[D&D] Religious & Cultural Diversity in D&D's Middle East
Willow:
So, I was talking to a couple of folks at Forge Midwest about something I'm going to be doing in my D&D game- the party is going to the world's middle-east analogue, and I want to put a spin on the local culture. I want to have the in-game subcultures of the area divided amongst religious lines, and based loosely on real-world cultures of the area. I have some ideas, but I am looking for help filling in the gaps.
If you aren't familiar with the current edition's cosmology, there's the real world, and the gods live in the Astral plane. They are real, but distant beings, who imbue their followers with holy energy, and then typically take a hands off approach. There's a whole bunch of them; everyone believes in the existence of all of them, but typically worships one particularly and says prayers to others as appropriate. Individual temples usually are enshrined to a set of three primary gods- though which gods out of the pantheon (there's about a dozen) are primary varies from place to place.
So, my thought is in the south to turn this upside down- everyone worships and believes in the same gods, but you have strident followers of one god. Temples to more than one god are nonexistent. Stress and conflict between the faiths is common.
(Sidethought- I am deeply torn on whether the different Good faiths should wage outright war against each other. On the one hand, it's good for conflict and fits with the idea of the setting, on the other hand, I have a lot of trouble reconciling generations old-war between the followers of say, Pelor and Bahamut. If nothing else, eventually the gods will just stop imbuing new paladins.)
Right now I'm brainstorming ideas for different religious cultures and how to apply them.
Ioun, the goddess of knowledge is known as the Veiled Lady. Her followers conceal their features out of modesty and secrecy. Women wear burkhas, men wear white robes. Popular amongst Tieflings for reasons of redemption for sins of their ancestors. (Burkha wearing tiefling assassins- what's not to like?)
Moradin, the Great Father- as the craft god, creator of the world, I'm naturally drawn to compare his faith to Judaism. Of course, as the patron of the Dwarves, the comparison is not necessarily a favorable one. If I go that route, it's probably important to have a significant non-dwarven population worship Moradin- Dragonborn are a nice choice (Dragonborn merchants and artisans in yarmulkes?)
Raven Queen, the Goddess of Death- I'm picturing black robes and wide brim hats- kind of an Amish look, which is completely the wrong region, but I can't get it out of my head.
Bahamut, the Exalted Dragon- the God of War, Justice, etc. So here's the god of the crusaders & jihaddists. I'm picturing a lot of dervishes- turbans, scimitars, armor, horses, riding around, fighting evil.
Melora, the goddess of nature and oceans can stand in as the River Goddess.
Pelor, the sun god, strikes me as the most likely to stand in for a Christian analogue, but I don't know what to do with that.
Erathis, the goddess of civilization, seems like the closest to 'traditional' Muslim values- civilization, scholarship, code of laws. Not sure what to do with that.
So, there's a couple of bare ideas needing a touch of help to be fleshed out.
Eero Tuovinen:
Wouldn't black clothes and wide-brimmed hats go for orthodox Judaism as well? You could have two Judaism-like sects, one for Moradin and one for the Raven Queen. Perhaps the locals believe that the two used to be married, but got a divorse and now the two cults, while still close, disagree on who's fault it was. So it's sort of like the same religion, but not really.
You should fit Bahá'í in there somewhere. Maybe the cult of Erathis could be all about this idea of progressive revelation and divine chronology, with Erathis the youngest god and thus the most pertinent one for our times.
Callan S.:
Why do they fight? Just cause, like, it's setting?
Not out of lack of resources, common deseases, burning conditions and broken childhoods that make what would otherwise be more peaceful mean seek blood?
Excalibur:
Are you looking at today's religious melting pot or are you willing to go back a ways through the religious history of the area.
If you choose to look at the historical record, you can easily place many, if not all, of the D&D deities into their own places.
Also look at the religious hierarchies of the region: Judaism brought Christianity which in turn brought Islam (Muslim is not the religion, it's a follower of Islam...Muslim means "one who submits" [to Allah]). All three are monotheistic (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Middle_East).
Older still are the polytheistic pantheons such as Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Arabian Polytheism, Canaanite...etc. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Semitic_religion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamian_mythology)
In any case, there are still people who worship the old gods from polytheistic pantheons today. They're considered cults, but still have a possible validity in your reimaging.
Willow:
Eero, I am so using that for Moradin/Raven Queen. Especially since my northerners will be like "they were married, wtf?" Then they'll dig a little deeper, and will find out it's true.
That Bahai thing is interesting- as it happens, the youngest god is actually either the Raven Queen or Vecna; I shudder to think what that means if they are the most relevant for the times.
Callan, that's the question I really want to answer. I want a good reason for these faiths, which should be cosmically allied, to be in extended conflict. Limited resources is probably the best possible reason- when the bad guy gods are particularly aggressive, the various faiths band together, but otherwise they snipe and war for the same cities and strategic points.
Curt, I'm aiming at today's "religious melting pot". (I'd personally use the term 'clusterfuck' instead.)
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