Creating Religious Organizations and Cults - Worldbuilding 101

Hey, I'm the Worldbuilding Sage! My aim is to teach you certain worldbuilding techniques to build a setting for your book or Pen and Paper Campaign (no matter if Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder or other games).
In this video I show you how to crate a Religious Organisation or rather how your religion could make its impact on your setting's culture. I'll show you ways to make your religious organizations more unique than another badly copied Catholic Church (there's nothing wrong with copying them, just make it right.) and I'll show you how Fantasy might have an impact on your setting's religious mindset. In the end, we create a religion heavily influenced by the real world's Celts.
Since I'm new to video making, I would appreciate any critique and I will gladly read your worldbuilding takes in the comments.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 What is a Religion?
04:06 Questions to flesh out your religious organizations.
07:14 We create a Religion together
Twitter: / worldbuildsage
Discord Server: / discord
Music sources: Witcher 3 - CD Project Red
Worldbuilding, Setting, Creating a World, Creating a World for Book, Creating a World for DnD, DnD Worldbuilding, Pathfinder Worldbuilding, Pen and Paper Worldbuilding, Book Worldbuilding, Booktube, DnDtube, Setting creation, How To Create a Setting, How to Write a Setting, How To Create a World, Creating a World for DnD, Creating a World for my Book, Creating a Setting for DnD, Creating a Setting for my Book, Campaigns, religion, church, Christianity, worldbuilding church, worldbuilding religion, religious worldbuilding, cults, worldbuilding cults, worldbuilding faith, faith, mythology

[@bernadmanny]

It's so refreshing that someone has actually understood what makes a religion and not just washed up Catholicism.

[@worldbuildingsage]

Glad that people agree.

[@ostrowulf]

Man, I grew up protestant, but grew up with lots of myths from older beleifs, including some stuff from Canadian First Nations. Seeing near every fantasy, sci-fi, and horor movie pretty well be based on the Catholic church was always super odd to me. My wife likes horror movies, and I was excited when one was based on Juedaism, just for something different. I remember talking to an Islamic guy about Jin, and possesion by Jin, and thought "man, where is that movie?"

[@illTemperedSeaBass]

13:43 There's a really funny possible scenario here where a priest from a more... competitive, or zero-sum religion starts proselytizing in a Tragoan city, & gets progressively more frustrated because everyone just goes "okay, sure. We'll add Him to the list."

[@worldbuildingsage]

This is actually more likely to happen than you might think.

[@Dissent1]

1) D&D deity has a Solar angel servant 2) Solar comes to be venerated by some of the deity's followers 3) religion splits into those that acknowledge the Solar and those who don't 4) Political schism deepens, some clergy remove the Solar from their canon entirely 5) a few centuries later, Solar shows up for the deity's regular business 6) religion explodes into sectarian war

[@worldbuildingsage]

Sectarian Religious wars are the really interesting religious wars. The argument about minor details for outsiders and major details for insiders makes it spicy.

[@joshkorte2390]

Wait I thought we were trying to avoid recreating Catholicism…. Cause like that’s basically just the divide between the Abrahamic religions but really simplified ( of course ignoring differing views and traditions) like you even have a Jesus figure spelled out that the Jewish sect would disagree about. Sure the details are different but the general concept is still there.

[@EmeraldLavigne]

11:32 This is a good point; taking DnD classes & basically describing what general roles they fulfill in the society, rather than strict proscribed player classes in a game rules sense... The classes grew out of archetypes in previous real-world and fictional societies, so it makes to spin them back out along those lines to think about what roles do those similar kinds of archetypes fill in the world you're currently creating?

[@worldbuildingsage]

Yeah, that was my original thought actually, but it doesn't make sense to keep them in the boundaries in the classes. As you don't need a bow to protect nature for example, while you can be a 'Druid' as a DnD class to protect society and civilisation.

[@BreadBox.]

I am a Roman Catholic, but MAN am i tired of seeing every fictional religion just be some variation of the Church... like there is so much variety out there! I see this every day Id love to see something new!

[@worldbuildingsage]

Right? You can get so creative with people's believes while still creating a functioning society.

