Religion.

[Jeraphon]

See, THIS is why I hate discussions of in-game religion.

It ALWAYS collapses into discussion of real life religion, and those are arguments which nobody can ever win.

Keep your examples to Yliakum.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

How to get the new player to care about religion?

Seems a vital element of roleplay . . .

[Maju]

if your born into a catholic family. does that mean you will practice the faith forever?\

Usually yes.
Sometimes you'll change faith into another.
On rare occassions you'll denounce all the gods.

All the same one born into atheist family may become religious.

90% of population in my country was baptised Catholic; 80% of the population is considered to be practising Catholics.
All the rest is usually different faiths, while amount of atheists is minimal. Much depends on the influence a Church takes and the mentality of the population.

99% of the population in my country was baptised Catholic; maybe 20% of them remain being so... 

... though many others "pretend" for special events like weddings and funerals.

(Other sects, excepting immigrants, are extremely rare: the drift is towards agnosticism, personal beliefs, atheism...)

Let's just remind ourselves the mentality of Yliakum's people is that of the middle ages, not modern times. Let's remind ourselves that the population has wide access to magic, which opens their eyes to the supernatural. Let's remind ourselves that the temple of Talad tends to spawn strange phenomena, considered to be miracles and available for anyone to see.

Yes indeed... but magic is one thing and thinking it belongs to this or that god is different. You can perfectly think that Laanx' priests (the temple of Talad is yet to be added) use magic to justify their beliefs (the same that Wiccans and Chaotists think often of official religion leaders). Magic can have other sources than the official god/s.

Also and this is important: unlike in European Middle Ages, there's no one single official religion... but at least two (Talad and Laanx may share a mythology but they are also sort of rivals). This resembles more the case of proto-historical and ancient polytheisms. Additionally you have other gods: the Black Flame (whateve it is) and the gods that the different races brought from their countries of origin, probably many gods each of them. This is not explicitly dealt with in the background story so it's open for creativity, really. One of thems seems very important: the mysterious Xacha god of the windowless tower... another may be the presence felt in DR, which might be the same behind the Black Flame mystery... or not. There's a lot to imagine and discuss (specially IC) about this issue of gods and religions.

Btw, does anybody knows what do the sewers' fanatics worship?

[Jeraphon]

Btw, does anybody knows what do the sewers' fanatics worship?

Yes.

Also, Maju, I repeat, keep your examples to Yliakum. Real-life religion shouldn't be factoring into these discussions in any way.

[Draklar]

How to get the new player to care about religion?

Seems a vital element of roleplay . . .

Game mechanics is my favoured answer. Like make characters that often pray and perform missions (crusades) for their chosen god be granted protection from the given deity, sometimes saving the unlikely adventurer from life-threatening oppresions. If someone wants to go all atheist, he can just die. His problem.

Of course this argument fails horribly when characters are given unlimited "lives" anyway ;)

[Duraza]

How to get the new player to care about religion?

Seems a vital element of roleplay . . .

Game mechanics is my favoured answer. Like make characters that often pray and perform missions (crusades) for their chosen god be granted protection from the given deity, sometimes saving the unlikely adventurer from life-threatening oppresions. If someone wants to go all atheist, he can just die. His problem.

Of course this argument fails horribly when characters are given unlimited "lives" anyway

Yeah. If game mechanis somehow tied into religion it would kinda make more players recognize it. Like maybe Sharven won't teach magic to students who haven't become a follower of Laanx. Special "holy weapons" (even if the effects aren't added yet but I'm sure they are supposed to be put in the game) could maybe be granted after doing some kind of religious quests. The little things do help people to recognize or want to understand the bigger ones. 

[Coneitic]

so lets bring the examples to in game.


your charactor is either born or came to this land somehow. and only knows about the gods from what he/she reads.

they have never seen the face of the gods and spoken to them.

so not believing in a god is fine.

after reading all the documentation about gods and seeing temples.  and seeing your life is horrible and now way to fix it. i dont see how wrong it is to blame the gods.


also making up lies to get the people on your side. thats no way against settings. just because something isnt true or goes against the settings or "history". doesnt mean its bad rp and ooc. if i say to someone " there are no gods. some random person built the temples and tricked you all" of course it goes against settings. but how is that ooc. its a lie. something that needs to be part of yliakum.

also in the middle ages people were forced to a religion. doesnt mean they believed in it. the church had complete control? so say a king  backs the religion and says they are right whatever they say. that means everyone has to follow the church right? you go against the church you go against the king. you die.  but thats not yliakum

yliakum is a world with history of gods but no actions. so anything people say about them can be true or not.

untill a charactor is corrected by one of the gods themselves. then you cannot say they are lying or not.

