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RP and Theology - Eva - 03-20-2010
While little remains known about the lore of FFXIV and it is hard to forecast exactly what sort of deity/deities will be present, I figured I'd make a post - only partially out of boredom - to sort of test the waters of what sorts of religious and spiritual behavior we might expect to see in FF14.
I'm still unsure what to do with Kes. Being the somewhat rebellious daughter of my previous character (who was a religious type for a long time), I think she may want nothing to do with any sort of religion. I had some rather abstract ideas for expressing a sense of spirituality without being bound to any particular religion - a thing I had begun in FFXI but never really had the chance to fully convey. Perhaps this may be inherited in his daughter. I suppose we shall see. I'll need to give it more thought. It has proven much more challenging to create a character with backhistory already pretty firmly in place. In FFXI it was more like, "Okay, I'm here!" and the backhistory came afterwards. I'm finding I need to give a lot of thought to what it would be like for a young girl spending 18+ years growing up with a single father who is admitedly a bit of a prick - then spending the next 10-15 years either on her own or supporting him. After giving it a good deal of thought, I'm figuring that she will be around 30 - a bit older and more seasoned. Anyway that was a huge digression.....
In FFXI we had seen people invent entire religions (granted this usually ended poorly when nobody else acknowledged them as being real since they sort of opposed the game lore). We had the usual followers of Altana, followers of Promathia, people who didn't care either way and just used the cathedral to gain power, abuse power, or whatever. We had a pretty evil galka that used Altana's preachings as a way to defend his nefarious behavior. While not necessarily related to religion in FFXI/FFXIV, we did have a guy who concocted an entire nomadic culture of desert-wanderers that lived in Altepa and had a unique system of beliefs and traditions. At first I did not think such an invented culture would succeed, but it really caught on and he did a good job with it.
Maybe FFXIV will have a polytheistic "core religion", since they had mentioned the avatars being like gods. Or perhaps they'll take a cue from FFXI and will stick to one god/goddess (and possibly a Satan/Promathia/whatever type antagonistic deity). I guess for now we can only speculate, and make vague plans for what we want our characters to worship/believe/be.
How was religion handled in other LS's and on other servers in FFXI?
Anything unique or interesting you have in mind for your character?
Any other ideas, thoughts, insights, etc? Do share!
Re: RP and Theology - Guest - 03-20-2010
I already have most of my main character's spirituality worked out. Depending on what SE decides to do in regards to geography I might have to rework a few things, but what I have so far will more than likely remain fairly independent from whatever cosmology SE invents for XIV. I guess I'm making my own religion up, but I'm certainly not going to be making any claims as to its authenticity.
Re: RP and Theology - Kylin - 03-20-2010
As of right now, SE has confirmed twelve "main" gods. Whether this list includes the familiar avatars depicted in the pictures is still up for debate. My guess is that the "Twelve" will be separate beings that will be more on par with Vana'diel's Altana and Promathia though in the sense that they'd have no physical representation of themselves in the game. So far, they've named two of the Twelve: Llymlaen, Goddess of Navigation and Nymeia, Goddess of Fate. Personally, I'm eagerly waiting to hear more about the other 10, even if just their names. Until I hear more, I have no idea where my main character will go in terms of religion.
Re: RP and Theology - Smiling River - 03-20-2010
From the Library section-
Religion/philosophy: Doesn't worship deities directly, but believes that everyone is placed here for a reason. To praise the Gods is to make the best of what you've been given aka self-improvement. Morality is not absolute and Gods only punish those who did not make the best of their lives.
This will be it, unless there is a god which stands for self-improvement or something similar, in which case Mason might pray to him/her. Don't think Mason will be too religious even if there is a god to match his philosophy. The professor from one of my religion classes held this view- that god is in the universe, and one most polish their mind so that the universe is reflected on it... Needless to say I disagreed. Based on my character though I think this is close to what he would believe.
At some point my story will delve into the history of the second wave of migration of Hyurs to Eorozaa. The remaining people of the tribe who migrated (from wherever they did come from) would be mentioning "Almighty" a lot, indicating monotheism.
I really wanted religion to be something more tangible and "within the world" outside of people making religious characters and certain buildings being dedicated to it. I wanted to create a holy book, but the scope of the project was overwhelming for me alone. Perhaps now with us united, a few people would be interested in doing a lot of work- writing sacred passages, quotes and such. I've read the old testament, new testament, and the quran- studied them, wrote papers on em, etc. I am familiar with those texts, but not with any significant portions of scripture from Hinduism which FFXIV religion seems to be mimicking. I'm not implying we should copy/paste from our religions into FFXIV, but rather use their texts as a guide. Maybe this is a lot of work for almost no benefit, outside of being able to point out to specific teachings of prophets or w/e in certain situations. For me it will add a lot more depth to religion of FFXIV, which I think it's worth working for. Plus it'd be a cool project to accomplish together and publicize here. ^_^ Let me know what you guys think and if anyone's in support/interested in helping.