[@azurewraith2585]

Haha jokes on you I copied the Eastern Orthodox Church

[@worldbuildingsage]

Copying the Eastern Orthodox Church at least makes one more aware of its arcane nature.

[@rojack79er]

Honestly this is why I love taking bits and pieces from real world religion, cults, and mythology and forming a group that fits into the fictional universe I'm creating.

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

The religious landscape of my homebrew D&D setting is tied into the creation myth I wrote up for the world. In the beginning, there was just the Astral Sea. She gave birth to the 4 elemental primes; Soggellos (water), Titania (air), Dennari (earth), and Nessek (fire). Then, the gods from the Eberron campaign setting came in from across the multiverse and started a war. Each time gods and primes fought, a new god was spawned from the blood spilled. The population of gods rapidly swelled to the point where any D&D or real-world pantheon the players want can be found in the setting. Pretty much all the gods are sorted into one of 5 camps. One camp for each of the elemental primes, and the last camp for the final set of gods born who ended the war. The Divine Mothers and their six Daughters. The Slayer The Trickster The Hero The Healer The Scholar The Storyteller One Daughter for each of the six main ability scores. The Primes live in the centers of their elemental planes. The vast majority of gods live on the outer planes. The Divine Mothers and the Daughters live on the Material Plane. The Daughters are the most actively worshipped gods on the Material Plane and they pick and choose which gods are allowed to draw sustenance from mortal worshippers and which gods are banned from the mortal world for misbehaving. The Daughters act as the guardians of the mortal world since they are the only beings in existence that have ever been able to kill a god without another god immediately spawning. This framework allows me to include any religious order I need to the setting and explain why adventuring parties are common and easy to find. Also, dividing hundreds of gods into 5 loose pantheons allows me to turn the Cleric ability Divine Intervention into the Summoning System from the Final Fantasy games. Worship a sun god or fire related deity, and your cleric can summon fire critters that have been subjugated by Nessek or her kids. Water gods and the Norse Pantheon descended from Soggellos, let you summon the big fish summons as well as Ramuh and any residents or prisoners of his eternal library. If you worship the Daughters, you get to summon the big guns. The Avatars of Bahamut and Odin as well as a bunch of nonelemental summons like Gilgamesh & Enkidu, Yojimbo & Daigoro, Fenrir, Alexander, and Diabolos. Why do you get to summon Bahamut and Odin if you don't worship them? Because Bahamut was the first god killed by the Slayer for trying to conquer the mortal world and Odin was the first god to ensure his wife and children would be able to gain mortal worshippers by bending the knee and swearing to play by the very simple rules laid down by the Slayer and the other Daughters. The thing I like best about running the religion of the Divine Mothers and the Daughters is that each day is named after one of them, and that allows for wildly different setups from day to day. Step into a Cathedral to the Daughters on Slayer's Day, and you'll find an active fighting pit and more than a few warriors running drills. Go there on Healer's Day, and you'll find a free clinic full of medics and doctors tending to the general community. Go there on Trickster's Day, and the doors will be locked up and it will look like no one is home. Worshippers of the trickster are expected to put in a little more work by picking locks and sneaking into the maze of secret doors built into the basement of the Cathedrals. Go there to worship the Storyteller on the day called Hootenanny, and you'll find a kegger more raucous than any tavern with dozens of folk listening and laughing to the wildest stories any bards can come up with. At the very least, you'll be able to find someone reciting the list of "married" goddesses the Storyteller slept with to ensure they and their husbands weren't banned from the mortal world. Or claims she slept with so the husbands of those goddesses wouldn't get themselves killed by picking fights with the Slayer or the Trickster. And with this setup, I still get to throw generic watered down Catholicism sects at the party. One of the banned gods that keeps trying to build up his worship in the mortal world is Pholtus. A minor Greyhawke Deity, minor sun god, son of Tiamat, brother of Pelor. Cults of Pholtus look like any stereotypical fundamentalist evangelical community, until agents of the Daughters find out and then those communities turn into blood thirsty militant death cults ready to burn the the forces of the Daughters at the stake and wage war on the entire world. Churches of Pelor also look like generic Christian nonsense, but they never get raided by the Slayer or the Hero because Pelor knows how to behave himself.