[Draklar]

See Jeraphon?
Discussing religion with ingame examples is even worse. That is, considering much of the crucial material wasn't introduced ingame yet :P

But as far as introduced examples go:

Seeing that the creature refused to follow his orders, Laanx became enraged and destroyed the creature by whispering a single word.

His priests are all zealots

"The term Zealot, in Hebrew kanahi (קנאי, frequently used in plural form, קנאים), means one who is jealous on behalf of God."
 
My, my. What a peaceful world, that Yliakum.

[Jeraphon]

I'd like to refer you to the Great Inconsistency Hunt, then, Draklar. Inconsistencies in the religions of the game are just as valid as all other inconsistencies.

[Draklar]

Well I don't see any inconsistencies in religions so far. Besides the one where Laanx is refered as he and she in a single sentence.

[Coneitic]

wheres that quote from draklar??
i hope its not from settings. nothing like using a hebrew term for the world of Yyliakum.. oh how do we tell the difference now?

[Jeraphon]

Is it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law

[Waylander]

The simple fact is that the actual setting of PlaneShift can include cultural beliefs.  If the devs want people to believe that the Azure Sun is a giant transformer, regardless of whether or not it is, they can do that.
To go against cultural beliefs is a very, very rare thing.  Humans conform, even today non-conformists are actually just conforming to the new trend

If you grew up in a village where everybody believed in god, you would, too.  Growing up in a catholic family increases the chances of being catholic dramatically, imagine that without having any atheists around.

[Maju]

In fact both diaboli and klyros are natural born atheists/agnostics: it's in the settings. Some may have other beliefs but most should be in that line (though most diaboli I  know of are Black Flame because of the enhanced Dark Way and affinity to the Black Crystal).

The huge ammount of gods (not just Laanx and Talad, but also all the ethnic gods that came with the different races, plus the Black Flame) should make a lot of literate people to have some sort of detachement from religion (skepticism) or follow religions based either in their parents' beliefs or in persuasion. Not being many prophets around (Phostle aside), the second seems less likely.

Personally I think that the conventional citizens should be:

1. Talad followers: this should be the main trend, as Talad created the city and all that. Talad is like the "good god", so he should be the ost popular. The lack of a Talad Temple (so far) kind of distorts this... as there's no visible monuments to Talad in all Yilakum, in spite of his mythical importance. Krans should be almost always "Taladists".
2. Laanx followers: this should be less strong but still a powerful trend, specially among Lemurs (there are few lemurs around though).
3. Ethnic religions: the several "foreign" races brought with them their own gods. We know little of them from the settings, but many dwarves, elven and humans should be mostly interested in the gods of their ancestors. An important mysterious ethnic god is that of the Xacha (again few Xacha around, but it seems they have strong connections with the government).
4. Black Flame: should be minoritary among Lemurs and rare among others, yet many choose it because they are attracted to chaos, evil and/or the mysteries of darkness (and also because of the extra points re. DW).
5. Agnostic/atheists/skeptics: this should be the main trend among diaboli and (I suspect) klyros. They definitively should not be Laanxists in most cases (as per the settings).

Doubts:
6. Klyros: were they originally atheists/unreligious like the diaboli or rather they had their own ethnic god(s)
7. Ynnwm and other mixed race people (many race chars are supposed to be mixed anyhow): they should be divided in several loyalties, including a strong trend towards skepticism ("atheism"). Ynnwm could (mostly) have been raised in aheism (diaboli parent) and either an elven ethnic religion or one of the mainstream ones (Talad, Laanx) (elfic parent). Other mixed chars could have their own mixed raisings and hence open choice re. beliefs.
8. Polytheism: such a large choice of gods should lead to a tolerant polytheist society, in which some worship/venerate one god, some do the same with several and others are just detached from religion. The lack of temples (other than Laanx') seems to hinder this polytheistic activity, really (and in general to hinder religion in general). There's very little in-game mechanics associated to religion, anyhow, and little understanding of what it may mean.

[Waylander]

Hearing this, Laanx went to these men personally; he didn't want to run the risk of loosing people that could be valuable. He found a few hundred of these people. They were desperate, almost without food, and resigned to ending the glorious history of their race in a moist alley. Laanx revealed himself of them and showed them all his power. The Xacha followed him without exception and he became their god.

Xacha's would be Laanx.  As would Lemurs.

Kran would be Talad, that's for sure.

It has been 750 years since Yliakum was settled, most of the old religions would have died out by now, I imagine.

In the City of the Azure Sun, the people increased their population and their knowledge under Talad's silent guidance. Many of them - except the Diaboli - slowly gave up the faith in their previous gods to worship the god of the glyphs.

Like so.


I do agree about the diaboli and Klyros, though.

Black Flame should be near inexistant in Yliakum from what I see.

I completely agree with your last point.