or cons. But conunof that nature are hard to pull off because they'd only work on already superstitious people.
Religion starts as people precisely leanring the truth about the world and trying to share it with others. Often if others won't accept that truth it leads to conflict. (As a catholic and religious person i lean towards religion being true but this is your story so write it your way. Even if you're a devout Buddhist you can write a story that doesn't have Buddha in it. If you do you have to make up the religions that would evolve in your world and explain where they come from)
Religion vs cults.
A religion will have its members focused on their god or gods. A cult will use the gods as an excuse to gain fame for its leaders. A cult has a lot of softer rules that often don't apply to its leaders. A religions laws will in most cases apply to all of its members even it's leaders. For example in the catholic church everyone is bound by the same ten commandments. Even the Pope doesn't get to ignore them. But a cult leader applying the same laws will almost always insist he is above them because he's holier than the rest.
A religion answers questions about the world. Where do we come from? Where do we go? How should we behave? The religion doesn't always have to have the clearest picture of these but it should at least mention them. Where do we come from may be applicable to the people or the world as a whole. Maybe they belive they all live on the back of a turtle and didn't bother answering the question further. Or perhaps they were born of the blood of the gods at war and are nothing more than an accident like in some Myan beliefs. In that case there isn't going to be a lot of religious beliefs about how people should treat eachother because they come from violence and can therefore be violent by their nature. Or one group could say because they are born of blood it is their nature to act like blood keeping things alive and never killing, being acabs that help wounds recover rather than the blade that opens wounds.
Where do we go? Is always a fun question because you can do reincarnation, heaven/hell, or just ghosts. It's a playground. You can even have more than one heaven/hell like in the forgotten realms setting of dnd. Maybe people are either reincarnated or else their soul is obliterated taking Egyptian inspiration for that last. Can you trick death into believing you aren't supposed to be dead? Can the gods make mistakes and kill you by accident, then have to apologize? There are infinite ways to write this you just need to pick the one you bwana for your story. But a time after death implies that there are rules for life. If there is a heaven/hell then there will be rules for getting into them. Typically rules for getting into heaven and failing to follow them lands you in hell. This can be applied to reincarnation or any other system aswell. Good people get to have better lives next time around while bad people have worse lives next time. In any case these rules about going to heaven/hell will greatly impact your religions behavioral teachings. These will be laws like don't kill, or don't steal. But what about soldiers killing or self defense situations? Does the religion have an answer for those? Or does it believe that all killing is wrong no matter what? If that's the case how do the poeple eat? Consuming fruits and vegetables may be considered killing the plant. The point here is that if your people belive in a life after this one then there will likely be rules about getting a good result. On the other hand they might just belive that people don't go anywhere when they die and this means there aren't any rules for behavior derived from this.
It is important to make sure your religion's pieces fit togethYourthe beliefs around where we came from? And where we go? Inform how we should behave? In a relgoen that isn't true though you might have a certain behavior its founders wanted so they made up the answers to those other two questions and used them to explain he behavior they wanted. Dor example the Greeks had laws of hospitality and to support those laws there were stories aboutbthebgods roaming in disguise. If you mistreated a guest you might accidentally offend a god. These could be true in your world or false.
Example religion.
The god Vernier worked with a group of other gods to make the world. Over time he eventually made man. He made them to be humble because he was the strongest of the gods and knew his children would inherit his strength. So he made it so they must first live a fragile human life before claiming that inheritance. Vernier's wife is Owithara the lady of humility. She counceld Vernier when be made man that they must learn to be humble and to serve others before they can inherit a share of his power.
So men come from Vernier. And they inherit some of his power after living lives of virtue. This means they have to serve others and learn to be humble.
A very basic idea that answers all three questions by conceding them to one another. Vernier wanted humans to be good in his eyes so he didn't want them to be super powerful and let that go to their heads. His wife gave him advise and he made them in a certain way so they'd learn virtue before being strong. Notice there are mentions of other gods but they weren't important for humanity in this part of the religion. Perhaos other stories for these people would include legends about them. But for now we have the answers to our questions and can write about a people who believe them. Doent matter if their true or not you can answer that part later. For now the most important part is to figure out what your people believe and how it effects their behavior. The believers of the religion above might make a society in which everyone is forced to be a servant for the first ten years of life if they want to hold a government position afterwords or to be a soldier. Perhaos they develop a nation in which they have knights and those knights are meant to be the embodiment of service to others while also being defenders of the people. The behavior of your people and their culture will be heavily informed by the beliefs of your people.
The most important thing to take from this is that it doesn't typically matter if the realigned is true or a hox or a hallucination from a crazy person. What matters is what the people believe and how it informs their behavior and culture.
@@LoreGeist i think that covers it. Sorry if it's not organized or clear.
This was extremely well put. Also I think people don’t realize that atheism itself is also a sort of religion. The firm belief in currently known sciences and theories is not much different than a firm belief in higher powers.
@raptorRI0T actualy there is less evidence supporting evolution than most religions. Just a bit of irony that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in God