[@NoNo-lt9bi]

I really liked this video, I suggest you do one on druidism and paganism in writting

[@NoNo-lt9bi]

Basically just a countee part to this ome but with those 2

[@worldbuildingsage]

I definitely will in the future!

[@WayneBraack]

I've watched your content and find it wonderfully enlightening and educational. Focusing on the education bits I'd like to see long form videos going deeper into detail and bringing in some more concrete examples and explanations of the examples you give. I say this because there's plenty of people out there like me who don't have the experience and knowledge to get the full range of what you're teachings.

[@worldbuildingsage]

Thanks. I appreciate that it's resonating with the people watching my content because I think it's important to have at least a base grasp on the things your worldbuilding.

[@EmeraldLavigne]

It seems that the algorithm has smiled upon you with this video! Viel Glück mit deinem KZbin Kanal!

[@worldbuildingsage]

Thank you! Danke!

[@alexandergysting3645]

Great video! You got another subscriber :)

[@worldbuildingsage]

Thanks! Glad you liked it!

[@benimel3204]

As a Catholic who idolizes Tolkiens writings (another Catholic) I’ve always been intrigued by how he depicts matters of faith among men and his seeming contradictions that inspire great mystery. There are no temples in middle earth, nor are there any grand text to pull from inside the universe. Polytheism and monotheism both exist in form of Eru (the distant creator) and the Valar (the nature “gods” who live among the world). Despite the waning of the elves, many men still hold the traditions from when they were taught by the Elvish kingdoms in Beleriand. While I favor Tolkiens idea of “sub creation”, I still admire his knack for exploring faith beyond his Catholic roots (even though he inserted Christian imagery here and there). My own world that I’m creating is, I hope, a display of various religious beliefs that developed both separately and influenced one another or derived from others. My main focus faith, while loosely based on Catholicism, is still varied and I only developed it this way because that is the biggest reference for faith that I have. I hope that by taking classes in theology (real, varied theology) and doing external research will allow me to create a multi faith world that feels authentic.

[@johnterpack3940]

You get a like from me for citing Geertz. His definition of religion fundamentally changed how I look at the world.

[@Svenchaos]

Love the channel!

[@worldbuildingsage]

Thanks

[@Catharsis10]

Honestly I make analogues to irl religions in many of my world building projects and I don’t find them boring. Sure if you make it purely aesthetic it can be boring but I like copies of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. I try to study dharmmic religions and I utilize inspiration from that lore for my world building via reincarnation cycles and autothiesm. But the reason I do this is so it’s recognizable. Humans like to recognize what they are looking at. Something that looks like a face in a tree gives a reaction from humans who may find it amusing. Therefore having “copies” of religions isn’t necessarily boring in my opinion

[@Octa9on]

the religion of Wardell City has three leaders: the commander of the soul guard (leader of the militants who defend against demon attack), the shepherd of miracles (leader of those with magical abilities), and the high priestess (leader of those who perform rituals and conduct ceremonies, and overall head of the faithful). they worship a goddess of growth, a goddess of healing, and a goddess of children and other domestic animals. the three are considered aspects of a single deity, as are the beings worshipped in neighborhood cities

[@worldbuildingsage]

How is the religion organised?

[@firenze6478]

I’m Christian so I made my world around Christianity but never have a name for it since it’s a relationship with God. Their are other beliefs in my world as in this one, but they worship powerful beings that were created and have no power over their afterlife. Also their is corruption in my church but it’s not the beliefs but people exploiting the beliefs for self gain like many have.

[@HlootooThunderhammer]

Anywhere we can see this? As a fellow Christian, I'd like to see it.

[@firenze6478]

@@HlootooThunderhammer I’m also halfway through the sequel which is Shadow of his right hand.