Re: RP and Theology - Eva - 03-20-2010
I'm not so sure about creating doctrine which may [now or later] go against FFXIV lore. It seems like it could be a lot of fun, but I could also see it being a double-edged sword that could hurt other peoples' storylines if mishandled. Just my own opinion though - take it for what it's worth (approxiamtely 2 gil).
I kind of like the concept of having 12 gods. I imagine we'll find people selecting one to align themselves with more often than not, or perhaps offering prayer to Llymlaen when preparing to undertake a lengthy voyage by sea, for example. I wonder how these deities will regard one another. Will they be on even ground and set apart from one another, or will there exist some sort of a hierarchy as with the gods of Greek/Roman/Norse mythology? It will be interesting to see how they implement a polytheistic religion (or perhaps religions).
Re: RP and Theology - Smiling River - 03-20-2010
I wouldn't even try without the lore.
Re: RP and Theology - Verence - 03-20-2010
In-game religion has always interested me. My primary FFXI char grew up as an acolyte within the San d'Orian Temple since his mother was very firmly religious and was, for most of his career, quite religious himself, albeit a bit forward-thinking about it. Seeing his views subtly change as his character progressed, especially in the light of the Chains of Promathia plotline, was one of the more fun aspects about him.
I wouldn't mind brewing up some extra lore for the world religion, but that's stuff that has to be done a bit carefully. I didn't really approach that full-blown until post-CoP when I could be confident I really knew what was going on with things. A friend and I managed a sort of latent plot arc that ran in the background of other happenings for a while with the rediscovery of an old denomination of the Church of San d'Oria whose teachings had been largely lost when La Vaule fell to the Orcs. A bit of theological debate sprang up between the Church of Tavnazia and the two denominations of the Church of San d'Oria, which we labeled the Order of Dawn and the Children of Blessed Light. Some of our more philosophical chars indulged in it briefly and it added a fun extra depth to our in-house setting.
All this ramble to say that I'm ready and willing provided we don't go ripping off sheafs of 'sacred text' that we might have to retcon later. Religion and philosophy of altverses are always fun to ponder.
Re: RP and Theology - Nanapariri - 03-20-2010
A few thoughts before work takes me over for the day.
Definitely wait for the Lore to comes out. My approach is to also talk to all the NPC to get a feel for things. Example:
For instance I have a character that is an Elshimo Mithra from Khazam and I noticed that the priest there called them heathens and was there to convert which severl resident mithra didn't like. Then I looked other things up and saw that the mithra there were basically a tribal culture that worshiped nature spirits, aka the avataars, and gave offerings to Ifrit. All other indications reminded me of Native American tribes, ie respecting the life of the animals you hunt and so forth, so I built basic religious principles around that to construct her world view. It made for some interesting conflict with devoutly religious Altana worshipers, though since Ash is at heart a diplomot nothing escalated lol.
Anyway if I were you I wouldn't go deep into it until you played the game and talked to a bunch of NPC and had official lore.
On 100% made-up stuff I think its tricky because you have to make sure it doesn't conflict with official stuff.
Re: RP and Theology - Eva - 03-20-2010
Tsumi Wrote:On 100% made-up stuff I think its tricky because you have to make sure it doesn't conflict with official stuff.Not only that, there's no saying what sort of lore will be released down the line in patches or expansions, or may yet be seen in current game content that has not yet been thoroughly explored. I cite the relationship between Altana and Promathia as precedent. Prior to CoP this was vastly unknown and could defy the claims some RP religious doctrine could have put into place beforehand. Of course the counterargument might be that "the cathedral was wrong" but that's another slippery slope, since it casts a certain light on a particular group based on the inaccuracy of some RP elements that were created specifically for that group by RPers.
Just sayin'...
Re: RP and Theology - Smiling River - 03-20-2010
I agree that this project should be taken on well after the game comes out.
If things get changed later on, and the text that we make contradicts it to a degree where it's a conflict between the lore and the text, we can always agree that it was a mistranslation of the text, and perhaps translate it better. For example there is no one bible, there are several "versions" of it, so we can pretty much do the same, just update it if it conflicts with any future lore that might be in expansions. There are creative ways to solve this issue.
The way it would be written is chapter by chapter, story by story where after a completed story or a set of moral teachings or w/e else the "sacred text committee" decide to write in there, it would be put up for a vote if it's agreeable or not. As in, do you see such a story being in a sacred text of this religion? If yes, it gets approved and it's in, if no maybe something could be changed.
Re: RP and Theology - Guest - 03-20-2010
We're dealing with a world in which there will probably be an objectively true account of creation. Depending on how it's written though, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with having a character who's religion goes contradicts that truth. After CoP, you could say quite a bit about the "correctness" of some of the San d'Orian church's teachings, as well as any who believed them. In the same fashion, any loon can claim that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the the world; that doesn't mean he's right. As far as I'm concerned, as long as you don't try to claim that SE itself is wrong, anything goes.
