Would it be autistic to write a fictional holy scripture for a culture in your setting? Where would you begin?
I've finished the Bhagavad Gita and now I'm getting back into the New Testament.
I think it'd be awesome to have paladins and clerics quoting their religious texts in battle.
>>43918351
Passion for your hobby is always autistic unless it is socially acceptable.
>Sports
Okay
>Model Trains
Weirdo
>>43918351
Personally, I'd start with a base concept; you CAN frame it from a contemporary religious perspective, but most people, in today's world, would sniff out the religion in question pretty quick and then you're drowning in either Religion-fags or Atheist-fags.
But that's besides the point. Start from a point of philosophical interest: did the GOD create the world, or did the WORLD (in a manner of speaking) create the god? The former is useful for omnipotent gods, the latter, for limited ones.
>>43918645
Intredasting
Like the difference between Greek and Norse legends about chaos breeding the Gods vs Semitic creator deities
>>43918351
Well gee I hope not as that's what I'm currently doing.
Paladin Order book that catalogs demons of every variety. Order history. World history and prophecies.
Also don't give a shit if people think what you're doing is autistic. I stopped caring and found that I enjoyed everything much more than usual.
>>43918351
I really like doing this kind of stuff, but it it takes effort to not just make it "not-Christianity" or "not-Buddhism" or what have you.I'm specifically thinking of the Clergy of the Holy Light and affiliated guilds on Moonguard in WoW. Some of them seem to know a decent amount of theology, and WoW's initial imagery is not-Christianity, but I feel like replacing the consubstantial, interpenetrating Trinity with the Holy Light has more theological consequences than are acknowledged.
>>43918351
You could make the paladins and other groups have weird organisation names based on religioutexts
>like "Alliance of the Scented Ones"
>>43919189
fucking Dunbine out of nowhere
>>43918351
Who cares if people think you're autistic. Who cares what people think in general. Have fun, follow your dreams, don't let your brainchild suffer at the hand of public opinion.
>>43919189
>Ye Olde Beatleborgs!
>Ye Olde Beatleborgs!
>>43918351
You'd probably save time and be more efficient in the long run if you just kept a running list of relevant quotes from each holy text. Additionally, rather than writing the whole scripture, try just writing the titles and such of each book/chapter and a brief summary of the things it details.
If you put significant work into those two tasks and wish to write the scripture in its entirety, the pieces should come together pretty easily.
Additionally, I only suggest this way because it's the least amount of work. If you want to write holy scriptures for your setting in their entirety, knowing the effort requires, you should definitely go ahead, that kind of passion for you hobby and setting is excellent, and you shouldn't let others hold it back.
>>43918351
I think that'd be fucking cool. If you can actually write out an entire religious text, fair play to you, that's dedication to detail and richness. Who gives a fuck if it's autistic, we're all autistic down here, OP.
The one thing I'd say is try and steer clear of as much real world stuff as possible because as >>43918645 said, people will sniff out the source pretty quick. Combine some stuff and take other stuff and put another spin on it or tell it from a different angle. Make it a whole bunch of stuff from prophets shouting to actual experiences with the divine, some nice variance under a single framework.
>>43918351
About as autistic as Tolkien. Whom, to be fair, could be argued to be on the spectrum. But the intense detail of his work is one of the reasons its so highly praised.
Just keep it in perspective to everything else you do, and what you want to do with your time. I've gone to great lengths to detail a setting and then have games suffer because the adventure wasn't fleshed out enough.
I used to try and create a new setting for every campaign I started. Nowadays I tend to use Ravenloft or The Realms, which saves me a lot of work at the cost of some creativity, although I am slowly developing my own setting on the side when I have some spare time.
>>43918351
>Would it be autistic to write a fictional holy scripture for a culture in your setting?
Yes, but as long as it's entertaining, nobody will care.
Just, for the love of all that's fucking holy, actually make it entertaining if you want your players to read it.
>>43918351
>Would it be autistic to write a fictional holy scripture for a culture in your setting?
Not necessarily, but you're guaranteed to go mad, lose track of reality, and go full L. Ron Hubbard at some point in the writing process.
Is an immersive fictional setting really worth losing your soul and unleashing a cult of boundless eternal evil upon the world?
>>43920425
But think of all the money he'll make! Cults are tax free y'know.
>>43919385
The religion I'm making is Panentheistic.
I've definitely decided to include "Deities" and "Saints" because people hstorically couldn't seem to do without personally relatable supernatural beings.
There's no real creation "myth" but a series of discussions/debates between the 12 sages about epistemology and primitive cosmology.
After this they explain how "God" sends down innumerable spirits to inhabit the natural world, really just manifestations of his being.
Each of the 12 books covers a different subject..
Book 1 will be legends the origins of death, man's place as the crown jewel in God's creation, and the nature of "force' in the world.
There's a hierarchy of powers: "God", the spirits/deities/angels/whatever you wanna call em, humans who have ascended to the status of what I can only call "Saints" because I haven't made up a real word for it, human beings, and animals. God is the source of all the "force" permeating the universe and the deities have the greatest casual access to it, with the others down the totem pole having to work harder to tap into it. Tapping into this power is what the casual observer would call "magic".
A field spirit could use force to help crops grow and animals thrive, a mountain spirit uses force to block rainclouds, the god of the earth uses force to spin the planet, etc.
And a person well in tune with the force could pull of supernatural feats as well.
Settlers in this book often make deals with the gods to ensure good harvests and safety from malevolent beings.
Still force is dangerous because mere mortals and even the gods can be overwhelmed by it. At one point a villain in the epic will try to go full "I AM GAWD" mode and basically drop a Tsar Bomba on himself and the surrounding area. Only trained specialists handle the force. Another theme would be the duty of man to help his fellow man. Part of this is the quest of the 1st man to find/create other people and free himself from loneliness.