[@emmalunasilvestri8555]

Pathfinder's artworks 😍

[@claudiolentini5067]

In my setting, the main organized religion is a Pantheon of 14 gods that was established by an empire centuries ago, a sprawling, multicultural civilization that took deities, rites and festival from the various cultures that inhabited it. After the empire collapsed, and new political entities emerged, they mostly heredited this pantheon, but in a relatively short time each of these entities "chose" if we say so a main god, the one that most aligned with their culture and the tenents of their leaders, that is at the center of the state religion of each of these civilizations. So this means that, while the mithology is largely the same and you can have worshippers of any god of the pantheon whenever you are in the continent, you would have great, magnificent temples and many rituals and orders dedicated to the Shining Queen in one kingdom, to the Silver Lord in another, to the Dreaming Dancer in another, and so on. In some cases, temple of certain deities are difficult to find in a certain area, because that god or goddess is at the center of the cults of a kingdom/region/culture that is in conflict with the state that governs the area, and so the leaders try to discourage the worship of that deity for political reasons.

[@johannageisel5390]

Oh, that's cool! I have a sci-fi world where religion plays a big role in two places and I am still working on fleshing them out. Could use some ideas and advice, so I'm looking forward to your next videos about the topic. One species, the Tasht, are lizardpeople (separated into several subspecies adapted to certain environments) with a technological level of the late stone age and bronze age. One of their main urban centers has a huge temple dedicated to 'the gods' and 9 priestesses who interpret the word of 'the gods' and make all the political decisions during peace times. There is a holy artifact that is understood as being the source of the words of the gods. Later it turns out the artifact is an alien probe that scouts for planets suitable for colonization. I need to come up with a good idea about what effects the probe has on the priestesses that could be taken for 'words of the gods'. I assume they will need an entire body of administrators who will put the decisions of the priestesses into action. Other, adjacent cultures have different religious ideas. The nomads of the steppe believe that the spirits of their ancestors nourish the land and traumatic events can scare the spirits away and make the land more barren (less water, fewer edible plants, fewer beasts to hunt, generally less pleasant living conditions etc.) So there are specialized people who go out and seek the displaced spirits and try to capture them with certain rituals and bring them back. There are little temples in places that the nomads visit often and they have an underground burial chamber, where they bring their dead so that their spirits will remain in the land. On a completely different planet there are the Ooui, who are an amphibian species. In their oceans lives Aaia-U'uggoe, the "Teacher from the deep". That one is a higher dimensional being who has a supreme understanding of the laws of nature, has all kinds of weird sensory that we don't have, can change his shape, can create wormholes with his mind, and also crawl into people's brains to communicate with them. He would usually live in space, but he has taken a liking to the minor species arising in the Milky Way and wants to care for them like somebody cares for pets. Over the centuries he gives the Ooui ideas how to explore the dry land and how to generally advance their technology. They flourish under his tutelage and become one of the founding members of the Galactic Community later. So, there are specialized priests who communicate with Aaia and then tell his wishes to the rest of society. But I think that, particularly in the olden times, people would have had a much more personal relationship. If Aaia turned up somewhere near your village, you could dive down to him and ask for help if you had a problem. That's another thing that I need to work out. How busy should Aaia be? How do I prevent him from getting overwhelmed with requests from everybody while simultaneously not having him be bored to death? You see, there is still a lot of work to be done for all those religions.

[@worldbuildingsage]

A theology where the rulers are basically Oracles could be quite interesting. Especially if the interpreters have their own stakes, even though the Oracles themselves are quite aware of their understanding of the orb. Perhaps they know its nothing divine but they keep the act up? The spirit hunter idea is nice. Especially if the spirits themselves tend to dislike staying in one place or whatever. You should think of a way how the spirits stay at their temples before they try to flee and have to be brought back again. Some way of coercion. It's true that the more people there are, the teacher of the deep will become more and more of a mystery for most people, while he struggles to keep up the help more and more. This of course could arise some suspicion or heresy in the people as they start to think that he may not be even real (even though he is).