In other words, writing that your character is wandering the streets of a city, proselytizing for the Holy Order of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is fine. Claiming from an objective author's perspective that your character just opened a portal to Rl'yeh, unleashing Cthulhu himself upon Eorzea, who promptly to eat all the other gods and drive all the world mad, is not.
Re: RP and Theology - Smiling River - 03-20-2010
Quote:In other words, writing that your character is wandering the streets of a city, proselytizing for the Holy Order of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is fine. Claiming from an objective author's perspective that your character just opened a portal to Rl'yeh, unleashing Cthulhu himself upon Eorzea, who promptly to eat all the other gods and drive all the world mad, is not.I can tell you've heard Richard Dawkins speak on religion.
The only flaw with this is every major religion proclaims that it's the truth, so if we were to write holy scripture for the main religion in Eorzea, it must presume that it itself is the truth. Of course characters can then dismiss it, or poke holes in it, or worship it.
This wont be my or any other character spouting something. What I had in mind was us OOC'ly writing "the bible" for the religion of Eorzea which would be acknowledged by RP'ers as such. Hence the voting on every little bit the people who come together submit.
Re: RP and Theology - Guest - 03-20-2010
Mason Wrote:What I had in mind was us OOC'ly writing "the bible" for the religion of Eorzea which would be acknowledged by RP'ers as such. Hence the voting on every little bit the people who come together submit.
Ha, I hadn't even considered expanding on an already existing religion when I wrote that. Hurr wut iz reading skills ¯\(°_o)/¯
To be honest, I've almost never RP'd a character that belonged to a canon faith. Most religions invented for games only serve as plot devices and are never actually given any depth. Only the information relevant to quests or missions was ever revealed about any of the religions of Vana'diel were those relevant to a quest or mission. For example, what do we know about the religion of the Tonberries other than what is revealed in the RotZ storyline or related quests? Or that of the Moblins? What sort of god is Zahak, and what are the teachings of Walahra?
With any luck, SE will take a page from series like the Elder Scrolls and Warhammer 40k, and write a decent amount of backstory to go with the actual events of the game. In case they don't, having a sort of Biblical Commission to do so for them is a great idea. One question though: Would it only be open to everyone, or just people who's beliefs fit? If we're talking about expanding on the true history of the world, I would think opening it to everyone would be okay, since it applies to everyone regardless of faith. For individual faiths, those whose characters belong to them could form their own councils to create and decide on lore. It might even be interesting to create IC organizations for such, though it could become a problem if two guilds make separate councils for the same religion. Having one cross-guild organization here would solve that, but I don't think we could force that on the individual guilds.
The only issue I can see with the idea itself is that trying to decide the truth by majority vote might not go over very well with the minority. Perhaps considering the decisions of such a council as just suggestions would be best. After all, ultimately it's just fanon, and lord knows most fans can never agree on anything.
Re: RP and Theology - Smiling River - 03-20-2010
I'll put this idea in my pocket for now and maybe later on after the game comes out and we know more about stuff, we can talk about it again.
I do like that they went with a more polytheistic system than in FFXI. In FFXI I felt the Altana faith wasn't as flexible. You either worship her or not. Here I feel like more people in general will be religious even if it is paying homage to only 1 of 12 gods.
Re: RP and Theology - Verence - 03-20-2010
FFXI religion was deceptively varied, really. Granted nearly everyone worshiped Altana, but each nation had a rather unique take. The San d'Orian Cathedral was sort of Roman Catholic Church and the 'standard' but there were hints of interesting doctrinal differences between that and the Church of Tavnazia. Then we had Bastok, which was sort of post-religious. The only nod they had to religion was a small forgotten shrine with a cracked and peeling statue. Windurst had an odd take in that they seemed to believe that the Sibyl was an avatar of the Goddess and the medium through which the prayers of the people were conveyed to the stars in the heavens. In a sense, they almost worshiped the moon and stars more than the Goddess. Then we had the Mithra, who worshiped the spirit of the land... Whether they equated Altana with the land was entirely debatable. Then of course we had the divine serpents in the East and the Walahran philosophy but they never really got into that. There are the barest hints of other gods, most notably in the Memoria de la S'tona, but keep in mind that to the Eastern mindset, 'god' means something fairly different. All of the avatars, terrestrial and celestial, are "gods" in the Eastern sense.
I don't really think FFXI suffered from a lack of variety on the religion front, but we only really got any in-depth information on the San d'Orian and Tavnazian church beliefs due to the Chains of Promathia plot. I'm hoping there will be a lot more religious lore in this setting, and the idea of polytheism interests me greatly. I've only ever had the chance to RP a polytheistic character once, in a tabletop chronicle, and it was a fairly interesting experience. He was technically a warrior-priest of the greatest of the gods, but encouraged people to pay reverences to all of them. It sparked an interesting in-character discussion or two.