>>43920880
Book 2 leaves the primordial era and city states begin popping up. This part covers the origins and activities of demonic beings and the most prominent seers/prophets. One big theme is salvation and redemption. An example is the tale of a bandit who is given shelter by the father of a young man he killed for a few coins and his battle with not only his own sin but the conquering army outside the city. Eventually the unknowing old man considers the bandit a surrogate son and things get very Feelguy.jpg.
Aside from salvation, book 2 is about laws and morality. The sage tells of how people should behave with honor and truth in their daily lives. There's discussions about just what is "justice" between a king and his advisor. At the risk of sounding like Hitler, the sage speaks of how people should just help each other regardless of gender, age, race, nation, or socio-economic status. This sage is known as the Lawgiver and set up the legal guidelines by which rulers and peasants should live. The Lawgiver tells stories within stories to explain virtue, and gives various proverbs.
The sage even recounts the adventure of the old man to the demonworld to rescue his adopted son who flees there out of remorse for his crime.
Every religion should have some kind of holy text or doctrine taught, and these could be explained as stories or fables like the bible, or in the case of fantasy things that actually occurred.
Writing the whole thing would be quite the labor of love, I would simply name and mention something relating to a doctrine. Knowing that Celestial priests read a book written entirely in constellations that requires a certain mathematical formula to draw the pictures from star to star is more then enough, you don't need to write the whole thing out unless you want to.
>>43921499
We are introduced to the Will of Evil. It's pretty much the collective malevolence in everybody's hearts.
When people begin to behave like big assholes, this "will" absorbs more force and becomes more powerful. In each age of the world people forget about this will and treat each other like shit. "Evil" grows stronger and allows demons to wreak havoc. It speaks lies to people, it tempts them into doing awful things, and when one obeys its siren song it grows more powerful. This will is powered by causing or wanting to cause intentional and needless harm. The deities try to remain morally upright because when beings with as much power as THEM act like cunts, Evil says jackpot.
This Evil Will can shapeshift, but those rare people who have seen its true form and DON'T immediately go insane describe it as resembling a colossal snake. By snake they mean what their minds could comprehend as one.
The universal flood legend occurs here through the hubris of an arrogant sorcerer civilization who wanted to be "Rulers of all who live on Land, Air, and Sea".
This was after they endangered the planet so much that the goddess of love was forced to assume her wrath form to stop their savage devastation of 3 continents. The only reason why the other gods could not intervene was due to a covenant they swore under a covenant to its benevolent founder to cause no direct harm to his nation. The goddess of love was the only one who did not. She was stopped from her deadly rampage by the weeping of innocent children.
>>43920425
>>43920530
No worries, I'm a fedora tipper
>>43922383
Last I checked, L Ron was a fedora before he went full crazy.
>>43918351
"Holy Scripture" says a lot about a religion even without you needing to write the whole thing. it implies that the Creation Myth, Laws, and Elucidations have all been frozen out of their (likely) oral origins by being written down in a specific form. Different Earth religions have emphasized one or other of those three other the others, and that also says a lot about the religion in question.
A religion built around a deity that can be talked to with expectation of a response (ala D&D religions) is probably not going to have a lot of Elucidation in writing since the Deity can confirm points of faith and procedure in person. If the Laws are written down, they are either intended as "that old stuff you no longer need to do" (ala Christianity in some forms) or because the Deity wants its words recorded.
>>43922765
>If the Laws are written down, they are either intended as "that old stuff you no longer need to do" (ala Christianity in some forms) or because the Deity wants its words recorded.
That or they are written down for the divine equivalent of "I'm busy, try google"
>>43918351
One of my GMs did this once, but it was only after I expressed interest in playing a religious character since I thought his setting's church looked pretty interesting. He added a new passage each session and it was pretty fun quoting it during dramatic moments and looking for secrets/hints hidden in it during downtimes.
The GM has to actually be a good writer for this to work though. I'm pretty confident in my own writing, but this sort of thing feels like it can be really hit or miss. I doubt I could pull it off myself.
I would say either it's not, or I am. I've done the deed of writing a creation story as a literal story, at about 10k words. The natural progression from that to a holy scripture is eventually going to be made, but these things take time.
I'm also totally willing to link said story for people if they want it. Anyone that wants to read it and give it a shot can reply, another person critiquing a story is always welcome.
>>43924172
Without looking at it I'll assume that you probably made it too straightforward a narrative with too little room for interpretation, which is fairly rare.
Anyways, link it. I always like to read people's writing.
>>43918351
Might be autistic, but really, as long as it's enjoyable that is not a bad thing.
You might wanna also read neo-religious texts such as The Ra Material and the Emerald Tablets of Thoth as well as various Theosophist writings.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/
https://youtu.be/63o9cu57QDg?list=PL451DA72F93C4E85B
https://youtu.be/9ClZ31ZiQUI?list=PL6VeQSS9XNWGYTFV9lXm34vpNtLy7ihf1
>>43918351
It would be both immensely autistic and awesome.
I'd start writing it chronologically. Who wrote the first text, what were his motives, how much did he actually know? Proceed down that way for every book. Remember that details are lost and stories change with time.
Consider that there could be hundreds or thousands of years between the first and last text being written, and that some texts will outright lie about their writer's identity or time written. (See Ecclesiastes, which claims to be King Solomon).
Feel free to muddle up their order, make them contradict one another (or themselves), and have verses that make no sense outside of interpretation. (Or that are interpreted in a way that is clearly contradicting them: for example, in the Talmud, some outdated laws in the bible are "interpreted" to being DIFFERENT LAWS.