[@johannageisel5390]

@@worldbuildingsage Thanks for your responses! :) To the spirits: They tend to stay in their places unless bad things happen there. Like a natural catastrophy or war/murder. That scares them off. I guess there are probably a couple of instances where the people can only observe that something has changed for the worse and conclude that the spirits must have been chased away, but maybe will never know what exactly it was. The water spring has ceased? Well, the spirits must have left. What caused it? Dunno, maybe a lightning strike while we were away. Who is to know? But if you slay your uncle, we definitely know who is to blame for the lack of game animals! I also thought about the other civilization with the physical god and had had the idea that the priest caste arose as a reaction to population growth and the increase in requests. At some point, Aaia probably asked the people to please try and prioritize the requests in their region and then send only one person with one request. Later, the people were supposed to first try and solve the problem themselves before seeking him out. So some people were appointed the task of gathering all the stories that told about former advice he had given so that they could look into that and see whether a similar problem to theirs had already been tackled elsewhere. First, the priests were required to memorize all these stories and pass them on orally, but after writing became a thing, they wrote them down and collected them centrally. The more stories were collected, the more specialized the priests had to become for certain topics. And that's how they slowly turned into civil servants with certain domains. The good thing is that Aaia is still around and keeping an eye out that they don't abuse their power. The caveat is that some priests will never in their lives actually have contact with him, so he cannot read their minds and find out. So, unless you're one of the high priests who actually still talk to Aaia, you can get away with a certain amount of corruption. But it's limited, because potentially, everybody who is unhappy can demand some higher-ups to look into that. The heresy idea is interesting. I will keep it in mind. Not sure whether it has any place in the world in the end, though.

[@baileydeverell1175]

So refreshing to hear a Belgian's take on inspired fantasy religions.

[@baileydeverell1175]

Liechtensteinian*

[@baileydeverell1175]

Luxembourgian*

[@baileydeverell1175]

Kraut*

[@worldbuildingsage]

Fourth time's the charm I wish I were from Liechtenstein or Luxembourg though.

[@thesinfultictac5704]

The gods are real, some are more accessible than others, they have favorites- think Hellenic/Roman mythology. The interpretations and worship of the gods varies widely.

[@worldbuildingsage]

When there are lot of cultures, there are many interpretations of the divine.

[@vladprus4019]

My setting is has heavy focus on the gods and the human societies, so naturally religious organisations are often the most important thing for me to think about when creating a culture, country, village etc. Very often I make gods first, though, as their active involvment is the integral part of the setting. There are generally few trends I tend to have in my religious organisations: 1. They do not provide the philosophy that guides whole life or morality - the setting is politheistic at heart with numerous gods tied heavily to the specific locations, most of the time the worship is not related to some universal truths, but to seek help and guidance in the divine specializing with the specific things, there are gods that are protectors, they are those who can help with the wildlife etc. 2. Most of the governments are heavily related to the religious organisations, if not openly theocratic - due to active role of gods, the worship is thought of as crucial 3. They tend to serve specific god or a set of gods - the focus is needed, asin the setting the gods are receiving prayers only if they are directed to them specifically 4. They rarely fight against each other - consequence of 1 and 3, sometimes there is animosity, but that's often between very specific organisations for the very specific reasons 5. People can participate in rituals of multiple religious organisatoins - due to 1 and 3 it is not only permitted, but expected 6. Generally speaking, specific religious organisation can be persecuted, but only if they are deemed disruptive for the society either by actions of the organisation itself or the worshipped diety (think about stuff like the cult of the god that helps criminals with theft and murder 7. Most of the time they don't like the magical arts, just like the gods themselves -- is a consequence of the nature of the magical arts and is a more complicated topic Overall, I try to avoid "This is exactly like X religion", although naturally I have aesthethic inspirations (mainly ancient Hellenic and Shinto).

[@bencox3641]

I have an idea where this royal family made a deal with the old gods that as long as they keep worshiping them, then they will force the Fair Folk to send one elf maiden to marry into the royal family once every hundred years. The problem is that spending so much time in the mortal realm will cause the Fair Folk to lose their immortality, so from the point of view of the fairies they are sacrificing a virgin to the gods. While to the humans it's a divinely mandated arrange marriage that will give the royal family a bunch of magically powerful children that they can marry off to their allies in the future.

[@EmeraldLavigne]

I love your accent. Das ist ein sehr gut video. Danke!

[@worldbuildingsage]

Thanks!

[@johannageisel5390]

@@worldbuildingsage Are you Swabian by any means?

[@crayonchomper1180]

0:57 Jesus is right, I will do all those things

[@BritishRepublicsn]

I also think badly copied Catholicism is boring too. Hence why I've just got Catholicism

[@ezg5221]

Cardinal George Pell as all the bottom rung "priests" at 5:26 lol. He's definitely associated with a certain kind priestly behaviour; no allegations here, your Honour

[@Memento_mori2222]

im sticking to a more christian based religion in my storytelling, its what i believe and its the kind of stories i want to tell

[@worldbuildingsage]

That's fine. I didn't say you aren't allowed to do it. You can make a religion like Catholicism very interesting as long as you understand what made Catholicism into what it was.

[@firenze6478]

I never name mine as its literally Christianity though I call it the sacred scriptures.

[@RomanusVII]

Yoooo we got the same profile picture

[@worldbuildingsage]

Almost 😏

[@RomanusVII]

@@worldbuildingsage wizard gang

[@worldbuildingsage]

@@RomanusVII 20 Int gang

[@valasafantastic1055]

Having not watched the video yet; I have to say poorly copied Catholic fictional and fantasy religions can be ‘the whole point’. It’s less creative than more original ideas. But ‘the whole point’ is that a driving purpose or inspiration for the worldbuilding/writing IS TO DIRECTLY CRITICIZE the Roman Catholic Church and organization! It’s changed enough to make the author feel safer to rio the religion a new one! Authors often change things to feel safer expressing very real points criticizing facets of the real world. Why do you see so many barely changed Roman Catholic fantasy religions? Exactly because there is much to critique about that real organization now and historically. Behind the veil of ‘it’s not “really” Catholic…. I’m planning on doing this in my writing precisely for the reason I just explained. I’ll be critical of all of Earths real religions. Intentionally. That’s the point. But it feels unsafe, even dangerous and also rude to not really alter things enough on my alternate earth to have plausible deniability. It also lets me be more original and add in new things or mash two religions together. Authors have to do what feels safe and still stays true to the inspirations theme and motivation. Even barely changed we can add original elements. But too changed and I’m no longer able to make the critique I’m aiming for. His dark materials series IS a critique of such religions so it had to be similar enough to still express that theme and meaning. Also the benne Jesuit in Dune are a critique of the Roman Catholic Church as well this is the ‘point’ it’s extremely intentional. Just changed enough so the author is safe. And can say ‘wow I never said it was Catholic so you think they are similar Hugh what does that say about the real religion?’ Of course I may not even ever publish the books I’m referring too, but still. Dude that can be the whole and entire point!

[@randomfella8448]

There is no set way to practice and worship because the religion is so wide spread, but im my fictional religion there is two gods. The first one was The Creator, a chaotic and unpredictable deity who formed interact with the world for their amusement. Majority of people worship The Creator through ritualistic performances at attempts to gain their attention and perhaps convince them to send their aid. The Creator, sense they are seen as having the emotional maturity of a toddler and might betray your trust when they're bored of you, is often seen as someone who you should probably avoid if you could help it. The Second deity is Astrius. Astrius used to be mortal but through the power of wishes he turned himself into a god. Unfortunately for him his divinity is more of a punishment for his questionable methods of becoming a deity he is only a god as long as there is a society around. Because he doesn't want to die a painful death and face his punishment, he desperately tries to protect society within his powers. As a result he despises The Creator, because their shinagains for the LOLs make his job more difficult. Astrius's following is more structured and is more openly practiced than The Creator's. One of the key things in Astrius following is that a young, potential cleric will go to their local temple, and esstiently go to college with an apprenticeship under a more experienced cleric. After they complete their apprenticeship/education it is then the young cleric must vow to go out into the world and maintain/protect society. Some clerics complete their oath by forming a temple of their own with charitable programs for their local communities. Some complete their vow by making a career in their local governments. Others take up the adventuring life and wandering and must volunteer to help at every chance. Due to Astrius being seen as the more stable and sane deity he is more popular with people that directly benefit from society. The Creator however tends to be more popular with wizards because The Creator control all magic since they created magic. people who travel for a living, worship both Astrius and the creator frequently because the world is dangerous and the favor of two gods is better than no favor. Druids, rangers, and hermits tend to view Astrius as an unnecessary middle man to their survival and desires, so they oftentimes focus on their relationship with The Creator, the one who truly has the power and knows everything.

[@firenze6478]

I like how lotr and narnia did Christianity but feel unworthy to give God a name in my own book…lol

[@biokido575]

sorry, the medieval worldview is dependent on the catholic church. replacing it with polytheistic religions changes the nature of medieval fantasy. point of fact it's never made a fantasy setting more interesting to throw it out

[@worldbuildingsage]

Changes the nature of medieval fantasy? Most medieval fantasy has polytheistic religions, they just keep the catholic church as a structure on top but don't keep the interesting stuff like their saint worship, the local nuances of Catholicism, and the ritualism. If you do medieval fantasy, which you don't even need to, you can change the details of Feudalism as you like as long as its broad structure keeps the same. (Being a set of contracts and agreements between nobles that constitute the Kingdoms.)

[@biokido575]

@@worldbuildingsage yes, most fantasy it is just a catholic skin with polytheism. But without that medieval fantasy becomes watered diluted. taking another skin doesn’t work. The catholic church was so central to the lives of medieval people that it shaped the culture in innumerable ways. hospitals, education and it was central to their community. Replacing it with a skin of hinduism or whatever will give different results. no one is saying you must do medieval fantasy. But if you do it won’t have the same edge. Medieval life wasn’t 2023 seattle.

[@worldbuildingsage]

@@biokido575 Other religions can fill the exact role however, that's the point. Hinduism filled similar roles to Catholicism in India. That's why you have to change the thought of your world with your religion of course. Religion influences culture but it's not like you copy European culture 1:1 in a fantasy setting. Not even the most basic of Fantasy settings do this and change things, even if it's just mostly to the modern interpretation of the abomination that is medieval fantasy (being some sort of mix between Early middle ages and renaissance.) that's the entire point of worldbuilding. You build your own cultures and your own worlds creating your own set of rules how the societies would work. By the way, I never said that Catholicism as a religion is boring in fantasy. BADLY COPIED Catholicism is boring. And most people don't understand how Catholicism works which is why people copy it in a boring way, which in turn makes your point invalid since even when people copy Catholicism, they never put in the nuances of the middle ages anyway.

[@biokido575]

@@worldbuildingsage Only in the broadest sense did Hinduism fill a similar role. Here's how you can tell. Because Catholic Europe turned out the way it did and the Hindu world turned out the way it did. see? Then after the Reformation catholic Europe continued the way it did. Protestant Europe continued the way it did. And the Hindu world continued the way it did. To transplant, another religion in place of catholicism doesn't work. It changes the medieval fantasy setting dramatically. The problem is that the world-building has to be coherent or it becomes lame really fast. Let's work the othe way round. The medieval world was unquestionably shaped by catholic thought. So it makes no sense to import a modern democratically elected ruling council. This is an anachronistic idea. But all the trappings of medieval life were also influenced by the catholic church. So to throw out the skin of the catholic church is to gut medieval fantasy. I didn't say you said that.

[@worldbuildingsage]

@@biokido575 That's why you think about the way you can replace the mechanism and role Catholicism had in the society. On the influence it had on the medieval thought and all. That's the spirit of worldbuilding. It isn't an alternate history. it's an entirely different world with its own set of rules. The fantastical alone makes an exact copy of Catholicism obsolete. Medieval fantasy isn't medieval Europe. Feudalism doesn't need Catholicism to work either. I've put an example at the end of the video showing how a religion that isn't Catholicism would work in Fantasy. - My setting isn't medieval anymore, but it has been medieval at some point where they had this religion too.

[@fabiodx2]

love the idea essay but could not tolerate your mumble voice in this video, even a robot ai voice would be better than to listening someone that seems to be eating a whole cake while he talks. gg

[@worldbuildingsage]

lmao

[@steamvyrus6249]

Dude i think that's his accent there's nothing he can do about that